1. Readiness is all
So let me set out what we will do if we win a majority. I want to discuss four things.
The first thing is this: we will be ready, and the system will be ready.
An important part of our preparation for government is to do it in the open. To ensure that the civil service, the House of Lords and the wider apparatus of the establishment all accept the mandate we hope to win, we need no-one to be able to claim we misled the country about our intentions.
Nigel, Zia and I and our other spokespeople will be making a series of announcements in the months and years ahead, setting out our plans for different policy areas and the different parts of government.
When Nigel Farage walks into No 10 as Prime Minister on the day after the next election, I don’t want the Cabinet Secretary to welcome him in like the latest short-term tenant of the building, sit him down for a briefing on the house rules, and then politely ask if he’d like to change anything about the decor.
I want Nigel Farage – and his Cabinet – to sit the civil servants down and tell them the plan. And the plan is going to be a lot bigger and more structural than a few pieces of decorative legislation.
The paradox is that we want to undo the legacy of the last 30 years – but actually we have something to learn from Blair and from Cameron. In 1997 and in 2010 they each had a plan of sorts. Blair was ready with devolution. Cameron was ready with school choice. Clearly, Starmer wasn’t ready with anything – except Sue Gray, and she wasn’t ready at all. But Blair and Cameron had an idea of what they wanted to do and they had legislation drafted for the purpose.
That is what Reform is doing now. We are working with policy specialists, with lawyers, with Parliamentary draftsmen, and with a whole range of serving and former officials who are helping us plot a path through the thicket of Whitehall and Parliamentary process to the destination, which is a fulfilment of the manifesto we hope to be elected on.
We will have legislation drafted. A new Ministerial Code and Civil Service Code. Orders in Council prepared. People lined up for key appointments. And it will all start on Day 1.
