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Nigel Farage is wooing City figures by promising to appoint a string of business leaders to ministerial roles, including in the Treasury, if Reform UK wins the next general election.
The rightwing populist party’s leader has told executives, who have privately expressed concern about how Reform will fund some of its policies, that he will be enlisting “top business leaders” to some of the biggest jobs in his government.
One senior Reform figure confirmed that Farage would want fresh business expertise in the Treasury and would also consider cabinet-level roles for external figures: “There are many high-quality people who want to help with turning our country around.”
Ministers are usually drawn from the ranks of elected MPs, but prime ministers sometimes pull in outside experts for certain government roles by giving them peerages.
The plan echoes Gordon Brown’s “government of all the talents”, where the former Labour PM appointed several heavyweight City figures including former CBI boss Lord Digby Jones and boardroom grandee Lord Paul Myners to ministerial roles.
In the current government, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer appointed Lord James Timpson — former chief executive of his family’s eponymous cobblers — as prisons minister.
However, the practice has its critics, who complain that parachuting in unelected figures via the House of Lords is undemocratic. Farage also appears to be considering recruiting a greater number of business executives and deploying them in more senior jobs.
Reform UK declined to comment in detail on the talks but Farage told the Financial Times he was having “ongoing discussions with a frustrated business community”.
It comes amid a major tone shift in relations between British business and Reform UK. Top UK executives are now attending events in an effort to influence policies with a party that is seen as a real contender at the next general election, expected in 2029.
At one of a series of events arranged between Reform and leaders of the country’s biggest companies, Farage and his lieutenant Zia Yusuf had dinner with about 20 executives in a private room at Boisdale restaurant in Belgravia this month.
Over steaks, business leaders — including Paul Walker, chair of FTSE 100 company Relx; Alex Baldock, Curry’s chief executive; Adam Winslow, chief executive of Direct Line; James Gibson, chief executive of Big Yellow Group; and Euan Sutherland, chief executive of drinks brand AG Barr — discussed Reform’s vision for a smaller state and lower regulation.
“Zia was great — his City background added a lot of credibility,” said one of the attendees, referring to Yusuf’s past roles as an equities salesman at Goldman Sachs and co-founder of a concierge company called Velocity Black.
Interest from the UK’s corporate elite has increased since the May local elections, where Reform took control of 11 local councils, won the parliamentary seat of Runcorn and Helsby and secured two mayoralties. A YouGov poll this week found Reform would win 271 seats — the most of any party — if a general election were held now.
It comes amid growing dissatisfaction at Labour’s management of the economy after an increase in employer national insurance contributions last year and the prospect of further tax rises in the autumn, as well as continued low enthusiasm for the Conservatives.
Some of the City’s biggest financial PR firms are catering to the increasing boardroom curiosity. Brunswick hosted the dinner with Farage in June, while FGS Global hosted a breakfast with senior figures in the party this month. Teneo and MHP have also scheduled dinners with deputy leader Richard Tice and company clients, while Headland has hosted breakfasts, according to people briefed on the events.
“It had been coming for a while but the local elections are where they literally put themselves on the map,” said Sir Craig Oliver, a partner at FGS. “Business leaders are naturally curious — they want to understand their policies and how to prepare.”
Jon Aarons, who runs boutique PR firm Rud Pedersen, said the highest interest came from businesses “in particular parts of the country where Reform now holds power, including in transport”.
But he added that everyone wanted to meet Farage, rather than other party figures, adding that: “They know Nigel — and actually that’s all they know.”
Even as engagement increases, many executives are wary about being seen as supporters of the party, uncertain that its lead in opinion polls will endure and nervous about its hardline positions, including on immigration and the environment.
“There has been some reticence from execs who have met with Farage that he attracts quite unsavoury characters,” said one PR figure. “Others have pointed out that his policy costings don’t add up and are saying it sounds like it might be a repeat of [former prime minister] Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget.”
Reform is hoping that some businesses will be happy to be associated with the party via corporate sponsorships at Reform’s party conference in September, ranging from a £25,000 “catalyst package” that buys a logo on the main stage, to a £250,000 accelerator package, which includes four branded floor signs and two wall posters as well as branding on coffee carts. Painting a corporate logo on the “iconic Reform UK bus” costs £10,000.
Business lobby groups the CBI, British Chambers of Commerce and Forum for Small Business will be sending representatives to Reform’s party conference for the first time this September. A person close to the CBI said that “members are keen for us to dip our toe in the water”.
Shevaun Haviland, director-general at BCC, said: “We’re apolitical so we will be at Labour, Conservatives and Reform — not in the same magnitude but we will be there.”
One of the attendees at a breakfast at The Walbrook members club in the City this week contrasted Reform’s team with Labour’s top ministers.
“There is no one on that front bench with any real calibre of business experience,” they said. “Whereas [in Reform]you have Tice, who made millions in property, Farage, who knows the City, and Zia Yusuf . . . also a multimillionaire businessman.”
The attendee said the menu was “the full English breakfast, not Labour’s smoked salmon and scrambled egg, and certainly not avocado on toast”.
