One hundred and twenty miles from Westminster, it felt like I had arrived at the perfect place to understand the meaning of Angela Rayner’s exit from the government: Reform UK’s brief conference, a giddy and surreal gathering of about 10,000 people in a hangar-like box on the edgelands of Birmingham.

News of her resignation broke a couple of hours into the event’s first day, and the symbolism was glaring. Among midday pints, onstage pyrotechnics and a huge stand advertising the wonders of investing in gold, a party led by those bumptious public schoolboys Nigel Farage and Richard Tice was suddenly rejoicing in the departure of British politics’ most prominent working-class woman. The news, moreover, only boosted an atmosphere of energy and optimism, laced with a delighted surprise at what might be the UK’s defining political fact. We all know it: this new party has a tiny handful of MPs, no meaningful policy platform and a worldview that constantly blurs into conspiracy theory, but Reform UK is on course to either form or lead the next British government.

There are lots of reasons for that, and most of them cast very harsh light on the failings of Keir Starmer and his allies. As toxic as its messages always are, Reform has vivid and simple stories – about immigration, diversity and the supposedly endless failings of the two traditional parties. Its leading figures instinctively understand that politics has long since turned raw and primary-coloured. And........

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