Since the Rupert Lowe blow-up, Reform UK is now looking far less sure of itself. That is certainly not helped by reports that Nigel Farage held talks with Liz Truss on how to take on “the Blob”, and how to engineer a major overhaul of the state.

It is questionable whether someone who failed so comprehensively in this endeavour is the right person to consult. Regardless, this meeting is an indicator of two emerging trends within Reform. First, the party is starting to think seriously about power. As one source told The Times: “It’s not just a case of thinking about policy, it’s about working through delivery in the face of institutional resistance”.

But the second is an ongoing weakness in the party’s institutional capacity — one that, if it stays unaddressed, might render effective governance impossible. Truss has been turned to because, beyond the party’s now-four MPs, Reform has a shallow bench and remains, under Farage, an unprofessional outfit. A new think tank, “Resolute 1850”, may help — though its purpose appears more financial than strategic. Then, of course, there is Nigel himself, who clearly does not like to be outshone by talented people, with Rupert Lowe’s dismissal being the latest example.

To some extent, no matter how useful the Truss meeting was, it will have come at a loss for Reform. Despite unveiling Blue Labour-style policies on steel renationalisation, the meeting risks reigniting accusations that the party has little more to offer than reheated Thatcherism. And worse still, some of her electoral anthrax will rub off on them. Since leaving office, the former PM has developed a largely unrepentant media presence — more aimed at selling herself as an anti-Deep State warrior in the US than rebuilding her reputation in Britain.

There is undoubtedly a problem with how Britain is governed, and there is a bureaucratic hostility to Right-wing policy. But “the Blob” is a much larger and more diverse ecosystem than just the Civil Service, and in Truss’s case, it serves as little more than a Right-wing coping mechanism, whose real function is to mask her own failures in governance.

If Farage wants to learn how to dismantle a hostile bureaucracy, he should be looking to America, rather than meeting a failed PM. The Project 2025 initiative offers a blueprint for rapidly reshaping the administrative state — something any populist insurgency must take seriously if it hopes to convert electoral success into lasting institutional change.

Farage, meanwhile, has yet to articulate a similarly robust plan. He is right to consider the problems a government will face in implementation, but if he’s serious, he needs a governing apparatus that can withstand the system it aims to change. Without a serious plan for power, Reform’s ambitions risk collapsing under their own weight.

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