Reform UK
Reform UK, often known simply as Reform or erroneously as the Reform Party, is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It has eight members of Parliament in the House of Commons, two members of the London Assembly; and one member of the House of Lords, the Senedd, and the Scottish Parliament, with one police and crime commissioner. It controls twelve local councils and is to the right of the Conservative Party. Nigel Farage has been Leader of Reform UK since June 2024.
Co-founded by Farage and Catherine Blaiklock in 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating a no-deal Brexit, it won the most seats at the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK, but won no seats at the 2019 general election. The UK withdrew from the European Union in January 2020, and later in the same year the COVID-19 pandemic began in the UK. The Conservative government imposed a series of national lockdowns and Farage focused on anti-lockdown campaigning. The party was renamed Reform UK in January 2021. Farage stepped down as leader in March 2021 and was succeeded by Richard Tice.
Since 2022, the party has campaigned on a broader platform, pledging to reduce taxation, limit immigration, oppose net-zero emissions policies and substantially reduce public spending. In March 2024, Lee Anderson, who was elected in 2019 as a Conservative MP, defected to Reform UK, becoming its first MP. In June 2024, Farage resumed the leadership, and the party won five seats at the 2024 general election, the first time it had elected MPs.
History
Brexit Party
The incorporation of the Brexit Party in November 2018 was formally announced on 20 January 2019 by the former UK Independence Party economics spokesperson Catherine Blaiklock, who served as the Brexit Party's initial leader. On 5 February 2019, it was registered with the Electoral Commission to run candidates in English, Scottish, Welsh and European Union elections.On the day of the announcement, Nigel Farage, who had been an independent member of the European Parliament since his departure from UKIP in early December 2018, said that the party was Blaiklock's idea but that she had acted with his full support. On 8 February 2019, Farage stated he would stand as a candidate for the party in any potential future European Parliament elections contested in the United Kingdom. The MEPs Steven Woolfe and Nathan Gill, also formerly of UKIP, stated that they would also stand for the party.
The party's lead aim was for the United Kingdom to leave the EU, and then for Britain to trade internationally on World Trade Organization terms. In April 2019, Farage said that there was "no difference between the Brexit party and UKIP in terms of policy, in terms of personnel, there's a vast difference", criticising UKIP's connections to the far right. He also said that the party aimed to attract support from "across the board", including former UKIP voters and Conservative and Labour voters who had supported Brexit. Later in the month he said that the party would not publish a manifesto until after the European elections had taken place, saying that the party would have a policy platform instead of a manifesto.
In May 2019, Farage described his admiration for how fellow Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy members, Italy's Five Star Movement, had managed to grow from a protest group into the country's largest political party in both houses of the Italian Parliament. He saw the Brexit Party doing the same kind of thing and "running a company, not a political party, hence our model of registered supporters" and building a base using an online platform.
On 11 November 2019, the last day for candidates to register, Farage declared that the Brexit Party would not field candidates in the 317 seats in which there was an incumbent Conservative MP. This was done with the support of most of the Brexit Party candidates, so as not to split the anti-EU vote.
On 22 November 2019, the Brexit Party set out its proposals for the 2019 UK general election. They covered a wide range of policy areas including taxation, reforming politics, immigration and the environment. The party received two percent of the vote in the election, with none of its 273 candidates winning a seat.
Transition into Reform UK
Before the general election on 8 December 2019, Farage announced that, following Brexit, the party would change its name to the "Reform Party", and campaign for changes in the electoral system and structure of the House of Commons.In July 2020, Italexit, a Eurosceptic party inspired by the Brexit Party, was founded in Italy. In November 2020, Farage and Tice announced that they had applied to the Electoral Commission to rename the Brexit Party to 'Reform UK'. They said that the party would campaign on a platform that was opposed to further COVID-19 lockdowns and that it would seek to reform aspects of the British government, including the BBC and the House of Lords. The party also gave its support to the Great Barrington Declaration. On 4 January 2021, the party's name change to Reform UK was approved by the Electoral Commission.
In 2021, Reform UK gained representation in the Scottish Parliament when Michelle Ballantyne, then an independent and formerly a Conservative member of the Scottish Parliament, joined the party and was named Reform UK's leader in Holyrood. She lost her and the party's only seat in Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, and resigned as the party's leader in Scotland in February 2022.
Farage stepped down as leader in March 2021, being replaced by the party chairman, Tice. The former North West England MEP David Bull was appointed as deputy leader of the party on 11 March 2021. On 26 March 2021, it was announced that the former Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill had become the Leader of Reform UK Wales. In 2021, Reform UK announced its intention to field a full slate of candidates in the Senedd, Scottish Parliament and London Assembly elections with Tice standing for election in the latter. The party failed to win any seats above local level in the 2021 elections in May, and lost their deposit in the Hartlepool by-election.
At the 2021 Senedd election the party fielded candidates in every constituency and on the regional lists; it picked up 1.6% of the constituency vote and 1.1% of the regional list votes. At the 2021 Scottish Parliament election no constituency candidates were fielded and the party received only 5,793 list votes across the whole country. At the London Assembly election none of their constituency candidates were elected and the party finished tenth on the London-wide list with 25,009 votes.
In October 2022 Reform UK and the Social Democratic Party announced an electoral pact. Tice declared Reform's intention to stand in 630 constituencies across England, Scotland and Wales with "no ifs, no buts". In December 2022 David White, a Conservative member of Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, and Richard Langridge, a Conservative member of West Oxfordshire District Council, both defected to Reform UK to stand as prospective parliamentary candidates for the party.
The media gave renewed attention to Reform UK in December 2022 during the cost-of-living crisis after Farage announced that it would stand a full slate of candidates at the next general election. Tice remained leader of the party. After some opinion polls indicated a modest increase in support for Reform UK, The Daily Telegraph described the party as a "threat on the Right" to the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
2024 general election
On 7 and 8 October 2023, Reform UK held its party conference in London with 1,100 attendees. On 20 October 2023 Tice confirmed that Reform UK would stand in Conservative seats at the 2024 general election, and by January 2024 the party was polling around 10% of the popular vote. It was suggested that Reform UK would play the role of spoiler party for the Conservatives, since it attracted former Conservative voters. The Guardian speculated that votes for the party could lead to more than 30 additional seat losses for the Conservative Party.In Northern Ireland, in March 2024, the party formed an electoral pact with the Traditional Unionist Voice, in which the two parties would stand mutually agreed candidates there. In May 2024 Alex Wilson became Reform's first London Assembly member, elected via the London-wide voting system. On 3 June 2024 Farage replaced Tice as leader of the party. It gained five MPs in England in the July 2024 general election, and its Northern Irish affiliate TUV gaining one seat with Jim Allister.
In March 2024, Simon Danczuk, the former Labour MP for Rochdale, joined Reform and stood as their parliamentary candidate in the 2024 Rochdale by-election. Danczuk received 6.3% of the vote and was not elected. The seat was won by George Galloway.
Analysis in March 2024 by Matthew Goodwin for the Legatum Institute showed that support for Reform, like UKIP and the Brexit Party before it, was strongest among older voters and those who voted Leave, and relatively even across social classes. By NRS social grades, 36% of likely Reform voters were in AB, 22% in C1, 23% in C2 and 19% in DE.
File:Zia Yusuf addresses Reform UK 30th June 2024 - Birmingham NEC.jpg|thumb|Zia Yusuf addressing a Reform UK pre-election rally at the NEC near Birmingham on 30 June 2024
Following the election, on 11 July, the businessman Zia Yusuf replaced Tice as chairman of the party, with Tice, now an MP, replacing Ben Habib as deputy leader. The party plans to stand at the 2026 Scottish Parliament election, and expects to win significantly in the 2026 Senedd election in Wales, under the new more proportional system. In September 2024 Farage said that he would be surrendering all of his shares in Reform UK. This would mean members would have more control over the party, such as being able to vote on a constitution and motions, and could remove Farage as leader if over 50% of members wrote to Yusuf. In October 2024 Farage called for Conservative councillors to join Reform UK and said "a huge number of them genuinely agree with us and what we stand for".
In November 2024 it was reported that senior members of the party were divided about supporters of the far-right activist Tommy Robinson, with two of party's parliamentary candidates expressing sympathy for some of the supporters of Robinson who took part in August's anti-immigration protests, in the face of objections from Tice and Farage. There was also division amongst party MPs for the free vote on the assisted suicide bill, with Tice, Lee Anderson and Rupert Lowe supporting the bill in its second reading, whilst Farage and James McMurdock opposed it.
In November and December 2024 several high-profile Conservatives quit that party and joined Reform. These included the former MP Andrea Jenkyns, former MP Lucy Allan, Tim Montgomerie, Rael Braverman, the actress and singer Holly Valance and Nick Candy.
On 26 December 2024 Reform UK claimed to have overtaken the Conservatives and become the UK's second-largest party, behind Labour, in terms of size. Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative Party, later claimed on Twitter that Reform's totals were faked. Following this, Reform invited the Financial Times, Sky News, The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph to inspect their website's front and back-end code and the underlying data of the party's numbers. Each media outlet subsequently confirmed the ticker to be accurate. Farage refuted Badenoch's claim, stating that the allegations were "disgraceful" and threatened legal action should Badenoch not apologise.