Reform Day One: Quangos Defunded 'Within Days', £4m More From Pardoned Donor
Robert Jenrick told a fringe audience Reform would defund quangos like Natural England “within days” of power — “you can turn the tap off” — keep the triple lock, and seek “greater diversity of thought” on the Bank’s rate-setting committee. Labour called the £80bn–£100bn cuts plan “incredibly reckless”. Kemi Badenoch branded the party “authoritarian” for banning critical journalists from its conference — as crypto billionaire Ben Delo, convicted in the US and pardoned by Trump, gave Reform a further £4m.
Day one displayed both of Reform’s faces at once: Mr Jenrick courting gilt investors with letters and fiscal rules while promising to switch off arm’s-length government by decree, and a press operation excluding the reporter who broke the Farage donation story — prompting the Conservative leader, of all people, to reach for “authoritarian”. The Delo money sharpens the theme the party least wants sharpened: its second-biggest donor is a convicted-then-pardoned crypto billionaire whose £8m total will, by Reform’s own reading, escape the coming overseas-donation cap. Mr Jenrick invoking Truss as the cautionary tale — the sweetie-shop chancellor — shows the lesson has been absorbed rhetorically; whether £50bn from welfare while protecting pensioners survives an audit is another matter. Watch Friday’s leader’s speech; conferences this shadowed need their headline act to change the story.