What does Reform UK stand for?

Of the current party leaders in Westminster, the one with the best chance of becoming prime minister at the next general election is Nigel Farage. That, at least, is the finding of a new poll, which suggests that his party will win 180 seats, said Andrew Fisher in The i Paper.

However things turn out then, Reform UK is certainly on track to do well in local elections in England on 1 May. Many of these are in the Midlands and the south, in places where the resurgent Conservatives swept the board when the seats were last contested in 2021. The Tories thus have most to lose next week. But Labour will be worried, too. If, as seems all too likely, the party loses the Runcorn and Helsby by-election and one or more of the four city-region mayoralty races – which are being held on the same day – it will heap more pressure on Keir Starmer's unpopular government. Chances are, Farage will be the only one smiling on 2 May.

Reform is well placed to benefit from Labour's slump and the Tories' continuing disarray, but it won't have the field to itself, said Robert Ford in The Observer. The revived Lib Dems and the Greens have also been surging in recent local elections and are likely to make further gains. Indeed, this is set to be "the first true five-party local election contest".

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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 following the UK's formal departure from the EU at the start of 2020.

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 "speak an entirely different language to those who live in the real world", said The Telegraph.

Despite running an at-times chaotic and amateurish ground game, the party still secured millions of votes in July's general election. The UK's first-past-the-post electoral system meant this only translated into five MPs, but crucially it came second in 98 seats, 89 of which were won by Labour.

What are Reform's policies?

Reform UK 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.

In a column published in The Telegraph to announce the party's relaunch in 2020, Farage and former party leader Richard Tice vowed to take on "powerful vested interests", including "badly run, wasteful quangos", the BBC, the House of Lords and the Home Office.

Reform's manifesto for last summer's UK general election was described by Farage as "radical" and "outside the box" and put a hardline stance on immigration 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 illegal 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 for illegal immigrants and prevent them from claiming asylum.

Shrinking the size of the state and reducing the tax burden is another key pledge Reform hopes will win over disillusioned voters. 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.

Reform's manifesto promised a referendum on the current voting system and in what Politico said is "another pledge that brings Farage's party in line with many of the left", it also called for the unelected House of Lords to be replaced with a "much smaller, more democratic second chamber".

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 recent speech in a working men's club in Durham, he expressed solidarity with the trade union movement and demanded the immediate nationalisation of the steel industry. "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".

The May local elections are key for Reform, said Ben Walker in The New Statesman. If the party's momentum does translate into widespread council-seat gains, it could "break the mould of politics in Britain". If it falls short, however, all the talk of Farage leading the largest party come the next election will prove to have been "little more than noise".