Nigel Farage to give up ownership of Reform UK

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Nigel Farage is to give up his ownership of Reform UK, with party officials saying the populist movement would become “a normal political party”.

Farage set up Reform UK in 2018 as a private limited company, an unusual arrangement that gave him unparalleled control over a British political party.

But Farage told the Financial Times that he had made it clear after the July 4 general election that he wanted to “democratise and professionalise” the party, as part of a plan to turn it into a serious electoral force.

The Reform UK leader said he was surrendering all his shares, since he no longer needed to be in control of the party. He stressed he would make no financial gain from the new arrangements.

Farage is currently a majority shareholder in the party with Richard Tice, former Reform UK leader and now MP for Boston and Skegness, holding a minority stake.

Reform UK members will vote on a proposed new constitution at the party conference, which starts in Birmingham on Friday, that will give them new rights to debate and agree policy and remove the party leader.

“Reform UK will be a normal political party like everyone else’s,” said a Reform UK official. “We are democratising the party and that would always be the case.”

Farage said the new constitution would contain safeguards so that an elected party board could prevent “entryism” from those who did not have the party’s interests at heart.

“If they see unusual interventions they can intervene,” he added. “We only want people who are genuine.” Farage said he did not want people such as the right-wing actor Lawrence Fox joining the party.

Farage previously called his party, which won five seats at the general election, “an entrepreneurial start-up”, while his ownership of Reform UK allowed him to crush the kind of infighting seen in his years running the UK Independence party.

Under the proposed new Reform UK constitution, members will be able to remove Farage or any other leader through a no-confidence vote. 

Zia Yusuf, chair of Reform UK, told the BBC that the party’s membership had increased by 15,000 since the general election to more than 80,000, adding he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the party soon had more members than the Conservatives.

His declaration comes ahead of the two-day conference, at which the party will be celebrating its success in winning five MPs in July’s general election, in part because of widespread disillusionment with the Conservatives.

The party will spend the event formulating a narrative about how to turn its five-seat victory into a much more ambitious electoral strategy that could make serious gains on the Labour party. 

The party came second in 98 seats in July, of which 89 were won by Labour.