'Cringingly Embarrassing': Farage And Jenrick Mocked For Sea Of Empty Seats At Reform Event

Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick have been mocked after a “cringingly embarrassing” afternoon where they delivered speeches to a near-empty room. The Reform UK leader and his party’s Treasury spokesperson unveiled their “Economic Rescue Plan” on Monday. The proposal, released two days before Andy Burnham’s government reveals its first ever Budget , promised to cut down on Westminster’s spending “addiction” via “substantial tax relief” and debt reduction.

But the substance of their speech was undermined by the rows of empty seats around the main stage. A Conservative spokesperson said: “It must be cringingly embarrassing for Farage and Jenrick to be forced to address a half-empty room. “At her pre-Budget press conference, Kemi Badenoch addressed a room of over 300 passionate activists. “Reform have already stolen numerous policies that the Conservatives have previously announced for their ‘rescue plan’.

“Now it looks as if they need to steal some of our activists to fill a room.” GB News’ political editor, Christopher Hope, also pointed out that the hall was not full to Farage and asked: “Are people are falling out of love with your party after a very good two years?” The Clacton MP replied: “Markets are volatile! Markets go up and markets go down, we had a difficult summer, of that there is no doubt.” Farage triggered a by-election in July in his constituency after a parliamentary probe was launched into a £5 million donation he received before the 2024 general election.

All other mainstream parties pulled out of the “political stunt”, leaving Farage battling it out against comedy candidate Count Binface. The Reform leader was voted back in – and the parliamentary probe into his £5m gift from Thailand-based crypto-billionaire Christopher Harborne has resumed. However, the party has continued to decline in the polls following two dramatic undercover sting operations, from Channel 4 and ITV. The right-wing party has now fallen to third place behind Labour and the Tories, according to Ipsos UK.

However, Farage tried to dismiss concerns about his party’s popularity at the press conference, saying: “Are we optimistic? Yeah. A lot of our voters are just sitting back on their heels at the moment. Our job is to energise them and get them back.” Alluding to speculation that Burnham will call an early election, Farage said: “Maybe a general election where Europe and immigration were at the top of the agenda may be just the thing to do that.”

He added: “As for this hall, well, staff incompetence! It’s all well and good advertising to businesses, but on Mondays, people who run businesses tend to be rather busy.” The crowd applauded, and he said: “No doubt, many of those who are here, it’s going to have cost them a great deal of money to have joined us here in London.” Farage also claimed Reform gets crowds unlike any other political party at the conferences “in modern times”.

But the empty hall still attracted rather a lot of attention on X... Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.