‘I can’t be bought,’ says Nige – just when it rather looks as if he can | John Crace

Just as the party leader had hoped to change the narrative, along came Channel 4 News to spoil his conference fun

W hy, oh why, oh why? You could almost feel Nigel Farage’s frustration. Why was it always him? Surely it was about time someone gave him a break. There he was trying to earn some money from a Thai crypto billionaire and a gold bullion dealer, and yet still Reform kept getting linked to dodgy cash.

It was almost as if a pattern was emerging. First there was the £5m gift, then the Posh George donations via Dicky Tice, and now Channel 4 News had done a sting on him and two of his most trusted aides in which it looked as if they were happy to break the law on political donations. Life can be so damned unfair at times. Always kicking you when you are down.

The headlines from Reform’s party conference in Birmingham were meant to be all about Nige declaring a national emergency the moment he got in to No 10. Instead he was dealing with a rather more pressing crisis. Every time he tries to persuade the country he’s running a serious party and that it isn’t a one-man band, something seems to happen to make it look like a dodgy, third-rate clown show.

Operation Failed Clean-up was initially left in the hands of Richard Tice and Lee Anderson. Imagine how bad it has to be for these two to be left in charge. Dicky is one of the least plausible politicians you can hope to find, so he didn’t even appreciate the irony of claiming it was all an establishment plot run by leftwing eco activists.

As for Lee, he was adamant that the two Reform members involved – James Orr, a Cambridge associate professor and supposed brains behind the party, and Dan Jukes, Nige’s trusted right-hand gofer for more than a decade – had been out of line and suspended from the party. More than that, they weren’t coming back. More than that he couldn’t say as an investigation had been started. So who was leading the investigation, he was asked. “I don’t know because the investigation hasn’t started,” Lee replied. Sometimes he runs Dicky a close second.

Others were equally as confused. Danny Kruger was in a more forgiving mood and thought there might be some way back for Orr and Jukes once the Reform investigation had exonerated them. Nadine Dorries speculated that maybe they hadn’t known they would be breaking the law. Though the undercover footage rather indicated they had known exactly what they were doing. That accepting money from foreign donors was not an alien concept.

Nige was just baffled. Fed up. Couldn’t believe how this had happened. Orr and Jukes were just contractors. Freelance labourers who had been brought in to paint the kitchen and had overstayed their welcome. He didn’t even know them, had barely met them. Even though both had been the closest of mates with him. Nige is never slow to throw comrades under the bus. It’s the narcissist’s first line of defence. Self-protection at all costs.

At a lunchtime press conference, he had more to say. First he announced he had a spontaneous statement to make that sounded as if it had been carefully worded by his lawyers. It’s probably been an expensive day for Nige. It was a hoax. No laws had been broken. No money had been taken. Except Reform had allegedly taken £35,000 to pay for the opinion poll, and the film suggested they would have been more than happy to take the £500,000 if it had been genuine. Details, details.

It was all a misunderstanding. James and Dan had just misspoken. And he couldn’t believe he had been caught on film having a “man of the people” champagne and oysters lunch with them and the undercover journalists in Clacton. Because he had only ever been in Clacton once in his life. What were the odds? “It was just some jack-the-laddery,” he said. “Pub talk.” Quite right. Which one of us hasn’t spent a long time chatting about crimes we were going to do and their exact modus operandi every time we have a couple of drinks?

Still, at least some things about the Reform conference were business as usual. The queues. Who would have guessed that 8,000 people might turn up at once when you had already sold 8,000 tickets? This came as a surprise to the organisers. And to the member who had turned up dressed as Richard I. Where better to find support for a crusade against Muslims than at the Reform conference. First we take Birmingham, then we take Baghdad.

With the conference already running an hour late before it had even started, it was left to Jeremy Kyle to fill in. He interviewed one punter who told him that all woke people should be hung. This was a little extreme even for Jezza. And there are plenty of people he would like to hang. Finally, though, we were up and running. First a tribute to Ann Widdecombe, then Anderson being given licence to try out his standup routine. Suella Braverman was a proper man, he insisted. Don’t call us, Lee. We’ll call you.

Then came Zia, the self-appointed shadow home secretary who is too unpopular in his own party to be allowed to stand for election. All he really wanted to talk about was small boat crossings. The audience whooped regardless.

The guest speaker was Jordan Bardella, the president of the far-right National Rally party in France. Not the sharpest pencil. He started by congratulating Nige on his brilliant win against the establishment bin in Clacton. It’s possible he doesn’t understand English humour. He then praised the Brits for standing up to Hitler in the war. A bit rich from a man whose party was founded by Nazi collaborators. The session closed with a handshake for Nige as they signed a new version of the entente cordiale.

Much of the afternoon was a write-off. Matt Goodwin, Sarah Pochin, Dicky. I mean, who really cares? They are all lightweights. That just left Nige to round things off. Eventually, after yet another unscheduled delay and some 80s wedding filler songs. Cue some tacky smoke and pyrotechnic effects and the appearance of the Messiah. “I can’t be bought,” he declared on the video above him. Except it rather looks as if he can.

The rest of the speech – with a few interruptions from protesters – was standard Nige. He would change the world in 100 days and sack any ministers who failed. There’s going to be a lot of ministerial vacancies. There was the invention of a reality where he was the Divine. It was all just lazy. Boring. Just one reference to the ongoing crisis. “The party has done nothing wrong,” he said. Mmm. With respect, that’s not something he gets to judge.