What is behind the rise in popularity of Reform UK – and is it a threat to the main parties?

The relative success of Reform UK in the latest pair of by-elections has confirmed that the apparent rise in the party’s popularity in the opinion polls isn’t an illusion. Reform’s deputy leader, Ben Habib, scored a respectable 13 per cent of the poll in Wellingborough, and the party also managed to attract a surprisingly high 10.4 per cent in Kingswood, a much less Eurosceptic constituency. In any case, Richard Tice, its leader, has confounded the sceptics. He says Reform is solidifying itself as the UK’s third-biggest party, adding that “it takes time to build a brand”. It’s also time to have a look at it...

It’s fair to say it’s a rebranded Brexit Party (it may even keep “the Brexit Party” as part of its description on ballot papers). As the successor to the Brexit Party and the spiritual descendant of Ukip, it is a thoroughly Farageist vehicle, though Nigel Farage is not currently playing much of a role in its activities (despite being party “president” and majority owner). Therefore it is simply a populist offering, with Brexit, immigration, low taxes and scrapping net zero its predictable themes. It may not be a racist or fascistic organisation, but some of its followers might be inclined that way.

No. In fact, no one can in the conventional sense. It is not constituted as a normal political party, with conferences, policy committees, leadership elections and a national executive. Ukip was, but Farage found its democratic structures so cumbersome and irksome that his subsequent organisations have been constructed as limited companies, with the Great Leader granted untrammelled powers.

Thus, the Reform UK “party” is actually “Reform UK Party Limited”, a company registered with Companies House; it is, in fact, the same company as “The Brexit Party Limited” (2018 to 2021) under a different name. It has three directors: Farage (listed as “leader of a political party”); Tice (who is the current party leader); and Paul Oakden.

Reform UK supporters can of course make financial contributions and suggest policy ideas, but control is very firmly in the hands of Farage, who has a controlling shareholding. Tice is also reported to have lent the company a large sum of money. As a result, Farage is pretty much a dictator in the party, tempered by the organisation’s financial dependence on others. (His status as owner, controller and “president” of a significant political group at the same time as being a prominent presenter on GB News seems not to have concerned Ofcom.)

These are contained in the Reform UK Party Limited’s articles of association. They include, aside from Brexit: “To campaign for a programme of national revival and, to that end, promote a full range of long-term domestic policies at parliamentary and local elections” and “To work to free individuals, families and businesses alike from excessive government interference in the conduct of their affairs and seek to return authority and responsible autonomy to all levels of local government, whether borough, city or district, whilst rejecting the idea of an extra layer of government in the form of regional assemblies, which would alienate voters by distancing them further from government, and undermine the principle democratically accountable local government...”

Unlike the Brexit Party, which campaigned solely on the issue of Brexit, Reform does have some eye-catching, if not eye-popping, proposals, such as:

So a bit on the populist side, yes, and begging some obvious practical questions.

It boasts six council seats, mostly in Derby. It scored 6 per cent where it stood in the last local elections, and, until recently, also performed poorly in by-elections. But times change. On the current poll ratings, Reform UK should get around 10 per cent of the vote in a general election, about the same as the Liberal Democrats – but unlike the Lib Dems, that will yield it no seats. The party’s strength in some parts of England and Wales is nowhere concentrated enough to get someone to the top of the poll and elected under our first-past-the-post system.

Reform UK can look forward to decent results in depressed coastal towns, parts of East Anglia, and the red wall; but that is offset by severe weakness in the big cities and across Scotland.

If there were still elections via PR for the European parliament, then it would be well represented and financially better off by now – but ironically, that route to media presence, power and influence is no longer open. As yet, there are no Reform UK peers, and there have been no defections to the party in the Commons. Perhaps some Tory MP with nothing to lose will jump ship.

Yes. It’s the argument that Sunak makes, but the obvious problem for the Conservatives is that Reform voters are mostly fully cognisant of the consequences of their actions, and still don’t want to vote for Sunak and his “plan”. Unlike Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer evidently doesn’t frighten them all that much, despite Tice’s own warnings of “Starmergeddon”.

Sometimes it says it does, and it is going the right way about it. The leader, Tice, has promised to stand in every seat this time, unlike in 2019 when the party (ie Farage, the then leader) was eventually persuaded to stand down in seats with Conservative incumbents. One effect of Tice’s plan might be to help deprive the likes of natural Tory allies such as Lee Anderson, Mark Francois and Jacob Rees-Mogg their seats in the Commons.

He’s been teasing us, but probably not. Even on the basis of the party’s current ratings and his own celebrity, he couldn’t be sure of winning a Commons seat. If he did stand, or just threw himself into all-out campaigning, he might only succeed in increasing Labour’s landslide majority and leaving the right wing of British politics too weak to recover, thus endangering the success of the “once in a generation” realignment he has in mind for after the election.

In that scenario, presumably, the centrist One Nation Conservatives would be pushed out, and Reform and the Tory hard right would regroup, preferably under Farage’s leadership. Where Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, Suella Braverman and Kemi Badenoch would fit into this set-up is unclear. But that’s for another time.

At the moment, Farage is enjoying himself on TV and being the supposed kingmaker of the Tories, and would much rather spend the autumn in the US as a Donald Trump support act than touring rainy old Britain, patriot though he is. It is quite remarkable, in fact, that he hasn’t lifted a finger for his friends Reform in the past few months, and was absent from the 2024 launch event (but not from various Conservative conferences). He’s leaving the task of leading the latest attempt at national revival to others.