Nigel Farage’s Reform UK overtook the Conservatives in a YouGov poll on Thursday night, June 8, 2024, sparking fears it might disrupt the UK election and reshape British politics.
Nigel Farage’s most recent vanity endeavor appeared to be a busted flush two weeks ago.
It now possesses the capacity to completely upset the UK election and permanently alter the course of British politics.
For the first time on Thursday night, Farage’s new project, Reform UK, was ranked higher than its traditional mainstream adversary, the Conservative Party, according to a survey conducted by one of the most reputable pollsters in Britain.
The YouGov survey caused fear among Tory supporters. Many had long feared this turning moment, which came when the Conservative Party, which had ruled Britain for the previous 14 years, dropped to third place and rapidly declined by one measure.
And with the general election less than three weeks away, Westminster watchers openly wonder if Reform may destroy the Tories.
Even if a smaller party gains a sizable vote share, it is extremely difficult for them to obtain seats in the United Kingdom due to the first-past-the-post election system. However, Farage’s ability to win enough votes to qualify his party for state support and get elected to the House of Commons on his eighth attempt could be enough of a springboard to explode to the right in British politics.
“[The Tories] have done a terrible job,” said Richard Tice, the millionaire businessman and ex-leader who is helping to bankroll Reform. “They’ve broken Britain, and they must be punished.”
“Our job is to present a serious alternative to the British people. This is a serious, medium-term plan to replace the Tories and become the opposition to Labour,” he said.
As part of a new documentary on the nascent party, Tice was speaking in May to the Westminster Insider podcast, which has been following Reform politicians for months.
A Reform insurgency was nearly unfeasible at the moment, despite Tice’s seeming optimism.
Even as late as May 30, a motley crew assembled at Glaziers Hall, close to London Bridge, for Reform UK’s inaugural press conference of the election campaign. Reform’s hopes were dashed before they even had a chance to get off the ground when Farage, who was still merely the “honorary president,” recently ruled out a return to active politics.
The journalists gathered at Glaziers Hall were significantly larger than the party’s actual supporters, and all cameras were pointed at Farage instead of Tice, who was the official leader of Reform at the time.
Beneath the questions thrown at the two men, there were some unanswered ones concerning both the unofficial (Farage’s goals) and official (immigration) topics of the news conference: For what reason are we here? What use does all of this serve?
Beyond Westminster, few people knew about reform.
A ramshackle operation
Reform didn’t resemble the political parties that most Britons associate with it.
In 2020, it sprang from the ashes of Farage’s erstwhile endeavor, the Brexit Party, which itself originated from the leftovers of UKIP. Remarkably, Farage served as both the business’s honorary president and majority shareholder when Reform was established as a limited liability corporation.
Reform has no headquarters and could hardly afford to hire full-time staff until recently. Operating out of his home outside of London was Gawain Towler, a longstanding servant of Farage and former UKIP MEP.
Reform relied on one geeky volunteer, Alex Wilson, who was nicknamed the “John Curtice of Reform” (after a well-known British pollster) due to his love of numbers and spreadsheets, while other parties employed internal polling and focus groups.
Even while Reform had seen several notable victories over the previous year, including the notable defection of former Tory party deputy chairman Lee Anderson and strong-ish performances in a few parliamentary by-elections, it continued to suffer from obscurity outside of the Westminster bubble.
In answer to a query, Farage acknowledged that brand Reform required improvement.
But there was always a threat to the Tories. In the 2010s, the Conservative Party was forced to take a more conservative stance in reaction to significant gains made by the Brexit Party and UKIP.
This was one of the main reasons Sunak scheduled his early election for July 4: he wanted to catch Reform off guard when the party still lacked the organization and funding necessary to be a real threat.
It looked like the gamble had paid off at first. Declaring there was not enough time to craft a successful campaign, Farage declared he would not stand for election. He stated that he would have rather concentrated on the US presidential campaign, where he has been a regular cheerleader for his friend Donald Trump.
However, Farage altered his views and the direction of the campaign in less than a week. He would run for parliament as Reform UK’s leader. There was turmoil in the Tory campaign. The surveys started to show a rise in reform.
Seeking revenge
“I took the day off yesterday,” Farage told journalists at a hastily organized press conference to announce his decision. “Had a normal day. Walked the dogs. Did a bit of fishing. Popped into the pub, you know — a normal sort of day. It gave me time to think and reflect, and I began to feel a terrible sense of guilt.”
He claimed that this remorse stemmed from the effect that his decision to not run for parliament was having on his devoted fan following, which was left in mourning.
However, there was also another type of logic at play. Dismissing past comments about reaching a potential agreement with the Tories, Farage repeatedly called out the party’s “betrayal” on matters he views as crucial, such as implementing Brexit and lowering immigration numbers.
A portion of Farage’s motive seems to be his desire for vengeance against the party he left in the 1990s due to its stance on EU policy, in addition to his delight in inciting disruption.
Seeming to be taking off by the scruff of his trademark covert coat and shaking it, he asked voters to send him to parliament to be “a bloody nuisance.”
The second coming
The 2024 election had looked like a contest between nerds up until that point.
Both Sunak and Keir Starmer, the head of the opposition, have allies who acknowledge that they are skilled grafters rather than entertainers. That’s precisely what’s required, according to both parties, to revive the flagging British economy.
However, their lack of flair made it easy for a compelling — or repulsive, depending on your point of view — person to “ginger up” the campaign, as Farage famously described it.
The previous week, large numbers of people flocked to Clacton, the Essex coastal resort where Farage had chosen to take a stand, demonstrating his electrifying effect. (It was an easy decision; in the early 2010s, Clacton had been elected as UKIP’s lone MP.)
One adoring bystander remarked that Farage’s entrance was “like Jesus has turned up.” Less encouraging attendees let their emotions be known by toppling a milkshake over Farage’s head. There was pandemonium.
These dramatic events—Farage was later attacked in a pub—rekindled a longstanding concern among Farage’s liberal critics that he is, at the very least, a product of the media and that, should people choose to ignore him, his anti-immigration stance would lose ground.
Because Farage decided to run for parliament, his views will come under closer examination and he can no longer be disregarded.
Reform’s opposition to immigration, the net zero climate aim, political correctness, and historical critique of Britain are all readily apparent. When challenged about their optimistic outlook for the nation, Reform’s leaders made oblique references to a restoration of Britain to its purported past greatness.
Farage talked about “a freer Britain,” one in which the “little man” can prosper. “A country where we’re not ashamed of our history, our heritage, our culture,” Anderson stated, was what he hoped to see.
Some perceive this discourse to be implicitly racist, distinguishing British and non-British people. Supporters eat this up, brushing off such worries as leftist bullshit.
When confronted by allegations made by Michael Heseltine, a longtime member of the Tory Party, and even some attendees of the Clacton protest, that he and his party are “racists,” Farage called this a “ludicrous” charge and “an excuse for not having a debate.”
Similar to other prominent personalities on the right, Farage brushes off the majority of inquiries about his contentious views as the bluster of a “woke” elite. Furthermore, he lacks any actual track record to compare himself to because he has never had to deal with the difficulties of running a government or even just representing a constituency.
Reform is hopeful that on July 4, everything will change.
Next stop Downing Street?
Outside observers may notice that Farage is overconfident in his party’s chances of winning more than one parliamentary seat, but insiders know that this is implausible.
The electoral system in Britain and the dispersed support of the party allow Reform to accumulate millions of votes even if it wins exactly zero individual seats, as was often the case with UKIP.
However, those millions of votes have power of their own, depriving the Conservatives of right-wing support and maybe costing them hundreds of additional closely contested districts. With no presence in the House of Commons, this threat meant that both UKIP and the Brexit Party were often successful in pressuring Conservative leaders to revise their policies.
However, Farage’s struggle in Clacton, a seat currently controlled by the Conservatives, might make or break Reform’s destiny. It will be a personal repudiation from which he will be hard-pressed to recover if he is again thwarted.
Furthermore, his entry to the House of Commons could significantly alter the course of his party’s development.
A seat in parliament and at least 150,000 votes would qualify Reform for Short Money, an official parliamentary program that provides large public funding to opposition parties so they may perform their functions.
Additionally, there is a much greater chance that the party will get financial support from him, joining the ranks of affluent current backers like Holly Valance, pop singer and well-known spouse of real estate developer Nick Candy, and plumbing tycoon Charlie Mullins.
With Farage elected, there would also be the possibility of the Reform leader “wandering around [parliament], having a drink here and there, sitting on the smoking terrace, chatting to everybody,” as his buddy Towler describes it.
Could more Tories leave? Towler laughed, “The whips of the other parties will be crapping themselves.”
Henry Hill, acting editor of ConservativeHome, the online bible for Tory activists, believes that the moment is right for such an intervention.
“I’ve been hearing from Conservative candidates that since Farage’s announcement, they’ve had actual activists just walk out and join Reform,” he said.
According to Hill, the government’s main constituency was losing faith in the party because “the last 14 years have been a disappointment, pretty much no matter what wing of the Conservative Party you’re on.”
Wilson, a member of the London Assembly for Reform, acknowledged admiring Farage even during his time as a Tory when he was involved in CCHQ’s data crunching. He said that many other Tory officials held similar views within the party.
Farage has claimed that he hopes to use his new platform to help Reform become the primary right-wing opposition party in Britain by 2029, or even to eat away at the Conservative Party from within, if he is successful in getting that all-important foot in the door.
Expert strategists think he could pull it off.
Former senior advisor to David Cameron, Andrew Cooper, is a non-affiliated peer who claimed that Nigel Farage would “absolutely certain” win the leadership race if an elected candidate was ever permitted to join the Tory Party.
In the wake of what appears to be a crushing election defeat for the ruling party, Farage himself has leaned into the idea of a Tory/Reform union.
“Something new is going to emerge on the center-right,” he told LBC Radio Thursday.
“I don’t know what it’s called — but do I think I could end up leading a national opposition to a Labour party with a big majority, where I can stand up and hold them to account on issues? Yes.”
There is much more to come in this incredible career of one of the most significant postwar British politicians.
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