Reform UK: what does the party stand for?

The defection of former Tory deputy chair Lee Anderson to Reform marks a "new milestone for the populist party", which is enjoying a remarkable political resurgence.

Anderson, who was elected to parliament in 2019 as the Conservative member for Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, has become "the first ever MP for Reform UK", said The Independent.

Founded by Nigel Farage in 2018 as the single-issue Brexit Party, Reform has surged in the polls over the past year. It has a populist agenda aimed at attracting voters from both the left and right who are frustrated with the two main parties and feel strongly about issues such as immigration and the costs of net zero.

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Farage, who is honorary president of Reform, said Anderson's defection was "bigger" than those to Ukip in 2014, reported The Telegraph. "[Douglas] Carswell and [Mark] Reckless were about re-establishing national sovereignty against a political class, that included a Tory Party, which didn’t want that to happen," he said. "This is about a much bigger issue on how we're governed, how nothing works anymore, how Britain is broken and our political class and media class in Westminster speak an entirely different language to those who live in the real world."

What are its main policies?

Rebranding as Reform following the UK's formal departure from the EU at the start of 2020, the party initially focused on anti-lockdown messages during the pandemic before pivoting to broader right-wing populist themes over the past two years. At the time of its relaunch, Farage and his successor as leader Richard Tice said the party would take on what it saw as "powerful vested interests", identifying the House of Lords and the BBC in particular. "Badly run, wasteful quangos", the Home Office, the "way we vote, law and order, immigration" were all areas they also wanted to "reform".

Today, "the four policies it touts the most are lower taxes, net zero immigration, cheaper energy, and zero waiting lists", said Sky News.

It has taken a particularly hard line on immigration, calling for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights, and use offshore processing centres for illegal immigrants and prevent them from claiming asylum. On energy, the party wants to scrap net zero plans and instead increase drilling for gas and oil. Other policies identified by Sky News include "offering vouchers to go private if you can't see a GP in three days, scrapping interest on student loans, increasing police numbers, keeping 'woke ideologies out of the classroom', abolishing the TV licence fee, reforming the Lords and reducing 'wasteful spending'".

"In a way," said Rachel Cunliffe in The New Statesman, "Anderson represents exactly the kind of voter they want to appeal to: those from working-class communities that historically voted Labour but backed Brexit, gave Boris Johnson a chance in 2019, but who are now feeling abandoned and deeply disappointed."

The party's slogan "Let's Make Britain Great" deliberately harks back to Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" and there are strong parallels with the types of voters both are trying to win over.

Will it impact the election?

Anderson's defection is a "major scalp" for the party, reported Politico, giving it its first MP, as well as being a "major blow" for Rishi Sunak, "whose Conservatives expect a major challenge from Reform on its right flank at the next election".

But it is also worth noting that while Anderson is "well-known in Westminster for his pugnacious style, and has a show on GB News, he is not exactly a major national figure", said the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman. "Arguably a more worrying announcement for the Conservatives would have been the return of Nigel Farage to active campaigning duties."

Despite polling consistently in double digits nationally – and ahead of the Lib Dems – Reform lacks a charismatic campaigning figurehead to turn those votes into seats.

Yet even if it failed to cut through at a constituency level, a strong showing at a general election could prove disastrous for the Conservatives. Farage's decision to stand down Brexit Party candidates in hundreds of Tory-held seats in the 2019 election was seen a key turning point in the campaign and led to Boris Johnson securing a landslide majority.

The idea Reform could split the right vote has been widely touted by Conservatives including Anderson himself, who said recently: "Reform is not the answer. It leaves the door open for Sir Keir Starmer to get into No. 10 and undo all the hard work we have tried to do so far."

The situation now is very different. Reform's "stated aim is to destroy the Tories in their present form", said Sean O'Grady in The Independent, and "what Anderson has done, directly and indirectly, will help Reform, but also Labour and the Lib Dems, do precisely that."