How scared should the Tories be of Reform UK?

The local election results show that the impact of Reform UK on British politics is growing. Sean O’Grady looks at what its rise could mean for an already beleaguered Conservative Party

The party has made significant progress without having Nigel Farage as its formal leader (Getty)

Though it is left with few councillors, let alone running any local authorities; no metro mayors, no elected police commissioners, and still no elected MPs, it is arguably Reform UK that has emerged from the latest round of elections as the happiest with the results. From polling around 5 per cent about a year ago, and only being formed from the previous Brexit Party in 2020, it is polling around 13 per cent nationally now, and has enjoyed some remarkable recent electoral success.

The party very narrowly missed clinching second place in the Blackpool South by-election, on 16.9 per cent of the poll – its best in this parliament, and at least in line with expectations. Though performances varied a good deal in the council seats Reform fought (only one in seven or so were contested), the party turned in a fairly impressive showing in Sunderland and in the Lincolnshire police and crime commissioner contest.

Less impressive were the showings in, say, Hartlepool, which was contested in the last general election by party leader Richard Tice. He won a respectable 25.8 per cent in 2019, but none of his candidates managed to win a ward there this time round.

The impact of Reform UK on British politics is growing, and is greater than previously expected, and it carries potentially serious implications for the future of the Conservative Party...

How high could Reform UK go?

Well, it isn’t going to be running any local authorities, let alone forming the government at the next election. Indeed, even if it outpolled the Conservatives at the general election (say 20 per cent to 19 per cent, for the sake of argument), Reform would be lucky to win a single parliamentary seat. But that’s not really what Reform UK is all about. It is still strongly influenced, if not controlled, by its founder, owner (majority shareholder in Reform UK Party Limited), and president, Nigel Farage.

Farage, Tice, deputy leader Ben Habib and other figures have made no secret of their ambition to destroy the Conservative Party, the better to reinvent it and engineer a realignment of the right after the general election. When the Tories argue that a vote for Reform is a vote to give Keir Starmer the keys to No 10 – and with a historic landslide, –they are broadly correct, but they seem not to appreciate that this is not something that bothers Farage and his allies. Quite the opposite.

In short, Reform UK wants to leverage its vote to take over the Conservative Party, and remake it in its own image as an even more hard-right populist organisation. That would represent success for Reform.

Where are its weak points?

There are many. The policy programme, which receives relatively little scrutiny, is eccentric, to put it mildly. The party enjoys negligible support in Scotland, London, and the more prosperous “Remain” parts of the country, and is less able to attract support in many traditional Labour areas than was Ukip or even the Brexit Party. It also badly lacks anything like a grassroots infrastructure, with relatively few activists or paid-up supporters (as a limited company it can’t have a mass membership anyway, in the conventional sense).

Some of its spokespeople are prone to extremism, and a number of poorly vetted parliamentary candidates have had to be jettisoned, with many seats still short of Reform representation on the ballot paper. It seems not to be short of money, but it does have an amateurish vibe. Even the celebrated defector Lee Anderson might find it tricky to hang on to his seat in Ashfield.

Would Farage make a difference?

He’s still fairly high-profile even now, but, credit to the sadly less charismatic Tice, the party has made significant progress without having Farage as its formal leader. Some polling last year suggested that Farage would add a few percentage points to the Reform rating – a notable improvement but not a transformative one, and that was before its latest surge. Sooner or later, support for the Tories will (surely) hit its ineradicable core.

Nonetheless, as YouGov pointed out in March, Farage is highly popular on the right: “Notably, those who voted for the Conservatives in 2019 have a more favourable opinion of Nigel Farage than they do of Rishi Sunak. While Farage is popular among 2019 Tories – 50 per cent have a positive opinion and 42 per cent a negative one – Sunak is unpopular, with 40 per cent having a favourable view of the PM but 54 per cent an unfavourable one.” Very much a “Marmite” man.

Will he run?

He teases us about that, probably a bit too much. As Tice says, “The clock is ticking”, and it’s getting late for Farage to relaunch himself. He was in Florida recently, when he might have been getting the vote out in rainy Blackpool, and seems more interested in TV presenting, celebrity, and warming up for Donald Trump (as well as a dream about being the UK ambassador to Washington in a putative Trump second term).

Given that Farage has tried and failed to get into the Commons on seven occasions since 1994 – and at times when, as Ukip leader, he enjoyed much higher national support. So it is getting increasingly doubtful that he could come back as leader or stand for a constituency (especially if it clashed with the final stages of the US presidential campaign), but he might well address the odd rally and put himself about a bit.

After the election, in the task of rebuilding the right, he’d no doubt be tempted to play a larger role.