UK Conservatives are about to lose big. Here’s how the Reform party is making it happen.
| Castle Point, England
The right-wing Reform UK campaign had been relatively quiet until last month, when charismatic populist Nigel Farage announced he was taking control of the party and running for Parliament under its banner.
Now, the rejuvenated party is siphoning voters from the ruling Conservative Party ahead of Thursday’s elections. That is likely to mean an even more ignominious Tory ouster than the troubled party had expected. The Labour Party is thumping Conservatives from the left, and is expected to win at least 430 of the 650 parliamentary seats – more than double its current share.
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onAfter 14 years in power, the Conservatives are set for an epic fall from power in British elections Thursday. The Reform UK party is making it that much bigger a drop.
“What Reform does is potentially change the scale of the defeat,” says political sociologist Paula Surridge. “Yet none of this is possible for Reform without the Conservatives having imploded over a long period.”
The Tories have never been in this much trouble, with two crucial events cementing their downward slide: the flouting of COVID-19 regulations in the “Partygate” scandal, and former Prime Minister Liz Truss’ disastrous economic plan that tanked the pound.
That’s led to the loss of one set of voters on “sleaze and distrust,” says Dr. Surridge, and “another whole raft on ‘We might have forgiven that, but you haven’t even managed the economy well.’ The Conservatives have done that to themselves.”
Keiron McGill delivered pizza to earn extra income during the pandemic; five years later he’s self-funding a run for Parliament as a Reform UK candidate.
Scrappy and persistent, and armed with a dozen volunteers and thousands of leaflets, the printing accounts manager and his party are now projected to take as much as a quarter of the vote in a district that had been a stronghold of the ruling Conservative Party.
It’s a dynamic that’s repeating itself all over England as the United Kingdom approaches Thursday’s general elections. “There’s been a sea change of attitude of people thinking, not only does the current Conservative government not work for them, but the opposition [Labour Party] doesn’t either,” says Mr. McGill. “They want a real change away from the two-party system.”
Why We Wrote This
A story focused onAfter 14 years in power, the Conservatives are set for an epic fall from power in British elections Thursday. The Reform UK party is making it that much bigger a drop.
His Reform campaign in Castle Point – a largely well-to-do coastal district an hour east of London – had been relatively quiet until last month, when charismatic, anti-immigration populist Nigel Farage announced his reentry onto the British political scene. Mr. Farage declared that he had taken control of the Reform Party – which arose from the remnants of Mr. Farage’s own Brexit Party – and would run for Parliament under its banner.
That’s having spillover effects across Britain.
“It’s been a rocket under our campaign,” says Mr. McGill. “People could not be happier that Reform has got a real sort of outspoken leader, who gets the column inches. Nigel Farage seems to have that X factor.”
Across the nation, Reform is expected to siphon roughly a quarter of those who voted Conservative in 2019. Meanwhile, the Labour Party is thumping Conservatives from the left, and is expected to win at least 430 of the 650 parliamentary seats – more than double its current share.
Barring an earthquake of a surprise, 14 years of Tory rule will end Thursday. The only uncertainty is how big Conservative losses will be.
“What Reform does is potentially change the scale of the defeat,” says Paula Surridge, a political sociologist at the University of Bristol and frequent media commentator. “Yet none of this is possible for Reform without the Conservatives having imploded over a long period.”
“Sleaze and distrust”
Mr. McGill was managing accounts for a printing and photocopier company full time while running a sporting events business on the side when the pandemic hit four years ago. Then the Conservative government shut everything down. “I saw big losses overnight,” he says.
That’s when he began to question his long-held Tory loyalty. Checking out the Reform Party’s website, he saw “no vaccine mandates, no further lockdowns,” Mr. McGill says. “I saw a party actually not afraid to speak.”
Political scientist John Curtice says the Tories have never been in this much trouble, with two crucial events cementing their downward slide.
“No. 1 is [former Prime Minister] Boris Johnson and ‘Partygate’” – the flouting of COVID-19 regulations by the Conservative-led government, says Professor Curtice. “Problem No. 2 is [Mr. Johnson’s] successor Liz Truss’ 49 days in office tried to go for growth” with a tax-cut plan that prompted economic chaos and a tanking of the pound.
That’s led to the loss of one set of voters on “sleaze and distrust,” says Dr. Surridge, and “another whole raft on ‘We might have forgiven that, but you haven’t even managed the economy well.’ The Conservatives have done that to themselves.”
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, brought in by the Tories to stamp out fires set by Ms. Truss, created some of his own challenges with a series of missteps and a perceived lack of enthusiasm for the job. Recently, he skipped out early on a D-Day celebration in France that had convened veterans and world leaders, irking the public, and a few people close to him were discovered to be placing election-related bets.
The residual effects of the pandemic, runaway inflation, a cost-of-living crisis, monthslong National Health Service waiting lists, and a failure to stem the flow of immigration are among the criticisms being hung on Conservatives. Immigration is the top issue that is pushing Conservative voters toward Reform, says Dr. Surridge.
Reform UK proposes raising the income tax threshold to £20,000 (roughly $25,500), in order to give a boost to people’s personal pocketbooks, and also supports a policy they call “net zero” immigration. It’s resonating with Conservatives.
So is the entry of Mr. Farage, who is “charismatic in a campaign that is short on charisma,” says Professor Curtice. “His arrival gives [Reform] credibility, gives it visibility, gives it volubility, and just ensures that even more Tory voters will switch to that direction.”
A fighting chance
Back in Castle Point, Mark Maguire is another candidate who may very well benefit from a Tory implosion.
A longtime Labour Party member, he worked his way up to local chair and is now Labour’s candidate for Parliament in Castle Point. The party has come from having “no chance in four years, to having a fighting chance,” he says.
Part of that is due to Reform’s presence, says Mr. Maguire. “The Conservatives are too busy worrying about losing to the far right that they’ve moved themselves a lot rightward, so we comfortably sit in the center ground.”
Still, Mr. Maguire acknowledges that it’s difficult to break longtime Conservative strongholds. “There’s an idea that voters would like local change, but whether that will pan out, I don’t know,” he says.
Yet the numbers say anything can happen. The Conservative incumbent Rebecca Harris took a whopping 76% of the vote in 2019, but approaching Thursday’s elections, Conservatives are polling around 40%, with Labour and Reform each polling around the upper 20s.
Susan Gardner is a longtime Tory voter who is thinking about Reform for the first time. “I’ve got to weigh it up,” she says, “but Partygate, the mistakes. I’m also not happy with Rishi.”
But Tracy Cole will stay with the Tories because of their experience balancing budgets. “Reform is too new; they need to establish themselves first,” she says.
What are Reform voters getting?
Certainly, the Reform party has experienced a few setbacks in the past week. It came to light that a handful of candidates made comments in the past looking kindly upon Hitler. (In the aftermath, Reform leaders stated that the company the party hired to vet candidates didn’t do its job.) Mr. Farage also recently said the West had provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine, a wildly unpopular position in the U.K.
Much of Reform’s platform looks like the Conservatives’. A few Reform candidates have recently withdrawn after realizing that their presence in the race might boost the chances of a Labour member of Parliament.
Analysts expect Mr. Farage to win his Clacton constituency but that his party will take few, if any, others. But however many seats Reform wins, the party will have an outsize impact due to the votes it will siphon. It may also lay the groundwork for the future. Mr. Farage has said these elections are the first step in a long-term strategy for disrupting the two-party system and prompting “a dramatic realignment of the center-right of British politics.”
For his part, Mr. McGill, the Reform candidate, is energized during the last hours of his campaign in Castle Point. He doesn’t agree with assessments that Reform is a spoiler that will usher Labour into government.
“The two parties [Tory and Labour] are so close together that doesn’t really make much of a difference,” says Mr. McGill. “If you vote Tory, you get Labour anyway. But if you vote Reform, you actually get those radical policies we spoke about. A vote for Reform is very much a vote for Reform – not a vote for Labour.”
