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Nigel Farage has named Robert Jenrick as Reform UK’s “shadow chancellor”, as he unveiled several members of his top team in an effort to convince British voters his party is a credible vehicle for power.
Jenrick, who served as a minister under four Tory prime ministers between 2018 and 2023, joined Reform last month after being sacked as the Conservative shadow justice secretary, the highest-profile defection yet to Farage’s rightwing populist party.
Zia Yusuf, the party’s head of policy who previously said he would be keen on the economic spokesperson position, has instead been given the role of home affairs spokesperson, including Reform’s core policy areas of crime and immigration.
Richard Tice, the current deputy leader and one of the party’s biggest donors, has taken on a new shadow business role, covering business, energy and industry.
Former Tory home secretary Suella Braverman was named Reform’s spokesperson for education and skills, including responsibility for equalities. She defected to the party last month.
At a press conference on Tuesday, she announced she would repeal the Equality Act on day one of a Reform government, saying that she was going to build a country “defined by meritocracy not tokenism, personal responsibility not victimhood”.
“Do you know what a Reform government will do? Well, on day one, we will get rid of the equalities department, we will scrap the equalities minister,” she said.
Farage said, “this is just the beginning” as he introduced his top team.
“I’ve made it clear that we need experience. We’ve got an awful lot to learn . . . these people will help us learn that,” he said. “This is about creating a machine for government.”
Farage is keen to prove to the public, and potential donors, that his party is well equipped to govern and shift the long-standing narrative that Reform is a one-man band.
He insisted that “Reform has its own brand, it has its own identity”, and that if he was hit by a bus tomorrow the party would be able to thrive without him.
Asked whether there had been any dissent within the team about his choice of chancellor, Farage said, “if there is, tough”.
Jenrick said on Tuesday, “we all know that our economy isn’t working”, adding that the Labour government’s record so far “is tantamount to vandalism”.
“We are going to put together the most comprehensive plan of any party to fix Britain’s broken economy.”
Tice said that his new business, energy and industry “super-department” would have a “total focus on growth and prosperity” and would harness the country’s oil and gas reserves to ensure that Britain had access to cheap energy.
He also said he would unveil plans for a sovereign wealth fund that would back British companies and help build hundreds of thousands of homes.
With only eight MPs, Reform is not the official opposition to the Labour government. The Tories have 116 MPs, while the Liberal Democrats have 72. However, the party is riding high in public opinion polls, commanding about 28 per cent of public support, compared with Labour on 19 per cent and the Tories on 16 per cent.
Kevin Hollinrake MP, Conservative chair, said Reform’s announcement was “underwhelming” and Farage had “unveiled a front bench dominated by ex-Conservatives — a line-up that looks more like a tribute act to the old Conservative Party than a credible alternative”.