Have Reform Hit Their Ceiling?

Photo Courtesy: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons

This was it. Reform’s big moment. As they storm ahead in the polls, the Government’s approval rating is in the bin and the leader of their main competition, Kemi Badenoch, is so irrelevant I can't even be bothered to come up with a joke about her. Time for the flagship policy announcement that’s going to position them as a serious opposition party and secure that 2029 landslide. And the vote winning, mandate securing, showstopper is…

Burying National Grid cables underground.

Might it be time to consider if the turquoise wave has peaked too soon?

The rise of Reform from a company owned by perennial never-quite-in-power Nigel Farage to the potential His Majesty’s Opposition (still owned by Nigel Farage, despite recent headlines announcing otherwise) will be studied in A level Politics classes for decades to come. A recent voter intention poll from YouGov puts Reform at 27%, with Labour just behind at 25% and the Tories at 21%. The last time a party other than Labour or Conservatives topped the polls was in 1981. This stat demonstrates two points simultaneously: firstly, Reform's extraordinary success as a third party is a once in a generation phenomenon. But secondly, it shows that momentary polling success does not guarantee power or even longevity. I bet you can’t even guess what party it was the last time this happened.*

It’s no secret as to why they’re so popular. In fact, it has often felt since July 4th that the landslide victory was won not by the man who brought the Labour party from the brink of collapse to a majority government, but by the man who boasts fewer MPs than Sinn Fein. Reform captures the public’s attention for a reason. Nigel Farage has always been a gifted orator, unafraid to speak clearly and “tell it like it is” - a trait increasingly desired in a nation with a decreasing attention span. But let’s not act like he’s some sort of political genius - if he were he might have won a seat the first time he tried, or the seventh. Much like how many argue Labour were in the right place at the right time, as are Reform to capitalise on the impending downfall of the Tories as the opposition party.  

As I wrote in October, in an attempt to secure their far-right voter base (ignoring the fact that they lost most of their seats in Middle England), the Tories have locked themselves in a battle against Reform to see who can be the most anti-immigration and anti-woke. If and when Reform wins this battle, the Tories will naturally alienate their former moderate support base as they strive to win back the voters who they’ve already lost. I don’t think it will be long before Reform is considered the unofficial opposition party. In many ways it already is. When reporting any policy announcement or internal spat, major news organisations go to Farage for comment - and inside Labour HQ it’s becoming more noticeable that attack lines are shifting away from the Tories and towards Reform. 

But they cannot sustain this for five years.

They might be on 27% popularity right now, but to absorb any more of the collapsed Tory party they will need to soften on some issues. Farage knows this. As much as he’s been willing to debase himself by filming birthday shoutouts to Big Chungus on cameo, he hasn’t yet been willing to debase his party by letting the likes of criminal thug Tommy Robinson in - which is partly what soured his short-lived love affair with Elon Musk. 

This is where they hit their ceiling; to gain any more popularity within the electorate they will have to become more affable and moderate, but this is irreconcilable with their original base that despises moderate public figures who actually act like politicians. It’s also scattered across the country, composed of unreliable voter demographics that don’t always turn up on the day, and it has no internal bureaucracy. The Labour party, for all its current criticisms, has a well oiled party machine with structures in place to win elections. Reform don’t, and the candidates they do field have more skeletons in their closet than a Spirit Halloween. Take recently nominated candidate Derek Wilson, who has publicly called for Keir Starmer to be assassinated and posted graphic racist and sexist cartoons on X. What is Farage to do? Kicking the likes of Wilson out would anger the vocal voter core of the party who probably agree with half of his retweets, but having only crackpots and criminals (one of Reform’s 5 MPs James McMurdock has served jail time for beating up an ex girlfriend) for politicians weakens the party’s legitimacy. 

This becomes even more apparent when it comes to party messaging, as any closer inspection of their policies reveals their current operation to be untenable. Reform has massively misread the room on two big issues: privatising the NHS and sucking up to Donald Trump. It’s true the average Brit thinks the NHS is broken, and in many ways it is, but you’ll have to pry it from our cold, dead hands. And even if many voters broadly agree with Trump’s stance on immigrants, his barbaric betrayal of Ukraine has not washed with British voters. 60% of us back Zelensky, whilst only 1/10 back Trump’s proposed deal. If Farage continues showing up at CPAC and sharing the stage with ‘Roman’ saluters, he will be unequivocally backing the wrong horse. 

The aforementioned cables policy comes as part of their anti-Net Zero package - a set of costly, counterproductive, and interventionist measures that totally contravene their low tax, small state ethos. They propose taxing solar and wind farms on the basis it would “cut energy bills”, ignoring the fact that overreliance on fossil fuels is what drives up gas prices. And taxing farmers? Isn’t that precisely why Farage and co. whipped out their Barbour jackets and marched on Westminster? 

In fact, all of Reform’s policies apart from their extremely anti-immigration rhetoric demonstrate just how much contempt they have for the ordinary working man and how they only seek to line their own pockets; tax relief on private schools, raising the inheritance tax threshold for estates over 2 million, and voting against the Employments Rights Bill that sets out to end practices like fire-and-rehire. If Labour can effectively communicate to working class voters that posh boys like Farage and Tice couldn’t care one bit about them, they might have more of a fighting chance come 2029.

*It was the SDP-Liberal alliance. If you got it right well done