There must be moments, late at night, when some of the Conservative politicians who have marched through Nigel Farage’s revolving door quietly wonder whether they have made a terrible mistake. Perhaps they lie awake remembering the old Tory party, the one with its rituals, its grand old men, its conference rows, its Cabinet committees and, above all, the comforting certainty that everyone knew who was supposed to be in charge.
Instead, they joined Reform UK. And now they have Nigel Farage. This is not necessarily a criticism of Reform’s policies. One can agree with its arguments on immigration, taxation or the failures of Westminster without necessarily signing up for the increasingly personalised politics surrounding its leader. The curious thing about some of the Tory defectors is that they appear to have escaped one political personality cult only to discover another waiting at the railway station.
The Conservative Party they abandoned was indeed exhausted. It had spent years eating itself, changing prime ministers, fighting internal wars and treating political survival as a substitute for political purpose. The 2024 election was not merely a defeat but an exorcism. Reform offered an obvious escape hatch: sharper language, fewer inhibitions and the intoxicating promise that politics could once again be about enemies rather than committees.
For politicians such as Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman, Danny Kruger and others, joining Farage could therefore look less like betrayal than migration to the future. Reform seemed energetic while the Conservatives seemed embalmed.
But political movements have an awkward habit of revealing themselves once the honeymoon ends. Farage's political gift is enormous. He understands grievance, television, timing and the emotional vocabulary of people who believe that polite politics has failed them. But charisma has a darker twin: narcissism. A party built around one man inevitably risks becoming an audience for that man's performance.
And there are already signs that Reform is discovering the difference between a movement and a personality cult. Internal criticism of Farage has produced uncomfortable consequences, while quarrels involving senior figures have exposed tensions between the party's populist theatre and the rather more complicated business of building a functioning political organisation.
This should make former Conservatives nostalgic. Not necessarily for Boris Johnson. Certainly not for Liz Truss. And probably not for the endless parliamentary soap opera that preceded the Conservative collapse. But they may discover that boring politics has virtues.
A party with competing factions can be irritating. A party with no competing factions can be frightening. A Cabinet full of people arguing can look dysfunctional; a movement in which everyone eventually learns to applaud the leader can look efficient right up until it becomes dangerous.
The defectors may have believed they were joining the Conservative Party without the Conservative Party's baggage. They may instead have joined something more volatile: a political vehicle whose greatest strength and greatest weakness is the same man.
That is the irony. The old Tories were painfully dull, occasionally ridiculous and spectacularly capable of self-sabotage. Reform is exciting, angry and apparently convinced that history has finally arrived at its front door.
But perhaps, after watching Farage perform his Trumpian politics of grievance and personal dominance, some of the defectors are beginning to miss the old blue benches. There was something reassuring about a political party where the leader could be challenged. Even by his own people. Especially by his own people.
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