Politics: not fit for government 

RICHARD NORTH

I’ve already indicated my desire to draw back from commenting on Reform as they are no longer a serious party, if they ever were. And if ever one needed any confirmation of this, one only need look at the exclusive report in today’s Sunday Times.

The latest (online) version of this has a headline reading: “Reform MP James McMurdock suspended after Sunday Times investigation”, with a sub-head which explains that: “He is alleged to have borrowed tens of thousands of pounds under the government’s Bounce Back loans scheme during the Covid pandemic in 2020”.

Despite my reluctance to dwell on Reform affairs, an exploration of this report is irresistible, especially as we first learned of it from the party’s chief (and only) whip, Lee Anderson, who yesterday posted out of the blue a statement informing us that McMurdock had removed the party whip from himself “pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations that are likely to be published by a national newspaper”.

It didn’t take very long for McMurdock to post his own statement which told us that, last Thursday evening he had received a phone call from a journalist who followed an extremely aggressive and clumsy line of questioning where he confused assets, profit, and turnover.

This unnamed journalist, McMurdock claimed, confirmed that the phone call was off the record, then the Reform MP “advised him to please be very careful with the details and consult a technically qualified person”.

On Friday lunch time, he then received an email from the same journalist asking him to provide detailed information relating to businesses that ceased trading some years ago. The deadline to provide that information was 6pm the same day.

McMurdock says he confirmed to the journalist that all his business dealings had always been conducted fully within the law and in compliance with all regulations and that appropriately qualified professionals had reviewed all activity confirming the same.

He then sought to present us with what he called some “FACTS” (his capitals), telling us that his business dealings had been reviewed by ICAEW qualified professionals, whence absolute compliance had been confirmed. He also claims that his MP’s register of interests entry was completed with the support of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), although we did not know at the time the relevance of that claim.

McMurdock concluded his statement by telling us that he had asked to have the whip suspended temporarily, as a precautionary measure, and for the protection of Reform UK.

It didn’t take very long then for the source of this angst to appear, in the form of the Sunday Times story, at which point we could acquaint ourselves with the details.

The gist of the story was actually quite straightforward. During the Covid pandemic in 2020, McMurdock had taken out loans for two of his businesses under the government’s “Bounce Back” loan scheme, to the tune of £70,000.

He did so through two companies he owned. One was JAM Financial Limited, which had no employees and negligible assets until the pandemic.

In 2020 it took out a loan of £50,000, the maximum sum available under the loans scheme available for medium-sized businesses during the pandemic. But, for a firm to have received such a loan, they would have needed to report turnover of at least £200,000, the maximum permitted amount being 25 percent of turnover. In 2021, McMurdock transferred his shares in the company to his mother and resigned as director.

His other company was Gym Live Health and Fitness Limited, which was dormant until January 31, 2020. Over the following year, it borrowed £20,000, which would have required turnover of £100,000 under the Bounce Back scheme.

Says the ST, neither company filed accounts or annual corporate filings after the loans, which it says is a violation of the Companies Act. The paper then goes on to say that, as a result of the failure to submit the information required, both companies were due to be struck off the register, meaning they would have ceased to exist and any remaining assets would have been seized by the Crown.

However, we are told, in February 2023, on the same day, the process of suspending both companies was halted after the company regulator had received an objection from a third party. It is understood, says the paper, that this related to the loans in some way. Both companies, remain active on Companies House.

Separately, it is asserted, Murdock appears to have breached parliamentary rules by failing to list his directorship of Gym Live Health and Fitness Limited on his register of interests. Parliamentary rules state MPs must register “significant, formal unpaid roles such as an unpaid directorship, a directorship of a company not currently trading, or a trusteeship”.

According to the ST, when approached for comment, McMurdock warned “be very, very careful” and said “a technical expert” would be needed for anybody to understand the matters. He repeatedly refused to say why he took out the loans.

Despite McMurdock’s assurances, on the face of it, the Sunday Times claims do check out. There is no evidence from accounts immediately prior to the loans being taken out that the turnovers of either company anywhere near approached the qualifying levels for the amounts sought. Nor do accounts submitted after the loan money had been received indicate any substantial hike in turnover.

Furthermore, a check of the MPs register of interests shows that McMurdock’s entry makes no reference to his directorship of Gym Live Health and Fitness Limited, although he is still listed as sole director in the Companies House webpage. This would seem to support the claim of a technical breach of parliamentary rules.

Without any further information (as yet) to clarify intentions, there certainly seem to be good grounds for the Sunday Times story, and McMurdock has done himself (and his party) no favours be refusing to explain why and under what circumstances he took out the “Bounce Back” loans. Even if he is totally above board, his reticence makes him look as if he has something to hide.

On the broader front, this is so like a Farage enterprise. As Pete reminds us, in the Ukip days when Farage was first able to assemble a sizeable number of MEPs, scarcely a week had passed before the infighting had broken out. At least two defected to the Tories, one set up his own party and other ended up in jail.

In other words, Farage has been able to get the numbers in the past, but he does have trouble keeping them, and the same curse seems to be following him into the Commons. With McMurdock now standing as an independent, the loss of Rupert Lowe and the addition of Sarah Pochin, MP numbers have been going down and up faster than a whore’s drawers.

Something similar seems to be happening on the local government front where – after its spectacular success two months ago, Reform is shedding councillors at an alarming rate, leading to some unexpected and not altogether happy results.

Not only that, by where Reform have found themselves defending seats, in both instances, they have lost the elections, in Newark West to the Conservatives by a hairsbreadth, and in Benfieldside (Durham) Council to the Lib-Dems, who won be a relatively healthy margin.

None of all this bodes well in the unlikely event that Reform should ever form a government, where Farage will have the job of holding together a fractious collection of over 300 untried and barely vetted MPs, while the media is poised to exploit every crack.

More likely, as we start getting close to a general election, the Reform fever dream will subside as voters confront the reality of having to elect a new government. Only then will they come to grips with the certainty that Reform, in any shape of form, is not fit for government.

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Reform is not ready to govern

TOM JONES

It’s a well-worn cliché – one I’ve indulged in heavily myself – that British politics follows the American version. The process is inexorable; speed is the only variable.

Last week, Elon Musk stepped down from a 130-day special appointment in the Trump administration, where he had been helping run the Department of Government Efficiency. His departure came shortly after expressing disappointment with the administration’s flagship “Big Beautiful Bill,” a multi-trillion dollar package combining tax cuts and defence spending hikes.

Inspired by the launch of DOGE, Reform took the opportunity to launch their own version after winning control of several councils and mayoralties at the local elections. In a video earlier this week, Party Chairman Zia Yusuf announced that Kent County Council would be the first to face audit by a newly formed team of himself, software engineers, data analysts, and forensic accountants tasked with inspecting local government operations.

But Yusuf did not last 130 days; he did not even last 130 hours. Earlier today it was announced that he had been ‘sidelined’ into the party’s DOGE programme full-time amidst a row with newly-elected MP Sarah Pochin, whom he branded ‘dumb’ for using her first appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions to demand a ban on burqas. Just a few hours later, he announced he had resigned as Reform UK Chairman, announcing on Twitter that he no longer considered working to get the party elected was no longer “a good use of my time”. It appears that Yusuf had been unhappy for some time at having his ‘wings clipped’, and that for Yusuf – a Muslim – the burqa ban row was the final straw.

The DOGE initiative, for all its promise, has already fallen victim to internal rows and fragile egos; a microcosm of Reform’s wider dilemma, which shows Reform still have a long way to go in their journey to becoming a serious vehicle for wielding power. In the wake of his political career, Farage has left a trail of promising political careers; in the last year alone Reform has disposed of Rupert Lowe, whose ousting Yusuf played a major part in, and Ben Habib. Although it seems that Yusuf’s departure has been received more in anger than in sorrow, it still shows that talent retention – even amongst a small group – is a serious problem for Reform.

One of the biggest problems the party faces is in developing a serious policy platform that allows it to channel populist energy into a practical political project. As adept as Reform has been at capitalising on populist anger, it has yet to develop the policy discipline or internal coherence required to convert that energy into an actionable programme for government; nature, abhorring a vacuum, has sought to fill it, creating a natural point of contention between party members.

A credible policy offering is the primary barrier Reform face in taking the step from populist ragers to a government-in-waiting, yet developing that may requires overcoming what seems to be Nigel Farage’s greatest weakness; the promotion of & delegation to talented people. Whilst Reform can claim over 300,000 members, it has few figureheads; of it’s 5 MPs, only two – Farage and Deputy Richard Tice – are known. The party’s lack of intellectual and organisational depth is compounded by this dependence on a narrow set of personalities.

Reform’s central weakness is not electoral strategy, but an inability to foster and empower capable allies. Instead of building a cadre, Farage seems increasingly content to surround himself with hangers-on and stunt candidates. The rumoured recruitment of c-list celebrities – such as Love Island contestant Ollie Williams, boxer Derek Chisora and ex-SAS tv presenter Ant Middleton – suggests Reform is veering toward spectacle rather than substance.

Reform may have cracked the code for capturing disillusioned voters, but until it figures out how to turn that into a functioning political machine, it will always be what it always has been: a protest movement with a party logo.

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This article (Reform is not ready to govern) was created and published by Tom Jones and is republished here under “Fair Use”
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