It’s a windy March morning and I’m standing in the forecourt of a small service station that has been re-dressed in Reform teal.
Across the petrol station’s price board in giant lettering reads Reform Refuel: 25p off with Farage. A gaggle of journalists, TV cameras, and photographers have gathered, alongside some curious locals.
Alan Graves, Reform’s Derbyshire County Council leader, arrives to fill up in his turquoise Bentley. Reform’s most prominent Conservative defector, Robert Jenrick, is hanging around the forecourt waiting for Nigel Farage, who arrives soon after us, swarmed by cameras as he steps out of a Land Rover in flat cap, barbour jacket and cords.
Soon, Jenrick is up the ladder changing the petrol prices as Farage stands below. For one day only, Reform had struck a deal with the owner of this independent garage to take 25p off a litre of fuel.
The duo brought the national media to this small forecourt in the Peak District in Derbyshire to demand the government reverse planned fuel duty rises by cutting green spending: “We will spend the next few months trying to shame Rachel Reeves into cancelling [the 5p] rise in fuel duty in September. But if she doesn’t – whether because she’s running scared of the Greens or in hock to her far-left backbenchers – then Reform will reverse it in our first budget.”
Soon the stunt was plastered over social media and Farage’s typically bombastic news conference ran on live television.
Meanwhile, over on the X platform, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was busily taking a similar position on fuel duty, posting: “Labour know exactly what a fuel duty hike will do to hardworking families, but they’re doing it anyway. It’s wrong. That’s why last week the Conservatives put down a motion in parliament to…
