Why Reform UK is doing so well

Nigel Farage was named "Newcomer of the Year" last week at Westminster's answer to the Oscars, The Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year awards, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail.

The award was, of course, tongue-in-cheek: Farage, not exactly a newcomer, had finally managed to get elected as an MP. The man himself, however, was in no mood for jokes. "I've got a bit of a shock for you," he declared. "Politics is about to change in the most astonishing way." He went on to vow that he would win the next election. This met with a "stunned silence" as those present reflected that "he might well be right".

Reform UK won more than four million votes in the last election, about 14% of the total. A poll last week put it on 24%, ahead of Labour, on 23%, for the first time, and only two points behind the Tories. Most polls now give it at least 20%. It's time to take Reform "seriously".

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'Electrifying USP'

It's obvious why Reform UK is doing so well, said Janice Turner in The Times. The most recent immigration figures – 906,000 people added to the British population in the year to June 2023 – were mind-boggling. At his big relaunch last week, Keir Starmer, bizarrely, chose to say nothing at all about this. Reform now has "an electrifying USP": it is positioning itself as the truth-sayer on an issue that other parties refuse to address. Lack of housing, rising rents, overstretched infrastructure – Farage makes no bones about blaming migration for all this. And he must be at least partly right. It looked as if Britain had swerved the populist revolt. But "maybe Starmer is our Biden and we're just one election behind".

The political landscape suits Farage perfectly, said George Eaton in The New Statesman. "The UK has an unpopular government and an unpopular opposition." This is an age of voter volatility in which the public is less tribal than ever. But equally, Farage has clear weaknesses. He is personally unpopular; and the right-wing vote will be split between Reform UK and the Conservatives.

A cash injection

There's another crucial factor that could boost Reform, said Daniel Finkelstein in The Times. It was rumoured last week that Elon Musk would donate $100m to the party. Musk denied it; but Reform would certainly know what to do with the cash. There was a time when money didn't matter that much in British politics, because parties can't buy TV ads, which for decades were "by far the most impactful form of political communication".

But it's now possible to buy online advertising of a very targeted and effective kind. Fundraising may, in time, become as important here as it is in the US. "Money has just begun its ascent to the political throne."