Most political commentary in the aftermath of the recent UK local and devolved elections has, understandably, focused on the Labour Party and the slow but now seemingly inevitable demise of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.
As morbidly gripping as Starmer’s downfall may be to witness, it has obscured analysis of where the local elections leave the party which won those elections, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.
There is little doubt that the May 7 results were a triumph for Reform, consolidating its position as the leading party in the polls, and showing it is, uniquely in the current British political landscape, a truly national party able to command support across regional and class divides. And yet, Reform’s leadership and supporters were probably also left with a tinge of disappointment about the results, with their projected national vote share slightly lower than a year ago, translating to a scenario where Reform would likely be the largest party but lacking a majority if there were a General Election today.
This is a problem for Reform’s ambitious project, given the sheer scale of the changes it seeks to make – and the opposition it will court – in its objective to roll back the legacy of Tony Blair’s political reforms, later embedded by successive Conservative governments. Reform’s Danny Kruger, who has been tasked with the job of preparing for government, admitted as much in an enlightening recent podcast interview with James Orr, where he acknowledged that his party would need a significant electoral mandate to be able to drive through its planned reforms.
What does Reform need to do to turn a good night two weeks ago into ensuring an even better night at the next General Election that gains the party a sizeable majority? There is much that could be said, but there are two particular areas, concerning both substance and tone, which would help the party hoover up wavering Labour and Conservative voters who may be disillusioned with their traditional tribes, but have so far been stubbornly resistant to jumping ship to Reform.
First, the party must pursue genuine conservatism to win over Red Wall traditional Labour voters. This may sound counter-intuitive, but traditional working-class Brits are attracted to the small ‘c’ conservatism espoused by Reform’s slogan of ‘family, community, country’, and the societal bonds represented by each of these strands, those connections that provide a sense of belonging and rootedness.
These connections contrast with the pseudo-conservative focus on radical individualism which has been too prominent in modern distortions of Conservative thought, whereby personal liberty – not unimportant – is emphasised at the expense of historic loyalties, responsibilities, and duties. This is the politics that has given us unrestrained globalisation, the decline of the traditional family and questionable human rights legal frameworks. It is also the first cousin of the modern Left’s equal obsession with the individual, focused on the right to self-expression and self-identification, even when it comes at the expense of others’ welfare or reality itself, most obviously expressed in trans rights activism.
Red Wall Labour voters hold such elite ideologies with contempt. Brexit was a rebellion against such worldviews. Nigel Farage instinctively understands this and his own politics, as exemplified by his party’s slogan, has increasingly focused less on free-market Thatcherism and more on the social ties that create the shared values which enable patriotism – and, ironically, individuals – to truly flourish and be free.
And yet, Farage has in recent months been driven into a reluctant, at least temporary, retreat. In a revealing recent interview, he explained that he had been forced to back down on his desire to promote family life through fiscal policies that promote marriage and having children; similarly, plans to review the State Pension triple lock – and thereby support younger generations – have had, for now, to be jettisoned.
Farage’s nuanced proposal to remove the two-child benefit cap for British families in work was a policy that would have appealed to small-c conservatives on Right and Left if it had been properly understood, since it appealed to patriotism, putting British working families first, while also incentivising families through the welfare system. The policy was, however, both misrepresented and derided as welfarism, and was unfairly attacked by too many conservatives who should have known better and still seem unable to grasp that birth rate decline is a ticking time bomb that governments must address. It is refreshing that Farage himself recognises the problem.
Politics, sadly, must involve the art of the possible. The Left has changed society incrementally and sometimes leaders have to move the Overton window and make the case for policy platforms over time. Notwithstanding this, one must hope that Farage does not permanently abandon his pro-family instincts. What was dismissed as welfarism was actually grounded in conservatism – further evidence of how ideologically confused the modern Right is. Farage’s instincts on these issues represented a classical conservative outlook that would unite ordinary British people from Right and Left, the coalition Reform must build to win a healthy majority. If Reform can find a way to promote such policies in the coming years, it will take more voters from Labour.
However, Reform must also win over further Conservative voters and this is where tone as well as substance matter. While the Conservative Party’s supposed recent resurgence may have been overstated, the party has seemingly stopped shedding support and, for now, hit its floor. Reform may be dominant in coastal England and left-behind industrial towns but Conservative support in the shires, and a few small affluent pockets of London, remains stubborn among right-leaning voters. Reform needs to eat into Tory support further to gain a mandate for the ‘Great Restoration’ it seeks, a restoration that ought to be appeal to many ‘shire’ Tories, of which Danny Kruger (whom I wrote about here) and his East Wiltshire constituency are emblematic.
Kruger speaks regularly of evolution not revolution, an approach that chimes with the British conservative mindset. And yet, the tone and language of some of those near the top of Reform is less that of the moderate, understated conservative and more of the angry revolutionary, tearing down anyone that stands in their way. Voters who might instinctively to be sympathetic to Reform see such rhetoric on social media and in public discourse, and recoil. The brash, overstated tone, the unnecessary, thin-skinned abuse levelled at critical friends via spats on X, and the sometimes unpleasant and arrogant dismissal of contrary views plays badly with a portion of the electorate Reform must win over.
Politics has, sadly, always been a vicious game. But a leading, even if largely baseless, concern among many who might vote for Reform, is that it is a party of uncouth populist extremists. Language that is humble, moderate, gracious to opponents, measured, nuanced and unifying rather than divisive and rude would, over time, change the party’s image and win over more cautious conservatives. Indeed, it is possible to say stronger things about, for example, immigration or Islam, when hard truths are delivered in a tone that is softer and measured. At the moment, however, the X posts of a few senior Reform figures too often reinforce a stereotype the party would do well to shed.
All parties need to be a coalition to some extent, but commitment to family, community and country must be non-negotiable for Reform and shape its policies in every area, including taxation. To his credit, Farage has appointed around him advisers who understand this; their role must be to bolster Farage’s natural instincts and make the case, with British politeness, for political views that would have widespread support if they were properly communicated. If Reform can get the tone right – showing it has grown up from righteously indignant political upstarts to a mature government-in-weighting – combined with extolling policies that appeal to Middle England – such as increased defence spending, protecting the countryside, safeguarding private schools and scrapping inheritance tax – it could win over the Shires and gain the mandate it requires to transform the nation.
The author is an anonymous conservative withholding their name for professional reasons that require neutrality on party political matters.
