Why Nigel Farage won’t be ousted as Reform leader

When Elon Musk called for Nigel Farage to be replaced as leader of Reform UK he may not have realised just how hard that would be to achieve.

The party’s rules for ousting a leader are now under attack from critics, who claim they make it “close to impossible” for the former MEP to be removed from the post against his will.

Currently, Reform UK is a private company, with Mr Farage as the majority shareholder. However, that is soon set to change, with a new corporate footing on the way.

The shake-up includes a new constitution, which was approved last autumn. It features a no-confidence mechanism – in theory opening up Mr Farage to a challenge from inside his party.

However, questions have been raised over whether in practice this would ever be triggered.

The mechanism for ousting a leader was unveiled and passed at Reform’s party conference in September as part of its 17-page constitution, which will soon formally be put in place.

Under its terms, there are two ways of triggering a no-confidence motion.

The first requires at least 50 per cent of Reform MPs to request one in writing, which would then prompt senior figures to consider the motion.

In theory, this sounds like a plausible scenario, as the party currently has just five MPs. At first glance, this appears to suggest that if three of Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, Rupert Lowe or James McMurdock turned on Mr Farage, his leadership would be under serious threat.

However, there is a catch. The small print of the constitution makes clear this potential rebellion route would only be allowed if the party has more than 100 MPs.

There is no realistic prospect of that happening before the next general election, which must be held by 2029 at the latest. Even then, Reform may not be able to get that many MPs elected. So for now, this rule is irrelevant.

The second route is via party members, requiring at least 50 per cent of them to write to the party’s chairman to request a no-confidence motion, which would then be considered.

In some ways, this goes further than the Conservative Party, where members can pick the leader but cannot formally trigger their downfall.

However, in reality, the bar for Reform UK is set very high, as the party has just over 177,000 members, according to its latest figures.

That means at least 88,500 people would have to send in a written request for a no-confidence motion against their party leader.

Note, this is not 50 per cent of members voting for the leader’s removal, but 50 per cent of them taking individual action, something which is thought to be a much trickier threshold to reach.

This approach echoes the legal restrictions the Tories placed on trade unions representing members in critical public services, who cannot take strike action unless it is backed by at least 40 per cent of their members.

Even with the lower threshold, and in a scenario where leaders use their organisational power to turn out members, unions often fall short.

Furthermore, even if half of all Reform’s members are motivated enough to write to their chairman in the coming years, that would not be sufficient to remove its leader. And here is where the catch is.

Even if enough letters from members were received, they would simply trigger a special meeting of the party’s eight-person board, which would then decide whether the leader goes or stays.

However, under the new constitution, Mr Farage will hold one of the eight seats – and he can pick four of the others by choosing who sits as Reform’s treasurer, party secretary, party chairman and deputy leader.

In other words, Mr Farage would in effect determine who sits in five of the eight positions that then decide whether he would continue in the job.

This arrangement has been fiercely criticised by Ben Habib, who was Reform’s deputy leader last May when Rishi Sunak, the then prime minister, called a general election.

Mr Habib was blindsided by Mr Farage’s decision to take over the party’s leadership from Richard Tice, something which was possible given his majority ownership of the company.

Mr Habib said he was not consulted on the move and only found out when the media reported that Mr Farage was holding an emergency press conference to announce the news.

He has since fallen out with Mr Farage and become a vocal critic.

Mr Habib told The Telegraph: “Even under the new rules of the new constitution it is close to impossible to remove Nigel Farage.

“The bar has been set astronomically high. There is no attempt to create any genuine checks and balances within the party framework for the leadership.”

He questioned whether the new changes amounted to “democratisation” of the party, something he said he had long pushed for, and asked whether new members were getting much for their registration fees.

“They pay 25 quid and they get emails from party figures and invitations to parties,” Mr Habib added.

Catherine Blaiklock, the founder of the Brexit Party – the corporate entity that was later renamed Reform UK – has also become critical of Mr Farage’s handling of the party.

She created the company during internal battles within the UK Independence Party (Ukip), which Mr Farage used to lead, and later passed on her shares to him as he moved into the leadership role.

Ms Blaiklock told The Telegraph that Reform would “100 per cent” remain under Mr Farage’s control in the years ahead. She added: “It is his baby. The only way you will get rid of Farage is when he has a heart attack or retires.”

Party figures have in the past defended the new mechanism for removing a leader, noting that there is no trigger to do so, while also arguing that the changes will give members some ability to press their case.

A Reform UK spokesman said: “Reform’s members approved the new constitution unanimously at our conference last year, and the membership has doubled to 177,000 since.

“The bitter and bad faith critics seek only to tear Reform down, just as Ukip fell apart. Extremist infiltrators will never succeed in doing the same with Reform.

“Unlike the Tory party, we have no interest in changing leaders every year. We are united behind Nigel, which is a huge factor in Reform’s success.”

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