Peter Dorey looks at the rise of Reform UK and the threat Farage’s party poses to both Tories and Labour
In the 2024 general election, Reform UK won five seats, having been supported by 4.1 million voters, representing 14.3% of all votes cast. The seats won were Ashfield, Boston and Skegness, Clacton, Great Yarmouth, and South Basildon and East Thurrock. In Ashfield, the victorious Reform UK candidate was Lee Anderson, who had recently defected from the Conservatives, having won the seat in 2019. Meanwhile, in Clacton, much of Reform UK’s support was doubtless due to the candidature of Nigel Farage, who had announced his return to leadership of the party after the formal announcement of the election: hitherto, Farage had indicated his intention to spend time in the United States to support Donald Trump’s Presidential election campaign. Reform UK also finished in second place in 98 constituencies, often pushing the Conservatives into third place, whereupon Farage boasted that the party (or plc?) would now be targeting the Labour Party.
Who voted for Reform UK?
Support for Reform UK in the 2024 election was strongest among voters who had previously voted for UKIP in the 2015 election, for Brexit in the 2016 EU Referendum, and had supported either the Brexit Party or Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in 2019, determined to “get Brexit done”. This support was strongest among distinct demographics. According to the detailed post-election survey conducted by YouGov[1], Reform UK’s popularity was greatest among older, poorer, and less-educated (in a formal or academic sense), sections of British society: 18% of the 60-69 age cohort voted for Reform UK, compared to 9.5% of the 18-29 age group.
In terms of socio-economic status, 20% of the working class supported Reform UK, compared to 11% of the middle and professional classes. Educationally, 23% of those with GCSEs (or no academic qualifications) – ie, who had left school at 15 or 16 – voted for Reform UK, compared to 8% of those who had a university degree. There was also a discernible gendered division, with 17% of men supporting Reform UK compared to 12% of women.
There is clearly a considerable overlap between these demographic characteristics. For example, citizens with fewer academic qualifications are generally more likely to work in less well-paid jobs, and have fewer opportunities for career advancement and promotion (and the higher salaries this entails). Moreover, in the 1950s, only 3% of the population went to university, and most people left school at the age of 14 or 15 to work in a local factory, industry or shop. Hence there were few opportunities for today’s older generation to pursue well-paid careers and professions, enjoy further/higher education, and experience other cultures via travelling overseas or “gap years”. Instead, many of them lived and worked in the same town throughout their whole lives, and quite possibly developed a strong sense of community, coupled with a suspicion of “outsiders” and dislike of social change.
In turn, many such citizens have been compelled, by lack of opportunities and material circumstances, to live in poorer areas characterised by cheaper, lower-quality, housing, and fewer civic amenities or decent public services. This can then breed anger or resentment, which Right-wing populist parties like Reform UK exploit, by blaming such hardships on immigration and/or the out-of-touch “liberal elite” who have supposedly abandoned the working-class.
The attitudes and values of Reform UK supporters
Reform UK reflects a strong strain of cultural conservatism and social authoritarianism in parts of British (albeit primarily English) society, particularly among the working- and lower middle-class or petit-bourgeoisie. Another recent YouGov poll[2] of Reform UK supporters found that:
- 85% believe that courts are too lenient when sentencing criminals.
- 78% believe that multiculturalism has been bad for Britain.
- 77% want the death penalty restored for some crimes.
- 69% think that people should not be legally permitted to change their gender.
- 61% believe that governments have done/spent too much to reduce carbon emissions.
- 60% think that welfare benefits in the UK are too generous.
- 51% believe that governments are taxing too much, and spending too much, on public services.
In effect, most Reform UK supporters are deeply unhappy with the ways that Britain has changed in recent decades, and are convinced that what liberals call “progress” has actually been deeply damaging, and destructive of tradition; they want to turn back the clock to some imagined “golden age’, presumably in the 1950s.
However, although its socio-cultural conservatism and authoritarianism clearly places Reform UK on the radical/populist Right, its supporters also evince support for a few values and policies which are normally associated with the Left. For example, 73% of Reform UK supporters believe that ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the nation’s wealth, and 71% think that utilities like energy, water and railways should be under public ownership.
How Reform UK damaged the Conservatives (and benefitted Labour) in 2024
The bulk of Reform UK’s 2024 electoral support emanated from former Conservative voters who had been angered by the ousting of Boris Johnson (who had “got Brexit done”) and disillusioned by Rishi Sunak’s premiership. One of the Hard Right’s complaints of the Sunak government was that it was not truly Conservative, due to presiding over high(er) public spending and taxes, and failing to “stop the boats”. There were also complaints that Sunak pandered too much to “woke” issues and environmentalism, and thus ceded far too much ideological ground to the Left.
The extent to which Reform UK attracted the bulk of its support from the Conservatives is clear from comparing the latter’s 2024 support with its support in 2019. In 2019, the Conservatives had won 14 million votes, which represented 43% of all votes cast, but in 2024, its support fell to just under 7 million votes, and a share of 24%, compared to Reform UK’s 4 million votes, and 14% share. Although the Conservatives lost some support both to Labour, and the Liberal Democrats, the largest loss of votes was clearly to Reform UK.
In many constituencies, the Conservatives” loss of votes to Reform UK was sufficient to allow Labour or the Liberal Democrats to win the parliamentary seat. For example, in Redcar, the Conservatives won 12,340 votes, which was 6,471 fewer votes than they won in 2019. However, Reform UK won 7,216 votes, which enabled Labour to win the seat with only 379 votes more than it had won in 2019. This pattern was replicated in dozens of other seats, to the clear advantage of Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
Reform UK and a new schism on the British Right
The Conservatives now face a serious electoral and ideological dilemma. Many on the Party’s Right are urging it to move closer to Reform UK to win back these lost votes by 2029, but the risk of this strategy is that the Conservative Party loses even more of its “moderate” or “One Nation” supporters to Labour and the Liberal Democrats. On the other hand, if the Conservatives seek to move back towards the centre-ground, Reform UK will probably attract even more support from those Tories who view such a shift as an abandonment or betrayal of “true Conservatism”. The British Right now faces the prospect of years of bitter infighting, factionalism, and fragmentation.
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