After their local election success earlier this month, Reform UK have established themselves as a genuine power in British politics. This means that they are going to be scrutinised to the same level as Labour and the Tories are.
And, funnily enough, they don’t seem to have many answers once genuine policy questions are thrown their way.
This is exactly what happened on Newsnight this week, when Reform’s newest MP Sarah Pochin was challenged by Victoria Derbyshire on how exactly her party would stop small boat crossings across the Channel.
Reform leader Nigel Farage has promised his party would stop the crossings if they got into power. When asked how Reform would do this, Pochin simply said illegal immigrants would be detained and deported.
Derbyshire then pressed Pochin on how her party would stop the small boat crossings in the first place though, as they have promised.
Pochin suggested the UK border force could turn the boats around. When asked for detail on this, Pochin simply blamed the Tories and Labour for “not having the will to turn the boats around.”
Derbyshire interjected: “Basically what you’re saying is Reform wouldn’t be able to stop people getting into the boats?”
Pochin said they would order border force to stop the boats, before Derbyshire pointed out that there is “no bilateral agreement with France” to enforce this.
You can watch the exchange below.
It seems that Reform’s only concrete policies are about flags on buildings…
Related: Reform policies would ‘create a fiscal calamity to rival Liz Truss’ – The Economist