Ask the average person what was the main story of Reform UK’s annual conference, and they will have a very simple answer: the donations scandal that led to the resignation of two key advisers and potentially triggered a police investigation.
And they would be right. But in the furore, perhaps the press lost sight of some other important developments. Beyond scandal and rhetoric, the party has been ruthlessly focussing on the machine politics necessary to win an election.
For the spies from other parties who were creeping around the conference in Birmingham, this was the kind of information they were after.
In a polling stalemate, with three parties at almost equal strength in the polls, Reform, Labour and the Conservatives are all seeking technical innovations that might break the deadlock.
A large part of Reform conference was dedicated to achieving this goal. The insurgent party has now developed what is believes is the most advanced “ground game” in British politics and that, despite a polling dip and high anti-Reform tactical voting, this can get it over the line in elections.
“You can win half the vote if one in six people vote for you, that’s the sad state of our politics,” announced the party’s campaign chief Jack Duffin at a presentation to activists on the final day of conference, citing the opportunity for Reform in low turnout areas where as few as a third of eligible voters go to a polling station.
Duffin, a former Ukip activist with long experience campaigning for Nigel Farage, has been spearheading an attempt to modernise and streamline Reform’s approach to electioneering. He has slayed a number of sacred cows already, telling the party’s councillors to scrap traditional meet-the-voter activities like surgeries and street stalls, describing this as “wasting your time”.
This stationery engagement has been discarded because it tends to yield little useful campaigning data on where voters live and how they vote, plus it usually only attracts the most politically engaged residents who already know how they are going to vote.
Instead Reform is presenting itself as the party that meets voters where they are, by encouraging all its councillors to do a minimum number of campaigning hours in order to reach a collective annual contact target. Internally, the party believes that if its nearly 2,500 councillors can each knock 250 doors every month, they will be able to reach seven million households in a year.
Tracking this data has been made possible by digital innovation. The ReformGo app, which was tested by party activists during this spring’s local elections, has proven to be a slick way to actively engage members in local politics that can rival the digital contact registers used by the two main parties.
What’s more, through the app Reform has successfully “gamified” its on-the-ground campaigning. Activists are now awarded points based on their activities – currently one point for a leaflet delivered, three for a phone call and five for a doorstep canvas – and ranked on national and constituency level leaderboards. The most enthusiastic are entitled to prizes, such as meeting with senior party figures for a drink in London.
“We are building the people’s army, but we have to keep them motivated and switched on even in peacetime,” a senior party official said. “Peacetime” is the party’s way of describing any period more than three months before an anticipated local or general election.
Reform still faces severe electoral challenges. Its poll ratings have fallen markedly since this same point last year, when it was consistently enjoying an almost ten-point lead. It also faces highly motivated anti-Reform tactical voting which becomes more pronounced with every by-election. But the party’s drive for hyper-efficient digital campaigning may prove extremely consequential in a fragmented electoral system with tight margins and low turnout, where every vote counts. Despite the scandals, Reform’s foot soldiers are pounding the pavements harder than ever.
[Further reading: The gospel according to Nigel Paul Farage]
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