Nigel farage

On Monday night, a hundred Reform staff and donors met at a Marylebone pub to toast the local election results. A jubilant Nigel Farage addressed his troops, who ran up a five-figure bill. They had good reason to celebrate. With 30 per cent of the vote, Reform crushed Labour (20 per cent) and the Tories (15 per cent). They won 677 wards, ten councils and a fifth MP in the Runcorn by-election. Certain results were particularly satisfying: in Ed Miliband’s Doncaster North, Reform won more seats than any other party. Three speeches defined Reform’s campaign. First, there was the Birmingham rally at the end of March. Farage arrived on a JCB digger, presenting himself as a ‘Mr Fixit’ for the woes of ‘Broken Britain’.

I have read countless commentaries explaining why we shouldn’t take Reform’s victories last Thursday too seriously. They are all wrong. I have the distinct impression that these were the most significant election results for a good few decades. Up here in the north, everyone I know voted Reform. More importantly, when I used to ask people how they voted, they would beckon me to one side and, through a cupped hand, whisper ‘Reform’. Now they say it out loud and proud. And the apology is because I had doubted Reform’s ability to climb above 30 per cent – the crucial figure. I also doubted that they were serious enough about the Blue Labour/SDP levelling-up stuff. And I doubted their ability to make serious inroads into local government. All of this was wrong too.

My contention was always that Reform UK would struggle to reach 30 per cent in the polls and, while the party is edging upwards, that still seems to be a ceiling. However, the latest MRP poll in the Sun suggests that, for Nigel Farage to become our next Prime Minister, the party need not gain much more support than it is currently attracting. The Sun had Farage on course to win 180 seats, largely by polling at about 30 per cent in some of the red wall constituencies. Labour and the Conservatives were each predicted to gain 165 seats. In such a finely balanced parliament, discussions about a Conservative–Reform deal would become otiose: a Reform–Conservative coalition would almost certainly emerge, regardless of any prior negotiations.

When MPs and peers were recalled to parliament for an emergency debate on renationalising British Steel, one man was the talk of the terrace: Nigel Farage. Out by the river, a Labour peer congratulated the Reform leader for ‘leading on everything’. After all, Farage had been in Scunthorpe days earlier calling for steel nationalisation.  Since I started covering British politics for The Spectator ten years and six prime ministers ago, there have been plenty of times when an insurgent party appeared to be on the rise. In 2015, the ascent of Ukip contributed to David Cameron’s decision to call a referendum on EU membership. Then in 2019, the success of the Brexit party in the European elections spurred many Tories into backing Boris Johnson for leader.

It is 50 years since Margaret Thatcher was elected Tory leader and at this week’s shadow cabinet meeting, Lord Forsyth was invited as guest speaker to mark the occasion. He noted the similarities between 1975 and 2025. Back then the party was broke, reeling from defeat and facing the fallout from a reorganisation of local government. But, despite threadbare resources, Thatcher managed to rebuild to win power four years later. ‘You have the potential to do the same,’ Forsyth told Kemi Badenoch. Yet there is a crucial difference between then and now: a rival on the right. Nigel Farage’s Reform party is vying with Badenoch to inherit Thatcher’s mantle. Each leader is competing for the same voters, members and donors.

In 1603, James VI managed to do what few thought possible. The self-styled first King of Great Britain succeeded in bringing the ‘auld enemies’ of Scotland and England under one monarch. That union of the crowns is a topic of chatter and inspiration for the British right these days. Admirers of Nigel Farage now talk about the ‘James I model’. The idea is simple: could the two warring tribes of the Conservatives and Reform be brought together under one leader? The next general election may be nearly four years away, but it’s telling that such conversations are already taking place. With every new opinion poll, Conservative MPs grow a little more anxious. The Tories often poll third behind Reform and Labour.

‘We’ve had enough of living in two-tier Britain,’ bellows Nigel Farage to cheers from an 800-strong crowd at Chester’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, where he is holding court. ‘There is not a single person on that Labour frontbench who’s ever worked in private business,’ the Reform leader declares. ‘So, is it any wonder they’re making such a Horlicks of it?’ Chester is the sixth stop on Farage’s new year tour, which was initially intended to sound a steady drumbeat in the lead-up to May’s local elections. Since those plans were made, however, Labour has announced a devolution shake-up that could allow various councils to delay their elections by a year. ‘It’s pretty full on,’ Farage says, when we meet on the sidelines of the event.