Brian Wheeler
Political reporter
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An incoming Reform UK government would have to force “nasty cough medicine down the country’s throat”, says the man hoping to shape the party’s policies.
James Orr, who is behind a new pro-Reform think tank, told the BBC Nigel Farage’s party “has not got a magic wand” and would have to do some “very unpopular” things in its first 100 days to fix the economy.
He said it should learn from US President Donald Trump, who came into government with a plan and acted “very fast”, knowing that some of his policies were “not going to be popular”.
“I think in Trump’s case it’s beginning to bear fruit,” he told the BBC’s Amol Rajan, in a wide-ranging interview for the Today programme’s Radical podcast.
If Reform succeeds in its aim of winning power at the next election, due in four years’ time, it would be the biggest upset in British political history.
Despite leading in the opinion polls, the party currently has just four MPs and no track record in national government.
In common with other opposition parties at this stage in the electoral cycle, it does not have a fully worked out policy programme.
But unlike the Conservatives and Labour, it does not have a long-established network of think tanks and policy experts it can draw on for ideas.
A new pro-Reform UK think tank, the Centre for a Better Britain (CBB), was launched earlier this year by Reform’s former chief operating officer Jonathan Brown and two of the party’s biggest donors.
James Orr, an associate professor of philosophy of religion at Cambridge University, and a friend of US Vice President JD Vance, was appointed chairman of its advisory board.
The CBB is not part of Reform, despite being based in the same central London office building.
‘Surprisingly welfarist’
But Mr Orr told the BBC: “If the polls continue to be what they are and Reform ends up governing the country, we should all want them to succeed.
“And that means making sure that they’ve got policy behind them that is properly costed, properly worked out, coordinated across a broad platform.”
Mr Orr is a leading figure in the “national conservativism” movement, and says his new think tank will be driven by a “post-Brexit, pro-nation, pro-sovereignty, pro-Britain impulse and framework”.
He is less clear in his BBC interview about what Reform UK’s ideology might be, arguing that Nigel Farage is “surprisingly welfarist” on some issues, such as his support for scrapping the two child benefit cap.
But he added that Reform are still “big believers that big state, aggressive intervention, heavily regulated markets” are not good things.
Farage’s opponents accuse him of political opportunism, announcing policy positions that are likely to be popular – such as major tax cuts and high profile giveaways like reversing cuts to winter fuel payments – without spelling out in detail how they would be paid for.
Mr Orr told the BBC podcast that Farage will have to be “honest” with voters in the run-up to the 2029 general election about the “difficult decisions” that will have to be taken “on day one” to get the economy growing.
“You’ve got a massive majority [of voters] in favour of cutting taxes, a massive majority in favour of increased public spending, and Reform has not got a magic wand,” he added.
If Reform do manage to form the next government in 2029, he argued, they will have more freedom to act than the traditional parties, which are made up of different factions and traditions.
“One of the advantages of having a completely fresh, new parliamentary party is that the leadership will have a great deal more power than Keir Starmer has, even with a majority of 160, and that Kemi Badenoch has over a party of 123.
“There will be a honeymoon period, I think, of a year, or two years.
“Those first hundred days are going to be absolutely vital to force the nasty cough medicine down the country’s throat.”