Reform UK’s campaign trail made a stop in Sussex this week, with party leader Nigel Farage addressing a packed audience at a rally held under the banner Reform will fix it.
The Wednesday event marked the launch of Reform’s local election push, which began earlier this month on the Isle of Wight. The gathering took place in the Queen’s Jubilee Hall at the South of England Showground in Ardingly, promoted as a dynamic broadcast-style occasion. The venue, accommodating 1250 people, was virtually full, with entry priced at £5.
Among those addressing the crowd were George Finch, aged 19 and leader of Warwickshire County Council, David Bull who chairs Reform, Zia Yusuf the party’s home affairs spokesperson, and Farage himself.
Each speaker was introduced with energetic music, while pyrotechnics accompanied Farage’s entrance, which was met with a standing ovation and enthusiastic applause.
Bull, Yusuf and Farage covered topics including immigration, the postponement of local elections, agriculture and net zero.
Yusuf stated Reform would act extremely quickly to secure the country’s borders, deport all illegal migrants and ensure all those involved in the rape gangs face the heaviest possible price for their crimes. He spoke of the importance of national identity, describing a nation without culture as resembling a shopping mall with a flag waiting to be exploited. He further stated the party would protect and defend the Christian heritage of the country and end the practice of converting churches into mosques.
Farage opened by telling attendees Reform wanted to restore Britain to its former prominence. He attacked the Prime Minister, stating he had never encountered a weaker, more useless Prime Minister who was less patriotic than Keir Starmer. He claimed Reform was the only party standing up and saying they would stop poisoning the minds of children at school and the only one affirming that Britain is a country based on Judeo-Christian values. He pledged Reform would withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights to enable deportations.
Farage argued the country was losing its industrial base at a terrifying rate and committed that a Reform administration would make the country self-sufficient in energy, bring down prices and rebuild the manufacturing sector. He called for resistance to the culture of attacking success and indicated the need to cut the number of young people claiming disability benefits for mild anxiety.
He characterised Sussex as a much-neglected and oft-ignored county that has been taken for granted by the Conservative party for many decades. He said there should be a thriving inshore fishing industry in Sussex and declared that Reform stands behind these rural communities and would champion farmers and fishermen.
Farage concluded by bringing Sussex Reform candidates onto the stage, where it was announced that Conservative Wealden District councillors David Greaves and Neil Cleaver had crossed the floor to Reform.
In remarks to The Argus and other regional outlets ahead of the rally, Farage fielded questions about Sussex’s openness to Reform, his Lewes Bonfire effigy, and local concerns such as the Crowborough site, the Family Farm Tax and council matters including social care.
Farage expressed strong sympathy for Crowborough residents, stating that if he were a resident there, he would be very concerned because those placed there are free to walk the streets. He commented that whether migrants were housed in hotels, which infuriated communities, army bases which alarmed towns like Crowborough, or HMOs in residential streets nationwide, either way it is not acceptable and not fair.
When asked what a Reform-led East Sussex County Council, currently allocating nearly half its annual budget to adult social care, would do differently to address adult and social care challenges, he stated he would not pretend to have a simple solution for the massive burdens facing local government, but that savings could be made. He remarked that the amounts being paid to agencies in most councils around the country, including in Sussex, were staggering.
Farage highlighted Reform’s legal action against the government’s attempt to postpone May’s elections, which secured their new date of May 7.
On the family farm tax, Farage described himself as a country boy at heart and characterised the assault on rural England from this Labour government as absolutely monstrous. He said families who had managed land as custodians rather than owners for generations had protected the English countryside.
He opposed a potential ban on trail hunting, saying matters had gone way too far and questioned what was being done to these really decent hardworking people who do not earn very much money.
After last year’s May local elections, Reform secured 57 of 81 Kent County Council seats, though the party has suffered multiple departures and suspensions, losing ten councillors.
When questioned about whether this indicated difficulties, Farage acknowledged he had been campaigning intensely until polling day with limited resources and staff. He said he may have been obsessively focused on May 1 without much consideration for what came on May 2 and afterwards and, to be frank, he did not really expect that level of success. He was overwhelmed by the level of success, and they did not have the infrastructure to support it.
He added that when building something from nothing into a huge organisation in terms of votes, sometimes the structure does not keep up with the success, and they would be much better prepared this year.