Ian Birrell , writing in the I paper, was there in Birmingham, and found a party trying to show it was ready for government.
"Yet despite meeting decent, ordinary people there, and some flatly absurd moments, for Ian there were alarming overtones too. The hardening tenor of Reform's pronouncements, he writes, should be a warning:
"Reform’s strategy is inspired by Trump and many members wallow in nostalgia for a past – and probably mythical – golden age. Yet while ostensibly rooted in conservatism and patriotism, this is in reality a potentially incendiary political force whose leaders are flirting with the far-right, stirring up a sense of national emergency and shifting alarmingly closer to the more extreme forms of populism and ethno-nationalism seen elsewhere in Europe."