Who Next for Reform?

Political Betting is a weekly column by Mark Littlewood aimed at people who like gambling on politics.

What happens to Reform if, for one reason or another, Nigel Farage exits stage right. To be clear, I don’t think this is a likely eventuality. By far the more plausible scenario is that Farage leads Reform at the next election. The prospects of him winning that election outright may be a bit lower than they were a year ago, but they are reasonable. There are also a wide range of outcomes which, whilst short of forming a majority government, are surely attractive to him (part of a coalition government perhaps or even leader of the official opposition).

Having spent several decades wielding great influence from the sidelines, it would seem a little odd for Farage to fold his hand when there’s a very reasonable chance that just another year, two or three of campaigning could lead to something approaching cold, hard power.

And yet, and yet, some are now speculating that he might opt for a different life: that he sees his role as moving mountains rather than climbing to the summit of them. He is clearly not enjoying the continued scrutiny surrounding his personal finances. (From what I’ve seen, he’s done nothing wrong, but that’s not really the point – the issue is whether he is simply finding the whole thing too tiresome.) He’s now a well-off man. But he could earn a lot more money for a lot less stress and probably have a lot more fun doing something else. The thought must at least have crossed his mind on occasion.

There’s also the chance that he is knocked off the field of play by ‘process’. He is almost certain to win back his seat of Clacton on August 13th. But might he face a second by-election as early as this autumn? That’s certainly what the vast majority of MPs and – one presumes – the bulk of those who sit on the Standards Committee will be hoping for. What collusion might then occur amongst the other parties to try and unseat him in a rerun? Who knows how the cards might fall if the voters of Clacton are sent to the polls twice in a matter of months?

All of this is to say that it’s not unreasonable to speculate on who might succeed Farage as Reform leader. It might well not happen for many years, but you can squint and see the circumstances in which it could happen rather earlier.

The bookies currently make Robert Jenrick and Zia Yusuf around about joint favourites at about 3/1 (with Jenrick possibly just a whisker ahead). Then comes Richard Tice generally available at 5/1 and a chasing pack of Suella Braverman, Danny Kruger, Laila Cunningham, Matt Goodwin and Lee Anderson all somewhere in the range of 7/1 to 25/1.

To describe the market as illiquid is an understatement. Someone called Sienna Churcher is available at some bookies at odds of between 10/1 and 16/1. I’m sure Sienna is a delightful and intelligent person but I confess I had not heard of her. A quick Google search establishes that she is a young Reform activist in local government.

If for japes and banter you want to go and put £100 or so on yourself to be the next leader of Reform, you’ll likely see your odds rapidly slashed to somewhere around Sienna Churcher’s sort of range.

In markets such as these, it’s extremely difficult to find value. However, for several reasons, I think the 5/1 on Tice is really rather tempting.

First, he is the most obvious unity candidate. In circumstances in which Nigel Farage decides to step back (or is forced to), the party is likely to experience a trauma that will demand a coming together. Most people think Zia Yusuf is the party’s most accomplished media performer after Farage, but his very direct and no-nonsense style might not be to everyone’s taste in the event that there is an unpredicted vacancy and bringing the party together is the prime objective. Having had the experience of manfully keeping the seat warm while Farage took his time over whether to re-enter frontline politics, Tice would be the obvious choice.

Second, those with fairly recent and senior Conservative antecedents are likely to find they struggle for support amongst party members who already fear being categorised as Tories 2.0. This isn’t an insuperable hurdle but I have no doubt it is a serious one. The double whammy might be that those people in Reform who are open to a possible working relationship of some sort with the Conservatives (should future circumstances demand such a thing) might also conclude that those who have recently switched sides are the least likely to be able to build such bridges. Both the purists and the peacemakers would likely lean against an immediate ex-Tory leading the party.

Third, Tice has shown a willingness to put in the hard yards in what may have appeared impossible circumstances at the time. I’m not suggesting any of the senior people in Reform are bandwagon jumpers, but we know for certain that Richard Tice has shown a willingness and ability to lead the party in tough times rather than merely joining it in good ones.

My expectation is that Farage will lead Reform into the next election (without any sort of break) but obviously at some point the party will have a new leader. The problem is that you might be holding onto your betting slip for a decade. You would also need to check the precise terms of the bet (most bets for party leaders are for the next ‘permanent’ leader and there might be all sort of subjective interpretations about where the line between permanent and temporary really sits).

I’m keeping an eye on the betting exchanges (unlike with regular bookmakers, you can cash out your bet at any time) which are currently listing Tice as about 10/3 rather than the 5/1 available on the high street. If the exchanges begin to show his odds beginning to align with the mainstream bookmakers’ average, I’d find this a very solid (and easily tradeable) bet.

Mark Littlewood is a former director of the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Director of PopCon.