The Plot to Stop a Good Win

Reform UK’s candidate in the recent Gorton and Denton by-election Matt Goodwin explains why he will fight on

I’ll never forget the day Nigel asked me to stand in Gorton and Denton. We were sitting in his Mayfair club when he leaned forward and said: “Look, we need someone authentically northern and common to be our candidate. You come from St Albans and didn’t go to a public school, so I was wondering if you’d consider it?”

Nigel’s instinctive understanding of the ordinary guy in the street is why millions of northern working-class kids like me have been attracted to Reform. Now, here was the former commodities broker in the City giving me – a kid from the badlands of Hertfordshire – a chance to rise above my humble origins.

I make no apology for where I came from.