Former Tory leadership contender Robert Jenrick is named shadow chancellor while Deputy Leader Richard Tice’s portfolio covers business, trade and energy.
LONDON — Nigel Farage announced the key members of Reform UK’s “shadow cabinet” in an effort to present his insurgent populist party as the real government-in-waiting.
Farage has long been his party’s most high-profile figure, but said on Tuesday morning he wants to underscore that the party is not merely a one-man band.
With only eight MPs, Reform UK is not the official opposition, a position held by the Conservatives, which gets to name a shadow cabinet.
But Robert Jenrick is being dubbed “shadow chancellor” by Reform. He defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK last month, and leapfrogs both the party’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice and its Head of Policy Zia Yusuf for the role.
Jenrick is expected to deliver a speech in the City of London on Wednesday to outline his economic agenda. At an event in London Tuesday, he decried what he called “decades of mismanagement” of the U.K. economy and pledged to “oppose the wrecking ball that is [U.K. Chancellor] Rachel Reeves.”
Tice, who also leads Reform’s government efficiency efforts in local authorities, bagged the consolation prize of running a new department of business, trade, and energy, as well as becoming deputy prime minister, should Reform emerge victorious at the next general election.
He said the department would have a “total focus on growth and prosperity” and would end the net zero energy agenda in favor of more use of offshore oil and gas. A sovereign wealth fund is also being promised to help re-industrialize the U.K.
Yusuf was appointed “shadow home secretary,” responsible for developing the party’s immigration and crime policies, while former Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman — another defector from the Tories — was appointed “shadow education and skills secretary.”
Despite having just eight MPs, four of whom defected from the Tories since the last election, Farage’s populist outfit consistently leads the opinion polls ahead of Labour and the Conservatives.
Rival parties were quick to take potshots at Farage over his use of former Conservatives for the key posts.
The governing Labour Party said of Jenrick and Braverman: “They failed Britain before – they’d do the same again under Reform.”
The Liberal Democrats chimed in with a statement saying: “Nigel Farage is welcome to give his colleagues new name badges but it won’t change the opinion of the country — that Conservatives, current or former, are totally unfit to govern.”
Bethany Dawson contributed to this report.