Business

Bristol is about to join the big league of British live entertainment, with the city’s forthcoming Aviva Arena setting its sights on staging the Brit Awards within its first years of operation.

The 20,000-capacity indoor venue, which is taking shape on the historic Filton Airfield in north Bristol, the very site where every British-built Concorde rolled off the production line, is on track to open in late 2028. Its backers believe it will plug a glaring gap in the country’s events infrastructure, given that the south-west remains the only English region without a major arena.

The project sits at the heart of a broader development called YTL Live, which will occupy the three vast Brabazon Hangars once used to assemble supersonic aircraft. The central and largest hangar will house the arena itself, flanked by conference and exhibition spaces designed to keep the complex busy well beyond gig nights. Organisers expect the venue to stage upwards of 120 major events each year, generating an estimated £1 billion for the wider Bristol economy over its first decade.

Andrew Billingham, chief executive of the Aviva Arena, said the ambition extends well beyond regional pride. The venue wants a place on the global touring circuit, and the Brit Awards sit firmly in its crosshairs following the ceremony’s well-received stint in Manchester earlier this year.

The arena’s specification suggests those ambitions are not merely fanciful. Plans include 20 state-of-the-art dressing rooms, extensive production facilities and what is billed as Europe’s largest services yard, with capacity for up to 60 touring lorries at once. A new railway station, Bristol Brabazon, is due to open this autumn, giving the site a direct public transport link that many rival venues lack.

Behind the project is YTL, a Malaysian infrastructure conglomerate and the largest Malaysian investor in the United Kingdom, whose British portfolio already includes Wessex Water. The group acquired the Filton site roughly a decade ago with a vision that went far beyond housebuilding, it set about creating an entire mixed-use community encompassing homes, workplaces and leisure. Construction of the arena is expected to support more than 2,000 jobs, with a further 500 permanent roles once the doors open.

For Bristol, a city whose creative economy already punches well above its weight, the arrival of a venue of this scale represents a significant commercial moment. If Billingham and his team can deliver on the Brit Awards pledge, it would mark the latest step in the ceremony’s journey away from its traditional London base, and confirm that the south-west finally has a stage to match its cultural ambition.

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Bristol’s new arena sets sights on hosting the Brit Awards

GB News has made a bold bid for access to the public purse, arguing that government broadcasting grants should be opened up to competitive tender rather than flowing automatically to the BBC.

The loss-making news channel, backed by hedge fund financier Sir Paul Marshall, set out its case in a submission to the government’s consultation on the BBC’s royal charter. At its heart is a call for “contestable funding”, a mechanism that would allow broadcasters beyond the traditional public service operators to bid for taxpayer-backed support.

The BBC’s World Service is the most obvious target. Once funded entirely by Whitehall, the service now draws primarily on the licence fee but still receives grants from the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office worth £137 million last year. GB News believes it should be eligible to compete for a share of that pot, assessed on criteria including quality, audience reach and value for money.

It is a striking proposition from an organisation that has accumulated losses exceeding £100 million since launching in 2021, and one that is unlikely to find a warm reception at Broadcasting House. GB News framed the argument in the language of market competition, contending that opening funding to tender would drive innovation and encourage what it called “diversity of thought and content”.

The channel pointed to precedent. Between 2019 and 2022, two pilot schemes, the Young Audiences Content Fund and the Audio Content Fund, distributed £48 million across a range of broadcasters and independent producers. GB News also drew attention to New Zealand’s NZ On Air model, which allocates public money to a variety of media outlets, suggesting a similar framework could bolster plurality in Britain’s broadcasting landscape.

The submission to the charter review is part of a broader lobbying campaign. In a separate filing with Ofcom, GB News made a parallel case for contestable funding. It is also pressing for prominence rights currently enjoyed only by the established public service broadcasters, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C, which guarantee their channels favourable positioning on television sets, albeit in return for strict obligations around regional production and news output.

Whether the government has any appetite for redirecting public funds towards a commercially owned, politically divisive broadcaster remains to be seen. But GB News’s intervention ensures the question of who qualifies as a public service provider, and who should pay for it, will sit squarely at the centre of the charter debate.

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GB News makes its pitch for a slice of public broadcasting funds

The scale of the tax burden heaped on British businesses since the pandemic has been laid bare by new HMRC data showing that national insurance receipts have surged nearly 40 per cent in just six years.

Figures from HM Revenue & Customs reveal that national insurance contributions reached £198 billion in the year to February 2026, a sharp rise from the £143 billion collected over the equivalent period in 2019-20. The increase amounts to an additional £55 billion a year flowing into Treasury coffers, much of it drawn directly from employer payrolls.

The trajectory has steepened markedly over the past twelve months. Receipts climbed 15 per cent in a single year following changes introduced in April 2025, when the earnings threshold at which NICs apply was cut to £5,000 and the main employer rate was raised to 15 per cent. Together, the measures, announced by Rachel Reeves in her first budget in October 2024, represented a £25 billion annual tax increase targeted squarely at employers.

From this month, businesses face further cost pressures. The national minimum wage has risen by 4.1 per cent, compounding a 6.7 per cent increase the previous year. Business rates have also gone up for clubs and restaurants, though pubs were partially shielded from the rise in one of several policy reversals by Sir Keir Starmer’s government.

Robert Salter, a director at accountancy firm Blick Rothenberg, said the chancellor’s insistence that employer NIC rises do not constitute a tax on working people is at odds with mainstream economic thinking. He argued that higher employer social security costs tend to suppress employment, a pattern he said is already visible in rising joblessness over the past year, while feeding through indirectly into higher inflation for consumers.

The broader fiscal picture offers little prospect of relief. According to the Office for Budget Responsibility, the United Kingdom’s overall tax burden is set to reach a postwar high of 38.5 per cent of GDP by 2030-31. Income tax receipts have risen even more steeply than NICs, jumping 69 per cent to £328 billion since the onset of the pandemic.

Frozen tax thresholds, a policy of fiscal drag first introduced by Rishi Sunak in 2021 and since extended by Reeves to the end of the decade, have drawn millions more earners into higher tax brackets. Taken over its full duration, the freeze is on course to rank among the largest effective tax increases on individuals in modern British history.

Meanwhile, the conflict in the Middle East has sent oil and gas prices climbing, adding to input costs for manufacturers. Industry surveys published last week showed cost inflation in the manufacturing sector accelerating at its fastest pace since 1992.

For businesses already contending with higher wages, steeper NICs and elevated energy costs, the cumulative burden raises serious questions about the government’s ability to stimulate the private-sector growth it says is central to its economic strategy.

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Businesses shoulder a £200 billion National Insurance Bill as payroll tax receipts surge 40% since pandemic

Fresh incentives designed to turbocharge Britain’s start-up and scale-up economy have officially taken effect, with the government forecasting that the measures will channel an additional £100 million into high-growth companies across the country.

The changes, first announced by chancellor Rachel Reeves in last autumn’s budget, target three pillars of early-stage business finance: employee share schemes, the enterprise investment scheme (EIS) and venture capital trusts (VCTs). Together, they represent the most significant expansion of tax-advantaged support for young companies in recent years.

At the heart of the package is a dramatic widening of the enterprise management incentive (EMI) scheme, the mechanism that allows employees to acquire company shares at a predetermined price, potentially well below market value if the business performs strongly. Gains realised on the sale of those shares are subject to capital gains tax rather than income tax, making the arrangement considerably more attractive for employees willing to back a growing firm.

Under the new rules, the gross assets ceiling for companies qualifying for EMI has quadrupled to £120 million, while the maximum number of employees a participating firm may have has doubled to 500. The cap on the total value of unexercised options held across a company at any one time has likewise doubled, rising to £6 million. The Treasury estimates that roughly 1,800 of Britain’s fastest-scaling businesses will now be eligible, opening up share-based rewards for an estimated 70,000 workers.

Dom Hallas, executive director at the Startup Coalition, welcomed the changes, describing them as a genuine boost for the ecosystem and noting that the expanded headroom would help ambitious firms compete more effectively for the talent that ultimately determines whether a business can scale successfully.

Eva Barboni, who leads the Enterprise Britain movement, echoed the sentiment, arguing that widening access to share ownership would strengthen the ability of British scale-ups to attract and hold on to the people they need to compete on the world stage.

Alongside the EMI expansion, the government has doubled the lifetime company investment limits for EIS and VCTs, two schemes that offer investors more favourable tax treatment when they back early-stage ventures. The ceiling now stands at £24 million, with annual company investment limits rising to £10 million. A higher gross assets threshold of £30 million before share issue and £35 million afterwards means a broader pool of companies can tap into the incentives.

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Budget tax breaks worth £100m come into force for founders and start-ups

One of the Labour Party’s most prominent financial backers has called on Ed Miliband to slam the brakes on North Sea oil and gas exports, warning that the escalating conflict with Iran could leave Britain dangerously short of fuel.

Dale Vince, the green energy entrepreneur behind Ecotricity, said the Energy Secretary must be prepared to act decisively, instructing operators in the basin to keep hydrocarbons at home should supplies tighten further. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, he argued it would be “bonkers” to continue shipping British barrels overseas while households and businesses brace for a squeeze.

“We can ban exports from the North Sea. China have done it,” Mr Vince said, pointing to Beijing’s willingness to prioritise domestic consumption during periods of strain. “If we are facing the prospect of a fuel shortage, then stop exporting it.”

Britain currently pumps around 53 million tonnes of crude annually, the bulk of which heads to refineries in the Netherlands, Poland and beyond. In a quirk of the global trading system, the country then imports roughly 51 million tonnes to feed its own forecourts and power stations, leaving it fully exposed to price spikes on world markets.

That exposure has become painfully evident since hostilities in the Gulf erupted last month. Roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies remain bottled up behind Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, sending Brent crude soaring to about $109 a barrel from $77 at the start of the month. Wholesale gas has jumped by around three-quarters, pushing up pump prices and prompting warnings from suppliers that household energy bills will climb sharply in the months ahead.

The crisis has reignited a fierce debate over Britain’s energy security, with industry voices pressing Mr Miliband to accelerate drilling and to rubber-stamp the contested Rosebank and Jackdaw fields. Reports on Friday suggested the Energy Secretary may approve Jackdaw while blocking Rosebank, a decision likely to inflame both sides of the argument.

Mr Vince remains opposed to any fresh expansion but believes the Government should extract maximum value from the ageing basin’s remaining reserves. He proposed offering existing operators contracts for difference, a mechanism more commonly associated with renewables, to prevent what he described as “a cliff-edge event where operators walk away because prices collapse”.

The intervention is certain to provoke fierce resistance from private producers, who rely on international buyers for the lion’s share of their revenue. Yet Mr Vince said the present moment exposes the folly of exposing Britain’s domestic output to volatile global benchmarks.

“We’ve opened ourselves up to global markets, but the concept of globalisation is costing us an arm and a leg when there’s an energy crisis,” he said. He contrasted the British approach with that of the United States, which restricts certain fuel exports and has long enjoyed the benefit of cheaper domestic gas. “We’re back to a situation where whatever we make in the North Sea costs us the global price.”

Mr Vince also used the moment to argue that the conflict should prompt a wider rethink of Britain’s dependence on Washington. The US has become the largest single supplier of crude to the UK, accounting for roughly 30 per cent of imports. “It alarms me to be reliant on the US for anything,” he said, describing the current American administration as “a very undependable regime” and calling for greater strategic independence from Washington.

Ultimately, he argued, the long-term answer lies in weaning the country off hydrocarbons altogether. “The answer is to get off fossil fuels and to break the link between the global price of fossil fuels and those that we make in our country.”

A Government spokesman defended the current approach, insisting Britain benefits from “a strong and diverse mix of fuel supply” spanning both imports and domestic production. Officials added that UK refinery output of petrol from crude exceeded demand in 2025, leaving a surplus available for export.

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Vince calls on Miliband to halt North Sea oil exports as Iran war rattles supply

Supermarket shoppers face paying more than £16 per kilo for a leg as overlapping religious festivals, shrinking flocks and buoyant export demand squeeze the UK sheep sector

British households sitting down to Easter lunch this weekend are confronting the steepest lamb prices on record, as a rare calendar clash with the end of Ramadan collides with a dwindling national flock and strong Continental export demand.

Figures compiled by the retail analysts Assosia show the average price of a leg of lamb across Tesco, Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury’s has climbed to £16.23 per kilo, up 12.5 per cent on a year ago, when shoppers were paying £14.43. The sharpest supermarket jumps have landed at Sainsbury’s, where a British butterflied leg has leapt by a third to £20, while its Taste the Difference Welsh Hill half leg is up 22.4 per cent at £17.75. Tesco’s Finest lamb shoulder, meanwhile, has risen 16.4 per cent to the same £17.75 mark.

The price spike at the tills reflects a sharp move in wholesale markets. The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) reports that wholesale lamb has risen from roughly £7.20 per kilo at Easter last year to almost £8.40 today.

Independent butchers are feeling the pinch too. Sam Bagge, manager of the award-winning Walsingham Farm Shop in Norfolk, said a 2.5kg leg of local, high-welfare lamb is now retailing at £75, up from £65 a year ago. “It’s definitely as expensive as I’ve ever seen it,” he said, adding that budget-minded customers were increasingly trading down to rolled shoulder of pork, which has seen a 30 per cent uplift in demand at £27 a joint.

The livestock auctioneer James Little described the conditions as “a perfect storm”. He said Eid traditionally lifts lamb demand sharply, and with Easter falling early this year the two festive peaks have run straight into one another. “There was a lot of demand at the end of Ramadan and then we’ve run into the Easter demand as well,” he said.

Mr Little added that Britain’s growing Muslim population was underpinning stronger year-round demand: AHDB survey data indicates that 80 per cent of halal consumers in the UK eat lamb at least once a week, against roughly 6 per cent of the population as a whole. On top of that, he pointed to “massive demand for British lamb in France, Belgium, Holland and Portugal”.

Dave Barton, livestock board chairman at the National Farmers’ Union, said prices had been “driven primarily by strong demand from the public outstripping supply, here in the UK and globally”. The squeeze, he warned, is being compounded by a steady contraction in the breeding flock. The National Sheep Association puts the UK’s breeding ewe numbers at 14.7 million, the lowest in living memory.

Mr Barton blamed a collapse in farmer confidence, citing “the phasing out of direct government subsidy payments, alongside high operating costs and market volatility”. He called on ministers to back investment in the sector to rebuild the national flock and secure a “resilient, sustainable and thriving” industry capable of meeting rising demand.

Welsh sheep farmer Gareth Wynn Jones said export appetite remained robust, with Portuguese buyers prizing Welsh mountain lambs for their Christmas barbecues. But he warned that last year’s dry weather had taken its toll on the 2026 crop. “There wasn’t much for them to eat. The number of pregnant ewes was down so there’ll be less lamb on the ground,” he said, signalling that tight supply and firm prices could persist well beyond this Easter weekend.

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Easter and Eid collision sends British lamb prices to a record high

The majority of Britain’s ultra-wealthy individuals are actively weighing up whether to leave the country, driven not so much by the level of taxation but by what they see as a government incapable of providing a stable fiscal framework.

A survey of 200 multi-millionaires, each with a personal fortune of at least £50m, carried out by accountancy firm BDO, found that two-thirds had considered relocating over the past twelve months. The most striking finding, however, was the reason: 42 per cent pointed to inconsistent tax policies as the principal factor behind their deliberations, while just 18 per cent cited high tax rates alone.

The distinction matters. Britain has long taxed at rates comparable to or above those of its European neighbours, yet the ultra-rich have historically stayed put. What appears to have shifted the calculus is a succession of policy reversals and threatened reforms under Labour, particularly around inheritance tax and capital gains tax, that have left wealthy individuals unable to plan with any confidence.

Elsa Littlewood, a tax partner at BDO, said that many of those considering departure would prefer to remain but feel unable to manage long-term wealth planning against such an unpredictable backdrop.

Since Labour took office, a string of high-profile departures has underlined the trend. Hedge fund manager Michael Platt relocated his family office to Dubai. Norwegian-born shipping magnate John Fredriksen put his £250m Chelsea townhouse on the market. Richard Gnodde, formerly Goldman Sachs’s most senior banker in Europe, moved to Milan, whilst brothers Ian and Richard Livingstone shifted their primary residence to Monaco. Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, a British resident for nearly three decades, also moved to Dubai, as did Egyptian businessman Nassef Sawiris.

The exodus began in earnest when Rachel Reeves, upon becoming Chancellor, abolished the non-domicile status, a long-standing tax regime that had made Britain attractive to internationally mobile wealth. A proposed 40 per cent inheritance tax on worldwide assets provoked such fierce opposition that it was subsequently scaled back, but by then confidence had already been dented.

Ms Reeves’s second Budget in November compounded the uncertainty. Having signalled possible increases to capital gains tax, she ultimately left CGT largely untouched but raised rates on savings and dividends and introduced what critics dubbed a “mansion tax” on higher-value properties, a set of measures that few had anticipated.

Maxwell Marlow, a director at the Adam Smith Institute, warned that the absence of any replacement scheme to attract wealthy investors’ capital and spending to Britain meant the broader population would bear the cost.

For Business Matters readers running or advising businesses that depend on access to high-net-worth capital, the message from BDO’s research is clear: it is not the size of the tax bill that is driving people away, but the inability to know what that bill will look like next year. Certainty, it seems, has become the scarcest commodity in British fiscal policy.

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Labour’s tax uncertainty is pushing Britain’s wealthiest towards the exit

Barclays is charting a decisive U-turn on the high street, with plans to open new branches across the country and reinstate the once-familiar “bank manager” job title, a move that signals a broader rethink of how Britain’s traditional lenders compete in an increasingly digital age.

Vim Maru, who has led Barclays UK since 2024, told Business Matters that the bank intended to grow its branch network beyond the current 206 outlets, having already paused a closure programme that saw roughly 80 per cent of its branches shut since 2019. One of his first acts after taking charge was to halt the cull, and he is now pressing ahead with expansion, though he declined to put a precise figure on how many new sites would open.

The shift comes as digital-only challengers such as Revolut and Wise make increasingly aggressive moves into the current-account market, threatening the established banks’ grip on everyday consumer banking. Rather than trying to outpace them on technology alone, Maru is placing his chips on a blend of slick digital services and genuine, in-person support, what he described as the winning formula for modern banking.

He was characteristically blunt about the shortcomings of purely automated customer service. Barclays customers, he insisted, would not find themselves trapped in an endless loop with a chatbot when they needed real help. The bank has also quietly reintroduced traditional role titles, so that customers walking through the door can once again ask to speak to the branch or bank manager.

Maru stopped short of conceding that Barclays had been too aggressive in its earlier round of closures, but acknowledged that the bank needed to reassess how it served its customers every few years. The new branches will sit alongside the shared banking hubs operated through the Post Office, rather than replace them.

Beyond the branch network, Barclays is pursuing growth on several fronts. The bank reported a record number of mortgage applications last year, with processing times slashed from 45 minutes to just 15 thanks to technology improvements that have proved popular with brokers. Its acquisition of the Tesco credit card business in 2024 and Kensington Mortgages, which has doubled in size since Barclays bought it in May 2023, have broadened the division’s reach considerably.

Artificial intelligence is also being deployed to streamline internal processes, though Maru was cautious about the workforce implications. He drew a parallel with the introduction of ATMs, noting that while the machines were expected to eliminate cashier roles, the subsequent rise in fraud and scams meant staff were redeployed rather than made redundant.

On the broader economy, Maru offered a measured reading from the bank’s unique vantage point. Consumer spending has shown resilience, with hospitality holding up well despite a period of heightened anxiety following the outbreak of the Iran conflict. In the opening days of the war, there was a noticeable surge in fuel purchases as motorists rushed to fill up ahead of expected price rises, though spending patterns quickly normalised.

With Barclays chief executive CS Venkatakrishnan having committed to investing £30 billion more in the UK between 2024 and this year, and despite persistent speculation about possible acquisitions of the likes of Santander UK or TSB, Maru said his priority remained organic growth. The bank, he maintained, already had strong momentum — and a renewed high street presence to match.

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Barclays bets on the high street once more with new branches and the return of the bank manager

Amazon is dusting itself off for another tilt at Britain’s fiercely competitive grocery sector, this time by converting its abandoned Fresh convenience stores into outlets for Whole Foods Market, the organic chain it acquired for $13.7 billion in 2017.

The move comes barely six months after the US tech giant shuttered 19 of its much-hyped “grab and go” Fresh stores across the country. Launched in 2021 with bold talk of hundreds of locations and a revolution in convenience shopping, the till-free format simply failed to resonate with British consumers. By September last year, the experiment was over.

Now Amazon is hoping Whole Foods can succeed where Fresh could not. The brand, which currently operates seven shops in London, intends to open five additional sites by the end of June. Four of these will occupy former Fresh premises, including a new store in Angel, Islington, which opened this week, alongside planned locations at Wood Wharf in Canary Wharf, Gracechurch Street in the City, Liverpool Street and Notting Hill Gate. A further opening is earmarked for St James’s.

Jade Hoai, executive leader of purchasing at Whole Foods Market UK, said the London expansion reflected confidence in the brand’s offer, particularly in neighbourhoods where customers shop frequently and seek high-quality food as part of their daily routine.

Yet the pivot inevitably raises the question of whether Amazon is merely replacing one struggling format with another. Whole Foods has endured a bruising time on this side of the Atlantic since entering the British market in 2004. Turnover at its UK arm fell seven per cent to £86.4 million in the year to December 2024, while pre-tax losses hit £20 million. Cumulative losses have now surpassed £200 million. The company closed two underperforming stores and its Dartford distribution centre in early 2024 and cut its average headcount from 798 to 608.

High operating costs and stiff competition from established players have consistently undermined the chain’s efforts, and its premium pricing has proved a hard sell in a market dominated by the discounters Aldi and Lidl at one end and well-entrenched giants such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s at the other.

The picture is markedly different in the United States, where Whole Foods has enjoyed steady growth under Amazon’s stewardship. The American operation has expanded its market share by aggressively cutting prices and rolling out smaller-format stores, successfully shedding the nickname “Whole Paycheque”, a longstanding joke that a single bag of groceries there could swallow an entire salary.

Whether that formula can translate to the UK remains to be seen. Hoai pointed to what she described as a clear shift in consumer behaviour, with growing demand for quality, transparency and a more considered retail experience.

The new Angel store, spanning 3,600 square feet, features a hot food counter, self-serve coffee and an Amazon kiosk. Delivery through Deliveroo is expected to follow shortly.

For Amazon, the stakes extend beyond groceries. The company has long viewed physical retail as a gateway to embedding itself more deeply in consumers’ daily lives and driving subscriptions to its Prime service. But its track record in British bricks-and-mortar retailing offers little cause for confidence, and the decision to pour further investment into a brand that has bled more than £200 million in losses will test the patience even of a company with pockets as deep as Amazon’s.

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Amazon bets on Whole Foods to salvage its troubled UK grocery ambitions

Reform UK is venturing into podcasting with a weekly show that will offer listeners behind-the-scenes access to Nigel Farage and senior figures within the party, marking the first time a British political party has produced its own audio programme.

The first episode, due out on Saturday, will feature footage from Reform’s campaign trail ahead of the local elections, including exchanges with both supporters and detractors. Subsequent instalments will follow Farage’s campaigning efforts in Wales and Scotland while covering major policy announcements in depth. The show will be available on Spotify and Apple, though the party has confirmed there are no plans to appoint a regular presenter.

The move represents a significant escalation in Reform’s broader digital media strategy, which has already seen the party invest tens of thousands of pounds in an in-house television studio. Farage commands a social media following of nearly 7.3 million across X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, a figure that exceeds the combined followings of Sir Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch, Sir Ed Davey and Green Party leader Zack Polanski.

That digital dominance has translated into tangible political momentum. Reform now leads the national polls and has become the most popular party among Generation Z men, according to research by JL Partners for the think tank Onward. The party’s sharp use of TikTok has been widely credited as a driving force behind its surge in support among younger voters.

The podcast launch also underscores a growing tension between political parties and traditional broadcast media. Farage already hosts a primetime programme on GB News, a channel that has faced repeated scrutiny from Ofcom over its use of politicians as presenters. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has argued that Farage’s show is undermining public trust in news broadcasting.

Reform’s digital success has not gone unnoticed by its rivals. The Prime Minister joined both TikTok and Substack late last year, while Labour has enlisted FourOneOne, a digital marketing agency backed by Silicon Valley investors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, to mount a campaign targeting Reform on TikTok. The party has further strengthened its online presence following Robert Jenrick’s defection from the Conservatives, with the former shadow justice secretary having built a considerable profile through attention-grabbing social media content.

Farage said the podcast would bring listeners closer to the party’s operations in a way that no other political organisation has attempted, describing it as offering access to every aspect of Reform’s activities.

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Reform UK becomes first British political party to launch its own podcast