Reform party names Jenrick as finance chief

Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party named Robert Jenrick as its finance policy chief on Tuesday, as leader Nigel Farage made the first announcement of who would be in his ministerial team if his populist party wins the next national election.

Reform leads the governing Labour Party in opinion polls as Prime Minister Keir Starmer struggles to deliver growth and jobs while making a series of embarrassing U-turns on policy.

Farage named former Conservative Party leadership candidate Jenrick as “shadow chancellor”, meaning he is in line to serve as finance minister if Reform wins the next election, due in 2029.

Reform is expected to do well at local-level elections in May, but Farage has said he needs to build more experience of governing into his team before the national election.

DETAILS OF ECONOMIC PLAN

Jenrick defected to Reform last month, saying the Conservative government he used to serve in, and the current Labour administration, had both broken Britain.

Jenrick said that he and Farage would outline more details of their economic plans on Wednesday. “It will be a plan that restores stability to our economy, a plan that cuts waste, that brings down the benefits bill, that ensures that we can lower taxes and cut bills,” he said at a party event.

“We’re going to ensure that you can keep more of your money, that the state stops taking your money and wasting it.”

Investors are eager for details of Reform’s policies from veteran eurosceptic campaigner Farage, given the party’s leading position in the polls and its previous mixed messaging on spending.

FARAGE SEES NEED TO BROADEN PARTY

Farage has said waste should be cut from local and central government budgets and has watered down previous pledges of tax cuts, saying he had to be realistic about what could be achieved given Britain’s dire public finances.

Reform only has eight lawmakers in the 650-seat House of Commons, and Farage said he will bring in figures from outside of politics. He acknowledged criticism that the party had been seen as a “one-man band” saying: “The time has come to broaden the party.”

Farage said Reform policy chief Zia Yusuf, who is not currently a lawmaker, would be home affairs and immigration spokesperson, former Conservative minister Suella Braverman would be in charge of education and equalities policy, while former party leader Richard Tice would be Farage’s deputy and hold the business, trade and energy brief.