Without Farage as its cult leader, Reform would be another fringe party scrambling to save its deposits

Martin Shipton

However much Reform UK tries to distance itself from him, the conviction and imprisonment of Nathan Gill will inevitably have an impact on the party’s ability to increase its level of support.

While those who are enraptured by what they see as Nigel Farage’s charisma are likely to remain loyal to his personality cult, more level-headed voters will pause to consider the implications of Gill’s criminality.

However much Reform’s hierarchy may seek to downplay his significance in their movement – which is, it can’t be denied, the latest iteration of a continuum running from the Europhobic Tendency of the Conservative Party in the time of John Major, through UKIP when it had success in European Parliament elections, the Brexit Party formed in the wake of Leave’s victory in the 2016 referendum to “Get Brexit Done” in the most extreme variant possible – Gill was as close to Farage as it was possible to be.

He was not just an uber-sycophant in ideological terms, happy to do Farage’s bidding without question, but also often physically adjacent to his master like the most obedient of puppies, as many photographs taken when they were MEPs together attest.

I first met Gill in 2011 when I participated in a BBC TV debate broadcast from Aberystwyth during the often overlooked referendum to grant what are now the Senedd primary lawmaking powers. My book on the first 10 years of the National Assembly had just been published and I’d been invited to go on the panel as someone in favour of letting the institution make its own laws.

Gill was on the other side, partnered – and he won’t thank me for mentioning this – by Cardiff Labour councillor Russell Goodway.

Gill’s contribution to the debate was unimpressive. He seemed more interested in re-running old arguments about whether the then National Assembly should exist at all rather than addressing the issue of now that it was in existence whether it should be able to make its own laws or not. His response to questions was robotic, as if he couldn’t or wouldn’t deviate from a script.

Three years later he was elected as a UKIP MEP for Wales – a position he could not have attained without the patronage of Farage. Farage has a notorious tendency to fall out with people he’s working with who don’t follow his line in all respects, but there was never a hint of that with Gill.

Expenses

He couldn’t be described as bright, although he was good at exploiting the European Parliament’s expenses system, driving all the way from Anglesey to Strasbourg when the Parliament was sitting there to take advantage of the exceptionally generous mileage allowance available to MEPs.

Farage appreciated his puppy-like devotion and was happy to keep him in close proximity as a kind of mascot. Later, for the same reasons, he appointed Gill Reform UK’s leader in Wales.

Guilt by association is not a way of judging people that I normally subscribe to, but in the case of Gill and Farage I can understand the attraction of the concept.

I am not of course suggesting that Farage is guilty of crimes akin to those of Gill. But given the nature of Gill’s relationship with Farage and dependence on him in his role as an MEP it seems inconceivable that Oleg Voloshyn, the pro-Russian Ukrainian politician who corrupted Gill made merely a random and isolated connection with him.

As long ago as 2014, the Guardian published an article that began: “Nigel Farage’s near monthly appearances on state-owned Russia Today have come under scrutiny after his expression of admiration for Vladimir Putin this week.

“In one of his 17 appearances on the channel seen by the Guardian and transmitted since December 2010, he claims Europe is governed not by elected democracies but instead ‘by the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945’.

“The UKIP leader has appeared so frequently that he is cited in literature for the TV station Russia Today as one of their special and ‘endlessly quotable’ British guests. ‘He has been known far longer to the RT audience than most of the British electorate,’ Russia Today claims.

“The UKIP leader did not issue a word of criticism of Russian democracy in any of the Russia Today interviews viewed by the Guardian.”

Russia Today

From Farage and Reform’s point of view, it is certainly an unfortunate perception that Farage’s past association with Russia Today (later RT) indicated a sympathy towards Russia that Gill took in a criminal direction.

In Wales, we take a special interest in Gill’s crimes because Reform will be a major player in the 2026 Senedd election. Had he not been found out, prosecuted and jailed, it is more than likely that he would have been heading back to the Senedd next May. Instead, other Reform candidates will be doing so, most likely in large numbers.

Who are these candidates? We don’t know. As yet, not a single Reform candidate has been selected – and nobody, including Reform UK members themselves, seems aware of the process.

An unknown number of potential candidates have attended assessment events in north Wales and south Wales, but that’s as far as it’s begun. There has recently been another call-out for would-be candidates to come forward.

A Reform UK source told me: “People are wondering what’s going on. It’s less than six months until the Senedd election and there’s no clarity about what the next stage in the selection process will be and how candidates will be selected.

“One thing seems certain – the candidates will not be selected in Wales. That will be organised at party headquarters in London. And with all the delays that have happened, it’s looking doubtful that any candidates will be announced before Christmas.

“Obviously a party like Reform will attract people with skeletons in the cupboard – past involvement with far-right groups and even criminal convictions. Everybody has to be vetted.

“But one thing has occurred to me, which is that they may be delaying candidate selections until late to give opponents of Reform and journalists less time to find dirt on those who do get chosen.”

It’s certainly odd that Reform is taking so long to announce its candidates. And it’s outrageous that future legislators in Senedd Cymru are being chosen in an undemocratic manner in the country next door.

Ultimately the fact is that without Farage as its cult leader and the huge amount of air time he gets because he’s regarded as an entertainer rather than a conventional politician, as was Boris Johnson before him, Reform would be another fringe party scrambling to save its deposits.