Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was in Greater Manchester on Thursday ahead of next month’s local elections
A suburban golf club is, you might think, a fairly unusual place to hold a political rally.
Plonked at the end of a single-track road, which has wound its way through a new-building housing estate before coming to an end of the golf club car park, Westhoughton Golf Club feels a bit like the middle of nowhere – and it sort of is.
With just a lonely railway line for company, beyond the undulating golfing green, you could walk for miles before ever reaching the relative civilisation of New Springs and Aspull, north-east of Wigan.
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But it welcomed a high-profile visitor today (April 9) as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage paid a visit to speak to prospective Reform candidates ahead of next month’s local council elections. Apart from one other, the Manchester Evening News was the only news outlet there.
This secluded idyll is a far cry from a similar event held just two months ago, when the nation’s media descended on an industrial unit in Denton teeming with people at the launch of the party’s official campaign for the Gorton and Denton by-election.
It’s been a slightly uneven start to the year for Reform in the region. They lost that election, with candidate Matt Goodwin coming second to the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer, although increasing their share of the vote in the process.
Their candidate went on to win in the Tottington by-election, and now the party have councillors sitting on seven out of the ten Greater Manchester councils, a momentum they must now be hoping to build on.
The golf club building looked like any other in the country. Dusty trophies and 70s shots of golfers looked down from the stippled walls onto the shiny wood bar, around which several men were sat drinking pints.
Through the open doors into the function room, around 20 or 30 people could be seen at large round tables. Smartly dressed in suits and rosettes, they could have been at a company sales conference or their niece’s christening, chatting amongst themselves as they waited for their leader.
And soon he did, materialising as if from nowhere to exclaim at a bottle full of wine bottles he was due to sign for prizes in a raffle.
Fresh from other appearances in Sefton and Southport earlier in the day, Farage had arrived in a tank-like black Volvo, which remained parked right outside for the duration of his visit like a hovering crow, a tall man in a flat cap and tweed jacket standing just inside the door.
Another tall man in a suit and ear piece sat a foot away from Farage throughout his interview with the Manchester Evening News, looking down at his hands but listening to every word.
Farage was smartly dressed as usual in another tweed jacket, checked shirt and jolly red tie adorned with tiny Arabic numerals. “A gift from a friend in Dubai,” he said, oblivious to – or perhaps just unphased by – the slight tension in the air.
He was his usual bullish self throughout, touching on everything from Andy Burnham being blocked from standing in February’s by-election – ‘fascinating, the way that played out’ – to his view that the North West had become a ‘dumping ground’ for ‘young men crossing the Channel’.
‘Lord no’, Reform wouldn’t be changing their approach in the wake of February’s loss. “We did incredibly well, it was the best by-election campaign we’ve ever fought,” was the reply.
“The big lessons we’ve learned from it are ones that Manchester police have decided to ignore,” he claimed, in reference to the allegations of family voting, of which GMP said they found ‘no evidence’.
After just under ten minutes, it was time to wrap up. Farage was due to speak to the room full of what he called ‘political virgins’ next door, with many of Reform’s candidates this year never having campaigned or been members of a party.
“Get out and work,” Farage told us he’d be saying to them. “A lot of them are political virgins – they have never been members of a party, have never campaigned before, and some are a bit nervous about going out and knocking on doors.”
Could we sit in on his speech to candidates? “It’s no video,” was the reply. Could we at least listen? Again, a no – “he doesn’t really get to speak one-on-one to candidates much.”
The welcome, such that there had been one, was clearly at an end, and the party members trickling out of the clubhouse later on were equally tight-lipped. “I’m not going to talk about that,” said one, not unkindly, when asked about Farage’s address.
“Not a chance,” was the half-jovial, half-dismissive reply, as the men in flat caps walked to their cars. “You won’t print what we say anyway.”
Around half an hour after arriving, the fleet of Volvos was on the move again, Farage and his security just visible in the back through tinted glass. The clubhouse windows opened and raised voices and glasses clinking floated out onto the spring evening, and the car park was practically empty again.
Bullish, confident, garrulous – it was pretty much everything you’d expect of a Farage appearance. Standoffish at best towards the press: ditto.
But whether their message will travel from this quiet corner of a leafy suburb to the public, with which they are so keen to increase their foothold? That remains to be seen.
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