Will Reform UK be the next government of the United Kingdom?

The Reform UK Party was only founded under that name in 2022. Previously it was called the Brexit Party.

Reform UK achieved a remarkable 14% of the vote in the 2024 election. It came third: pushing out the Liberal Democrats who had been in third place for a century. Reform UK has only 5 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons. 326 are needed for a majority.

The policies of Reform UK are deregulation, ending the trade agreement with the European Union, the war on wokery, slimming down the civil service and beefing up the armed forces. They also propose tax cuts and fewer people attending university.

The redoubtable Nigel Farage is the leader of the party. The 60-year-old Mr Farage is the most recognisable face of Euroscepticism. Farage was a member of the Conservative Party back in the 1980s. He is a committed Thatcherite but left the Conservative Party when it proposed the United Kingdom joining the European Union. He is a maverick cheeky chappy. Chain smoking hard drinking and ebullient he has an authenticity and a charisma that puts most politicians to shame.

The appeal of Reform UK is its populism and its anti-elitism. It castigates Labour and the Conservatives as a uniparty. There is much truth in this.

Supporters of Reform UK are mostly white working-class people aged 50+. The party is strongest on the eastern coast of England. The party managed to attract people to vote who do not usually bother. Half the people who voted for Reform UK in 2024 had voted Conservative in 2019. That was partly because the Conservatives' pro-Brexit platform attracted some people who were not committed Conservative voters.

The success of Reform UK is due to disillusionment with the Conservative Party. The Conservatives had 14 years in office. They achieved almost nothing in that time. The failure of the Conservatives has opened a space in British politics for Reform UK.

The Labour Party won the 2024 election with a very low vote share: 34%. They won 411 seats: a landslide. They won so many seats with such a low vote share because the Conservatives did even worse with only 24% of the vote. Labour’s popularity has dropped precipitously since the election.

Some opinion polls put Reform UK as the most popular party in the United Kingdom. Even the polls that do not show it in the first place show the party either in second place behind Labour. This is very worrying for Labour.

A party that wins an election has a honeymoon: a period when it is very popular. Labour ruined its honeymoon within 4 months. A honeymoon usually lasts more like a year. A governing party usually becomes more unpopular in its second year in office and even more unpopular in the third year before recovering somewhat in the fourth year in office. From a governing party’s viewpoint, this is hopefully enough of a recovery to allow it to win re-election in the fourth or fifth year.

Wealthy donors have been giving money to Reform UK. Many are former benefactors of the Conservative Party. They are rancorously disappointed with the party that failed to conserve what was good about the UK and indeed actively advanced the leftist agenda.

The Conservative Party is led by Kemi Badenoch. She faces a gargantuan task to bring the party back to government. This is going to be a two-term project at least. Her poll ratings are satisfactory, but she is almost certainly going to lead the party to a defeat at the next general election in 2028 and then be forced to step aside.

The local elections will be a real litmus test for Reform UK. If the party wins scores of local council seats then this will be a good springboard to win parliamentary seats.

Reform UK will probably increase its vote share in 2028. But it will be difficult to win a serious increase in its number of seats. In the First Past the Post system, it is very difficult for an insurgent party to break through. Indeed in 2024, Reform UK won 14% of the vote but under 1% of the seats. The Liberal Democrats won 12% of the vote but 11% of the seats. In 2028 there will probably be a similarly disproportionate breakdown of constituency victories.

Some 2024 Reform UK voters will return to the Conservative Party. Reform UK voters revile Labour. The only way to kick out Labour will be to vote for His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition: the Conservatives. Some people who voted for Reform UK in 2024 might not vote at all in 2028. It might be hard for the party to sustain momentum. Media interest may wane.

The Green Party will probably win more votes. That is partly because some Labour voters have revolted that Labour has broken its pledges on the environment. Labour is authorising more airport runways and that incenses environmentalists.

Reform UK will do quite well in 2028: that is to say, winning 10 to 20 seats. It is hard to see the party succeeding in the longer term. The Conservatives will slowly recover.

There was talk of an electoral pact between Reform UK and the Conservatives. That might entail Reform UK not standing against the Conservatives in marginal constituencies in return for the Conservatives not standing against Reform UK MPs. But the Conservatives have rejected that out of hand. Some Reform UK supporters would regard such a deal as treasonous.

The Conservatives will not consent to a deal with Reform UK because it would look feeble. It would also put off floating voters. Conservatives need to convince people that Reform UK can never win. Voting for Reform UK will only help Labour. The Conservatives need to emphasise that British politics is a two-horse race.

British politics is becoming more fragmented. The duopoly parties (Labour and the Conservatives) won a combined share of over 90% of the vote and 99% of the seats in the 1960s. Now it is 58% of the vote and 80% of the seats.

It is virtually impossible for Reform UK to become the Government of the United Kingdom. In the very improbable scenario that they win a plurality of the votes, no other party will cooperate with them.

The author is a political analyst from the UK.