Reform Unofficial Cabinet Full of Ex-Conservatives.

Nigel Farage has announced his top team, or to put it another way, the unofficial opposition. Nigel Farage has said himself, with his party's poll ratings sky high, that his party, with 8 MPs (if I am not mistaken), might as well be the official opposition to Sir Keir's Labour government. Currently, the reality is, of course, that the Conservatives are the official opposition. However, with fewer than 121 MPs now, thanks to Tory defections to Reform UK, Kemi Badenoch's party, according to the polls, is in the doldrums.

With Farage's party riding high and the possibility that Reform UK might be the next government, the Reform representative for Clacton (Nigel Farage) has announced his cabinet or top team. You won't be surprised to know that a number of his top team ministers are ex-Conservatives.

Robert Jenrick, ex-Conservative MP, quit the party because he didn't like the way it was being steered by Kemi Badenoch. Mr. Jenrick competed with Badenoch to be Tory leader but lost out. She was gracious enough, however, to offer Mr. Jenrick a job in her shadow cabinet. Mr. Jenrick, a former Communities Secretary, left the party over differences with Ms. Badenoch. Now in Reform UK, he says he wants to be a voice for millions who are being failed by a Labour government. Jenrick has also been the Immigration Minister and Shadow Justice Secretary with the Conservatives.

Richard Tice is the Business, Trade, and Energy Policies Spokesperson. Tice wants to create a so-called super department for increasing growth in the UK economy, utilising fossil fuels. Not surprising given that Tice is a net-zero sceptic. Tice is a multi-millionaire businessman, and he was the leader of Reform UK before Nigel Farage.

Zia Yusuf is not a sitting MP, but he is responsible for Home Affairs and Justice. Like Tice, Yusuf is a multi-millionaire; he is the child of Sri-Lankan immigrants who came to Britain in the 1980s. Ironically, Mr. Yusuf has said that mass immigration has ruined and broken Britain. Like the Conservative Prime Minister before him, Rishi Sunak, Yusuf said Reform UK would "Stop the boats". Well, Mr. Yusuf, if your party gains power, we'll see how that works out!!!

Then we come to another ex-Conservative minister from Sunak and Boris's cabinet, Buddhist: Suella Braverman. She was formerly Home Secretary and is now given the position of being in charge of Reform's education policies. She wants to halve the number of young people going to university. She wants the other half to go into trades. In schools, she wants to ban "transgender and social transitioning indoctrination". She wants to close down the Equalities Dept and replace it with a meritocratic society instead.

Then there is Lee Anderson, a former Labour MP and then Tory MP before defecting to Reform UK. He is Chief Whip in Farage's unofficial cabinet.

Sarah Pochin, Reform's first female MP, is in the top team of Farage. Then there's Danny Kruger, another Tory MP who jumped aboard Farage's bandwagon. And finally, Andrew Rosindell, another Conservative defector who left them in January for Reform UK.

So there you are, many ex-Conservative MPs finding new life in Reform UK. So does that make Reform UK just a rehashed Conservative Party, but with more right-wing aims? Nigel Farage was an ex-Conservative Party supporter himself and an admirer of Margaret Thatcher. If you look at many Reform UK ideas, like dealing with those on welfare, it is almost a carbon copy of Conservative policy. Many of Reform's policies, like climate change scepticisim echo Trumpian policy on the subject. MAGA in the States is just a more extreme form of conservatism. Reform echoes the MAGA movement in the US, as Farage himself is a close friend of Trump and a supporter of many of his policies. So, is it safe to call Farage's policies MBGA or "Make Britain Great Again"? I think there is some truth in that.