Why are Reform so keen on ending working from home?

Nigel Farage has once again called on Britain to end the culture of working from home, telling 2,000 supporters at a rally in Birmingham that claims that staff are more productive at home are a “load of nonsense”.

Britain needed an “attitudinal change to the idea of working from home,” he told a crowd of supporters who had managed to procure time off work during the day. “People aren’t more productive working at home – it’s a load of nonsense. They’re more productive being with other fellow human beings and working as part of a team.”

Ending WFH has long been a Farage hobby-horse, albeit something Reform has not always practised while preaching. Rats in a Sack has reported numerous times on jobs the party has advertised offering home working, including a role last year as regional director for the South Central region with a salary of £50,000 and the perk of “home working with occasional travel within the region”.

A similar advertisement for a regional director for Yorkshire and the Humber, salary £35-50,000, last summer offered “home working with occasional travel within the region”.

Why might Reform be so concerned about getting people back to the office? By a remarkable coincidence, deputy leader Richard Tice’s entry in the House of Commons’ Register of Members’ Interests shows he is a non-executive director of property investment firm Quidnet REIT Ltd and a major shareholder in another property investment firm, Tisun Investments Ltd. Quident buys, refurbishes and leases out properties to businesses, including offices.

Suggested Reading

From Durham to Leicestershire, more local triumphs for Reform

Rats in a Sack

Meanwhile, while Reform are keen to talk WFH, they’re less keen to chat KGB. Remarkably, not a single member of Farage’s party turned up to a Commons debate on Russian influence on UK politics and democracy on Monday, despite it being largely sparked by their own former leader in Wales’s jailing for taking bribes to give pro-Russian speeches.

Despite the debate taking two hours and 16 minutes, none of Reform’s eight MPs made it into Westminster Hall to hear Labour MP Ben Goldsborough talk about how “spouting pro-Russian talking points is not new for Reform politicians”.

“Nathan Gill’s boss, the honourable member for Clacton, blamed the EU and NATO for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, said that the west had ‘provoked’ the invasion and described Putin as the world leader he most admired,” said Goldsborough.

“It seems that Reform politicians are comfortable doing the Kremlin’s dirty work for it, regardless of whether they get paid for the privilege. Maybe Russia should have asked Mr Gill to betray his country for free. It may as well have saved £40,000.”

Many other members spoke out about Reform, too, all under parliamentary privilege: if Farage’s MPs want to moan about what was said, they should have been there to respond.