Reform government would have to do unpopular things, says policy guru

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 general 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.