The Reform party’s Jungle roots

If Reform do march into Downing Street at the next general election, might it be Ant and Dec wot won it?

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! increasingly appears to be a recruiting ground for Reform, not least with Nigel Farage using his 2023 appearance on the reality show to soften his image ahead of sacking Richard Tice as party leader and retaking the crown himself.

Now Farage has used his party conference to unveil Nadine Dorries as his latest defector. Dorries appeared in the jungle in 2012, causing her to be suspended from the Conservative parliamentary party for six months after failing to inform the whips she was going on the show.

Suggested Reading

Lembit Öpik, the former Liberal Democrat MP who has been on something of a political journey since losing his seat in 2010, took part in I’m a Celebrity that same year and is now flirting with the idea of standing for Farage’s mob. Last year he told GB News a return to politics was “tempting, especially with a go-getting organisation like Reform” and praised the party’s “integrity and purpose”.

And the OG of Jungle politicos was Robert Kilroy-Silk, who was a contestant in the show back in 2008. He is unlikely to stand for Reform not just because of his age – he is now 83 – but the fact he has had his fingers burnt working with Farage before. In 2004 he was recruited by Ukip amid much fanfare, only to quit in acrimony nine months later and form the short-lived rival party Veritas.

The only politicians to have done the jungle and not joined the Reform circus are Edwina Currie and Stanley Johnson, who may well sign up, Matt Hancock, whose role in Covid would probably preclude him from the increasingly vaccine-sceptic party, and Kezia Dugdale, who is unlikely to convert to Faragism. If Farage does enter Number 10 in four years’ time, perhaps he should be sending a bumper crate of champagne to ITV!