Reform UK’s poll lead over Labour and the Conservatives continues to fall, even if it remains the most popular party ahead of crucial local and devolved elections next month.
Ipsos’ latest Political Monitor, conducted between 9 and 15 April, shows Nigel Farage’s insurgent party winning 25% of the vote if a general election were held today. This is still six points clear of both traditional parties but down from the party’s peak of 34% in September last year. The latest More in Common poll also shows the party on a low of 25% but with the Tories edging closer on 22%.
Having consistently registered support on or above 30% for the better part of a year, Reform appears to be “suffering a significant drop in popularity”, said The Independent’s political editor, David Maddox.
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What is Reform UK?
Founded by Nigel Farage in 2018 as the single-issue Brexit Party, it was rebranded as Reform UK in 2021, following the UK’s formal departure from the EU the previous year.
Initially focused on anti-lockdown messages during the pandemic before pivoting to broader right-wing populist themes, Reform has surged in the polls thanks to its ability to offer an alternative to a Westminster elite who, according to Farage, “speak an entirely different language to those who live in the real world”.
Despite running an at-times chaotic and amateurish ground game, the party still secured millions of votes in the 2024 general election. But its real breakthrough came in last May’s local elections: it secured two mayoralties, 677 council seats and overall control of 10 councils, not to mention snatching the parliamentary seat of Runcorn and Helsby from Labour by a mere six votes, in what was widely described a political “tsunami”.
Since then, Reform has consistently topped polls of nationwide voting intention. It has also welcomed a steady flow of Tory defections that have swelled its number of sitting MPs to eight. While the party has hailed this as a sign of strength, it has also opened the door to accusations that it is becoming “Conservatives 2.0”.
Despite this, Reform still hopes to win as many as 1,500 council seats in the local elections this May.
What are Reform’s policies?
Reform UK has a populist agenda aimed at attracting voters from both the left and the right who are frustrated with the two main parties and feel strongly about issues such as immigration, the costs of net zero and alleged abuses of the welfare system.
Border control
Front and centre of Reform’s policy agenda is its hardline stance on immigration, including a declared “number one priority” to stop the boats carrying migrants across the Channel. The party promises to do this by immediately leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, “restoring full control of our borders, intercepting and detaining all illegal arrivals, and deporting them”. It will also “end Britain being treated as a global welfare system, meaning “no more free housing, no more benefits, no more taxpayer-funded incentives for illegal migration”. Reform would also set up a new UK Deportation Command, implement a five-year emergency programme to identify, detain, and deport illegal migrants in the UK – dubbed Operation Restoring Justice – and replace indefinite leave to remain with a renewable five-year visa for migrants with higher salary thresholds, mandatory fluency in English, and stricter good character requirements.
Employment and taxes
To “make work pay”, Reform says it will “cut taxes on workers” and “reduce the burden on families”, although this policy has yet to be fleshed out in detail. Previous manifesto pledges proposing £90 billion in tax cuts were quietly scrapped last year. The party also promises to end “the importation of cheap foreign labour, supporting jobs and wages for British workers” and to prioritise British businesses in procurement by removing unnecessary regulation.
Energy and net zero
Reform proposes scrapping the UK’s 2050 net zero targets and green levies to bring down energy bills, while fast-tracking North Sea oil and gas licences, and doing more to enable fracking.
Policing and security
To “make law-abiding citizens feel safe”, Reform says it will “restore visible policing, much tougher sentencing for serious and repeat offenders – including mandatory minimums, and an uncompromising approach to crime and antisocial behaviour”. Stop and search will be expanded, as will prison capacity “to ensure no violent criminals are released early due to overcrowding, and that judges hand criminals the sentences they deserve”.
The party manifesto promises to “rebuild Britain’s armed forces, invest in capability and readiness” and “restore morale across the military and intelligence services”. This will ensure that “our armed forces are ready to deal with the ever-present threats posed by Russia and China”.
Culture war issues
Farage placed “issues and arguments around gender on the very first page” of his party’s 2024 election manifesto, said The Guardian, condemning the “divisive ‘woke’ ideology” he claims has captured public institutions. The party has vowed to ban the teaching of “transgender ideology” in schools and scrap diversity, equality and inclusion rules. Christian values will be “protected and celebrated”.
Much of what the party has presented draws on a “largely small-state agenda”, said the Financial Times. Farage has in the past called for the NHS funding model to be “re-examined” and Reform’s MPs have voted against Labour’s efforts to strengthen workers’ rights. More recently, however, as the party looks to expand its support base, it has begun “to present more traditionally left-wing economic policies”, such as the nationalisation of key industries.
Will they form the next government?
Reform may have just a handful of MPs, said John Harris in The Guardian following Reform’s party conference last September, but it’s “still on course to either form or lead the next British government”. Why? Because it has a vivid and clear message – about the evils of mass immigration and diversity, and the uselessness of the two main parties.
First we saw a Conservative “crack-up”, followed by Labour under Keir Starmer “hurtling towards its own civil war”, torn between emulating Reform’s hardline rhetoric and stopping a more radical Green Party outflanking it on the left, said Tim Stanley in The Telegraph.
At the start of this year, an MRP poll predicted that, in a general election, Reform would secure 335 seats with an outright majority of 20, putting Nigel Farage in No. 10 as prime minister.
But since then, Reform has seen its poll lead steadily eroded, driven by a series of Conservative defections that have dented the party’s carefully crafted outsider image, and the party leadership’s perceived support for Donald Trump, as well as the rise of the new hard-right movement Restore UK.
With the war in Iran dominating the news, the belief among opposition strategists is that “hammering the Farage-Trump links could, in theory, suppress it further”, said Jim Pickard in the Financial Times. This may end up being true, but the May election results in Wales, Scotland and England will be a “salient reminder that, for now, the momentum is still with Farage’s group of upstarts”.