Reform UK: the party's policies and prospects of power

Reform UK would win a general election if it were held tomorrow, new polling has suggested.

The Ipsos poll shows Nigel Farage's insurgent party on a 34% share of the vote, a nine-point lead over Labour on 25%. The Conservatives are even further back on just 15%, the lowest Tory result ever recorded by the polling firm.

Were these figures to be replicated across the country at a general election, then Reform could win as many as 340 seats, giving it a majority of 30, Sky News analysis suggests. Labour would be reduced to 176 seats, while the Tories would be effectively wiped out, winning just 12 seats.

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Polling this far out from a general election that is not expected until 2028 at the earliest "should always be taken with a pinch of salt", said Sky's political correspondent Serena Barker-Singh. "But the truth is that the symbolism of Reform UK topping another poll is likely to be noticed by MPs from all parties."

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 over the past 18 months 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 last July's general election. But its real breakthrough came in 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.

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 and the costs of net zero.

This week, Nigel Farage announced the Britannia Card policy, a plan to attract wealthy individuals to the UK with a special tax regime and a £250,000 fee for 10 years of residency. Reform estimates the fee – the "Britannia workers’ dividend" – could fund a tax-free annual £600-£1,000 payout to roughly 2.5 million low-paid full-time workers.

In effect, "Reform is proposing to sell exemption from the UK tax system – reinstating the abolished non-dom privileges in a simplified form but with a cash price attached", said The Guardian. Independent think tank Tax Policy Associates has calculated that the policy could cost the government £34 billion in lost revenue over five years.

Reform's manifesto for last summer's UK general election was described by Farage as "radical" and "outside the box". Its hardline stance on immigration was, unsurprisingly, front and centre.

Reform's plan to "stop the boats" carrying migrants crossing the Channel completely is part of a four-point plan to curb immigration. It would freeze all "non-essential" legal migration and take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights so it can use offshore processing centres to allow "zero illegal migrants" to settle in the UK. It would also set up a new Department of Immigration, take illegal migrants back to France and deport foreign-born criminals at the end of their jail terms.

A planned £50 billion a year reduction in government spending would help fund its manifesto pledges to raise the income tax threshold from £12,571 to £20,000, exempting six million people from having to pay income tax. The party would also scrap VAT on energy bills, lift the VAT threshold on businesses to £150,000, cut fuel duty and corporation tax, and raise the inheritance tax threshold to £2 million.

On energy, the party 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.

Culture war issues also featured prominently in Reform's offer to Red Wall voters. Farage placed "issues and arguments around gender on the very first page" of his party's election manifesto, said The Guardian, condemning the "divisive 'woke' ideology" he claimed had captured public institutions. The party has vowed to ban the teaching of "transgender ideology" in schools and scrap diversity, equality and inclusion rules.

Much of what the party has presented draws on a "largely small-state agenda", said the Financial Times. Farage has 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, 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, said the FT.

What is Reform's strategy to win power?

Farage has proved a canny strategist, said Stephen Pollard in The Daily Telegraph. Having already peeled away many Tory voters, he is now drawing support from Labour's industrial heartlands by presenting Reform UK as, in his words, the "true voice of the ordinary working man and woman".

In a speech at a working men's club in Durham in the run up to May's local elections, Farage expressed solidarity with the trade union movement and demanded the immediate nationalisation of the steel industry. He has also proposed reinstating welfare benefits, backed striking bin workers in Birmingham and encouraged a government takeover of failing water companies.

"Comrade Farage" will probably start belting out all the verses of The Red Flag next, said Andrew Rawnsley in The Observer. It's blatant pandering, backed by no coherent policy programme, but there's no denying that Farage is very good at "exploiting grievance".

There is, of course, an irony in seeing "a privately educated former commodities trader and career politician offering hope for Britain's deindustrialised communities", said The Guardian.

But, as has been demonstrated by many right-wing populists across the world, it is an electoral strategy that can prove highly effective.

"The territory of old Labour is a very natural place for it to reside," said The Spectator. "Boris Johnson showed how you can win an election by conquering the Red Wall. That has become Britain's principal electoral battleground – and Farage's party is a far more convincing occupier of that ground than the Conservatives."