Reform conference review: is this 'British MAGA'?
Coffee House Shots
The Spectator
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Reform UK’s annual conference wrapped up this weekend – and it was anything but dull. From Andrea Jenkyns belting out her original song ‘I’m an Insomniac’ on stage to Nigel Farage trying to keep a sometimes chaotic movement united, the mood was more rally than conference. Despite the optimism in the room, there were obvious cracks under the surface: mainly, do Reform have enough experience in their ranks for the business of serious government?
On Coffee House Shots, Oscar Edmondson is joined by Tim Shipman and James Heale fresh from the conference floor. They discuss Farage’s role as ringmaster of a broad – and sometimes unruly – coalition, Reform’s hopes of fielding thousands of councillors, and the dangers of drifting too close to the conspiratorial edges of politics.
Also on the podcast, there has been a steady drip of reshuffle news over the weekend. Starmer’s snap reshuffle saw Shabana Mahmood promoted to the Home Office in what many see as the most significant move of the week. With boats and hotels dominating the immigration debate, can she succeed where so many of her predecessors have failed? And what does Angela Rayner’s departure mean for the deputy leadership – and Labour’s uneasy relationship with the unions?
Produced by Oscar Edmondson.
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Transcript
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| 0:39.4 | Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, the Spectator's Daily Politics Podcast. |
| 0:44.3 | I'm Oscar Gersen, and I'm joined today by Tim Shipman and James Heel, who are fresh from |
| 0:48.5 | Reform Conference in Birmingham over the weekend. First off, how was it? |
| 0:53.9 | Well, I mean, I think there's a lot of people |
| 0:55.8 | have written think pieces about how this is the most interesting conference they've been to |
| 0:59.6 | for quite some time, and I think that's probably fair enough. I mean, the mood was very |
| 1:03.6 | optimistic. It was more of a rally than a conference. There were a lot of very optimistic people |
| 1:09.4 | and an interesting crowd. It was light on the sort of |
| 1:12.7 | corporates that you normally get when someone is on course to form a government, but I think |
| 1:18.4 | people are still getting used to the idea that they might, and I suspect we'll see more of that |
| 1:21.9 | next year if they remain on this kind of upward trajectory or 10 points ahead in the polls. |
| 1:27.0 | I think it was fascinating for the geeks. |
| 1:30.8 | You know, it tells us quite a lot about who they are and what they're about. |
| 1:34.5 | Farage obviously made a pretty rumbustious speech that had some red meat in it, |
| 1:39.4 | but was also a rallying cry, an attempt to kick the government while it was down. |
| 1:43.9 | But, you know, on the one hand, |
... |
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