Reform UK Hitting the Ground Running with a Blueprint for Government

CHARLES BUNKER

Although Donald Trump often denied it, he comes into the White House in January with a playbook written for his government.

Project 2025, written by a collective of right-wing US think tanks, was a policy blueprint for a Republican government after the 2024 presidential election. Although many of its policies were ultra-right wing (and quite cuckoo), it was clear that some deep thinking had been done on tackling the serious issues facing the United States but, equally as importantly, the cultural changes the writers thought should be brought about.

The UK will hold its next General Election in 2029 (unless there is an earlier crisis). Reform UK needs to be fully ready for this. It should start working on its own Project 2029 playbook now so it can offer the voters not simply a Contract with the People as its manifesto, but a detailed blueprint for every policy issue. Importantly, it should be a prescription for running every government department so the civil service is fully aware of what will be required.

The challenges the country will face in 2029 will, unless there is an immediate change of tack by this Labour government, be of catastrophic proportions. Its tax-and-spend policies will not give rise to the economic growth they promised. No government in history has taxed its way to prosperity. Our industrial base (whatever is left of it) will be on its knees, destroyed by Ed Miliband’s net zero madness. No economy can compete internationally when it is subject to an intermittent electricity supply and the most expensive of any major industrial country.

The likelihood of the UK being in a debt crisis of the likes unseen since the Labour Party sought a bailout from the IMF in 1976 should not be underestimated.

With one in four Labour voters already declaring buyer’s remorse, and, as the effect of their policies hit home, this Labour Government will find it hard to be re-elected in 2029. Their economic attacks on pensioners, farmers and businesses will not be forgotten.

There will be no rush back to vote for the Conservative Party because, whatever lies the Labour Party tell about inheriting a £22bn economic black hole, the voters know they left a dreadful legacy. This means the 2029 general election goal will be wide open.

It might be that Reform UK comes into government via a Reform UK / Conservative Party coalition. Let us remember that in 2024, the Labour Party got just 9.7 million votes, whereas Reform UK and the Conservative Parties together got the support of 10.9 million voters, which is 1.2 million more votes than our incumbent government.

We should never forget that the Labour Party are in power only because, on a vote share of just 20% of registered voters, they won 64% of the seats in the House of Commons. They will go down in history as the “Interloper Government” with no democratic mandate.

Assuming Reform UK make no silly mistakes, then the most likely scenario is that in 2029 it will come into government as the largest party in a Reform UK / Conservative Party coalition. This means it is even more important for Reform UK to have its Project 2029- A Blueprint for Government fully written, for it will form the basis of any coalition agreement.

Nigel Farage is an outstanding issues campaigner. He is the best in his class. Take any issue, Brexit, mass immigration, or de-banking, and he has proven himself to be head and shoulders above anyone else, including Boris Johnson. Love him or loath him, he is a mass communicator with natural leadership qualities. I am in no doubt that the chances of him becoming Prime Minister in 2029 are high, but if he and Reform UK want to form the next government after that (in 2034) then they must, on taking power, hit the ground running.

To hit the ground running means Reform UK must enter the 2029 Election with a full suite of front-bench spokesmen. It cannot be the Farage, Tice, and Anderson pony show. Reform UK must demonstrate, well in advance, that it has a depth of political purpose and character not seen since Margaret Thatcher discarded ‘the wets’, as she called them, from her government.

The lack of gravitas and talent in this Labour Government is a national embarrassment. Every one of the five Reform UK MPs outclass every single member of Keir Starmer’s government. But these five are just the tip of the iceberg of talent sitting in Reform UK.

The advantage for Reform UK is that it is a populist party. People want to be involved, as demonstrated by its membership base, which has over 100,000 members and is growing fast.

In the run-up to the 2019 general election, the Brexit Party held rallies up and down the country. It was not just an opportunity to hear speakers and rally the troops but for people to contribute to policy ideas. It proved a minefield of information but was sadly not used. A paper trail of ideas lost in time.

During one of these rallies, I spoke to a prison officer who came with catalogue of problems in the prison service and practical solutions. I spoke to a customs officer with a wealth of information on how the border force should and could be better run. These people were real experts in their subject whose knowledge needed to be captured and used.

The Conservative Party has Policy Forums, which pretend to consult its members on policy issues. However, this exercise is as false as the Party itself for, as we now know, only two people, Fiona Hill and Nick Timothy, wrote Theresa May’s 2017 disastrous General Election manifesto.

The Reform UK’s 2019 Contract with the People was a fantastic document. Although I had no input, I was proud to fight the General Election on that manifesto, for it encapsulated common sense solutions to practical problems.

Richard Tice’s suggestions on housing and leasehold reform were sound and well thought through. His expertise was obvious. His proposal that the Bank of England stop paying interest on the money it created in Quantitative Easing was inspired, but Richard is just one person.

Reform UK is full of reformers with masses of knowledge and talent. They are out there. Their ideas need to be harnessed, collated and, more importantly, tested. They have the solutions to make our lives economically and culturally better, to reclaim that pride and confidence we used to find in our nation’s heartland. They are simply waiting to be asked.

Reform UK members can see the concentrated effort which is going into transforming Reform UK into a best-in-class campaigning organisation. From a paper and string, Mom-n-Pop shop general election campaign in 2024, Reform UK is now establishing branches nationwide and gearing up to fight some 2,500 local council seats in May 2025. No one should doubt the determination of Reform UK to be the best campaigning party when the next general election is called.

But campaigning is different from governing. The slogans, the messaging, voter targeting, and the get-out-the-vote campaigns are vital to electoral success, not least because five million despondent voters chose not to go to the polls in 2024. We must give them a positive reason to vote for Reform UK in 2029. They need to feel that they can trust us in this election and in every election after that. They will not do so if we make promises, as other parties have done, without a clear list of tasks and jobs which must be actioned if we are to deliver on those promises.

Some promises will be easy to deliver on. Others will be much harder not only because they are a mixture of the complex and nuanced but also because the civil service blob will not want to cede any power to the voter representatives, keeping it to themselves as they have done since 2010.

For example, leaving the ECHR, which Reform UK is committed to do, will mean reneging on aspects of the EU-UK Withdrawal Treaty and the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

One can hear the conversation now:

Permanent Secretary: ‘Yes Minister, it might be an election promise, but you cannot leave the ECHR because …’

Reform UK Minister: ‘We can, Permanent Secretary, because this is what we are going to do, and this is how we are going to do it.’

Having a detailed, practical plan ready for immediate government implementation will require commitment and a huge amount of hard work.

Campaigning to win a seat takes a vast amount of energy, and being an MP takes even more. Leading a party to a general election victory requires the strength of the marathon runner. These people simply don’t have the time to commit to preparing the master plan needed for government.

This is why a new task force needs to be created in Reform UK now charged with preparing Project 2029 –A blueprint for a Reform UK government.

Charles Bunker is a former Chairman of Hitchin and Harpenden Conservative Association and Thurrock Conservative Association. He was the Brexit Party candidate for Bedford in the December 2019 general election and Reform UK’s parliamentary candidate for Hitchin in the July 2024 general election. He is currently, pro-temp, the Chairman of the Hitchin Branch of Reform UK. He is the author of the four books in The Lands of de Gressier series.

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This article (Reform UK Hitting the Ground Running with a Blueprint for Government) was created and published by Free Speech Backlash and is republished here under “Fair Use” with attribution to the author Charles Bunker