Reform UK and Farage: Children of the British Political Establishment

Reform UK made major gains in the 1 May local elections across England, emerging as the leading party with 31% of the vote and taking control of 10 councils, including traditionally Conservative strongholds such as Kent, Staffordshire, and Lancashire. The party also captured Doncaster from Labour and won the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election by just six votes. Both Labour and the Conservatives suffered their worst local election results on record, losing around two-thirds of their council seats and failing to retain any councils they previously controlled. The Conservatives lost all 16 councils they had held, while Labour saw major losses in Durham and Doncaster.

In contrast, the Liberal Democrats gained control of three councils, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, and Shropshire, and increased their presence in the South and South West. The Greens also more than doubled their number of councillors. The BBC’s projected national share suggests that if all councils had held elections, Labour, and the Conservatives would have secured only 35% of the vote combined, a historic low, placing the Conservatives in fourth nationally.

Reform UK also made a breakthrough in mayoral races, winning the two new mayoralties in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire. Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory MP, won in Lincolnshire with 42% of the vote. Reform came second in three Labour-held mayoralties, narrowly missing victory in North Tyneside and Doncaster. The results signal a dramatic weakening of the traditional two-party system and a surge in support for protest-driven, populist alternatives.

Wojciech Albert Łobodziński discusses these developments with Aaron Winter, a Senior Lecturer in sociology at Lancaster University. His research focuses on the far right, examining its relationship with mainstream politics. He is co-author, with Aurelien Mondon, of the book Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream. 

What is your assessment of the by-elections? There has been considerable discussion, with some suggesting they mark the end of the two-party system in Great Britain. You’ve been observing the rise of Reform UK for some time — how do you interpret these developments?

The results were pretty bad for those targeted by Reform, and pretty good for Reform itself. Still, I wouldn’t say this marks the end of the two-party system. Reform may be presented as an alternative and threat to the establishment, but I don’t believe it really is one.

It serves largely the same interests as the main establishment parties, and its focus is clearly on supplanting the Tories. We’ve seen this before — like in Canada a couple of decades ago, in the 90s and 2000s, where a right-wing Reform Party, later Canadian Alliance, emerged from the West and overtook and then merged with the Conservatives, who would move further right, but maintain their name, hegemony, and competition with the second major party, the Liberals. 

The reason I don’t see Reform as a true alternative is that it was designed not to threaten the mainstream.

Its core ideas — anti-immigration, anti-human rights, anti-environment, anti-labour — have also already been absorbed by both the Conservatives and Labour. These parties have continually adopted such positions as if that’s how you see off the ‘threat’ and as if those issues, such as immigration, and the far right, are the only things that matter, in addition to power. There is room for a multi-party system, and we certainly need one — but with genuine alternatives that aren’t rooted in far-right or fascist ideology.

Reform UK, despite its image, is deeply establishment. It’s backed by millionaires and wealthy donors who present themselves as populists who represent the working class instead of the status quo and capitalist interests. What’s disturbing is that Reform’s success isn’t due to radical new ideas, but have been accepted as such and shifted the political debate far right. 

Reform had a strong showing for its first major outing, but the Liberal Democrats and Greens also made gains. The Greens especially represent a real alternative and challenge to the status quo, especially in their response to the climate crisis.

Didn’t the Lib Dems actually outflank Labour from the left last year — on housing, for instance?

Yes, that has happened on single issues. They’ve done it before. But Labour has moved so far to the right that calling them centrist doesn’t even seem accurate any more. In contrast, the Greens challenge the system on several fronts — from the environment and inequality to immigration, racism, Palestine, and wider foreign policy.

We also saw the Tories collapse, and Labour seeing their support decline too. What this shows is the illusion of Reform being a real success story and alternative. Reform isn’t offering anything new — just a repackaging of ideas already embraced by establishment parties that chase and pander to them and their imagined supporters.

But what exactly was Reform UK’s programme? I couldn’t find anything up-to-date on their website. Just a short, vague document from a year ago — more slogans than substance. So what were they really offering at the local level?

That’s a common pattern with far-right parties. They tend to reject detailed manifestos, claiming that they’re too bureaucratic or unreadable. Instead, they distil their message into a few emotionally resonant points — usually built around grievance, reaction, and what they call common sense.

At the same time in media appearances of Reform’s politicians there was a wider anti-woke agenda, it was against DEI, against sort of various environmental policies and so-called wokeness in education. All together – a total nonsense.

Nevertheless, there were some proposed solutions relating to material reality. They’ve also adopted long-standing right-wing positions around taxes, as well as scrapping what’s left of HS2 — the rail link originally meant to bring investment to the North. That’s part of the image Farage cultivates: speaking for the working class, the North, and the “left behind.” But when you look at their actual policies aimed at these groups, they’re mostly “cultural” — anti-immigration, anti-woke — not infrastructural or socioeconomic.

They did mention more funding for the NHS, but it’s unclear what that really means. It reminds me of the Brexit bus which stated “We send the EU £350 million a week, let’s fund our NHS instead” — a big promise without a clear plan that ends up with nothing delivered and possibly even greater damage done. And even that raises questions: who would staff this NHS if they’re cutting immigration? Their stance also includes attacks on nationalised healthcare, public funding, and higher education — the very systems needed to do research, train NHS staff and provide care.

So is this just the British version of the MAGA movement? The aesthetics and political framing seem similar.

I’m cautious about that comparison, though they’ve definitely been emboldened by it. Reform UK’s chair, for example, claims young people “hate Britain” and need moral re-education. This argument — that the youth have betrayed the nation — appears across the Western far right: in Poland, the U.S., Canada. Each claims their country is in the worst shape, and they feed off each other’s narratives.

While MAGA has influenced and embolden them, figures like Elon Musk questioning Farage’s leadership push him to double down on more openly far-right positions. That includes patriotism and culture war themes — all grounded in longer-standing British tropes: WWII nostalgia, national pride, and exceptionalism. The far right has been given a platform in Britain for over a decade, including by liberal media.

Farage himself is treated like a kind of unofficial opposition leader, even when he loses. That reinforces his dual role as politician and influencer — someone who shapes political debate even without electoral success. Again and again, his themes set the tone for national politics.

Why did so many Tory voters switch to Reform UK?

I haven’t looked through all the data yet, but my instinct is that these results reflect protest voting. Not a protest against “the system” as it’s often framed, but against the current or previous government.

The Tories are still trying to fight on those terms — but they’re widely seen as having failed. Labour may be in a similar position, yet they’re still labelled as “left-wing” or “woke” by some, which helps Reform attract voters who’d never consider Labour but previously voted Tory.

Labour’s strategy of chasing far-right votes isn’t working. Reform gains from that — not because people are convinced by their policies, but because they’re new and untainted by government baggage. The Tories can’t win by presenting themselves as anti-woke insurgents while being the establishment. They end up caught in the middle: too compromised, too familiar.

That said, history shows far-right movements like Reform typically collapse. They rise as the “next big threat” but frequently fall apart, especially once mainstream parties adapt and absorb parts of their agenda. That doesn’t mean things improve — in fact, when the centre shifts rightward, the hate and discrimination persist. People impacted by racism, misogyny, transphobia, Islamophobia — they still suffer.

Another recurring issue is far-right infighting.

Yes, there were a lot of rumours before the election about splits in Reform UK — that Farage is a showman, not a party manager. For months, it looked like they might collapse, and then suddenly: these big wins.

I think you’re right, though I don’t think Farage’s lack of managerial skills is the key issue. What matters more is the weak internal infrastructure — they’re new, bringing together people from different backgrounds and parties. That makes them appear grassroots and non-establishment, which works during a campaign. But it’s a liability when it comes to actual governance.

A good example is Farage and Jenkins in Lincolnshire, both promising to fire council workers involved in DEI or environmental policy — jobs they don’t actually control. Farage isn’t an HR manager. Their rejection of expertise is part of their appeal, but it also shows how little they understand about public service or political responsibility.

It seems that while they’re so focused on immigrant labour, they seem to know nothing about labour at all — not about labour rights, law, or resourcing. That ignorance might even be part of their brand. They claim to speak for “ordinary people,” but in practice, they lack the basic knowledge required to govern. Still, they managed to hold through the infighting before the election. Elections can be moments of temporary unity — if a party has discipline. Reform doesn’t; Farage almost never does.

We’ve already seen a Reform member, Donna Edmunds, get suspended and then quit over internal conflicts — specifically, with Farage. But Farage has shown he can survive these storms. He’s mobile, adaptable — when he leaves, the party usually declines, but may have already been headed that way. The question is whether Reform is even sustainable with him leading. It’s early days and that remains to be seen. Infighting and instability seem baked into the far right. These movements often rebrand and re-emerge, prioritising their own ideological purity and figureheads over the country. That says a lot.

Let’s shift to Labour now. There’s this YouGov data — and a tweet from one of the Labour’s MPs, Richard Burgon — listing why former Labour voters left: cuts to winter fuel allowance, no relief on cost of living, poor public services, broken promises, and failure to stand up to the powerful. Do you agree these are Labour’s main issues?

Yes, especially in the case of Runcorn and Helsby for example, which used to be Labour’s fortress.

But during this election Sarah Pochin, a candidate for the Reform, won the by-election to the British Parliament by six votes, defeating Karen Shore from the Labour Party. After multiple recounts in the Runcorn and Helsby constituency, it was announced that Pochin had won 12,645 votes, and Shore 12,639. According to Sky News, this is the closest by-election result since 1945. 

That was close. I think those are all factors — but part of a broader issue. Labour just isn’t offering anything distinct. Their platform is essentially a watered-down version of what the Tories and Reform are pushing — but repackaged to seem “not Tory.” Now they are the establishment, yet still allow themselves to be labelled as woke or left-wing, which is nonsense.

They’ve become obsessed with what the far right is doing — and what their donors want. There’s also been a clear effort to sever ties with the left entirely. Internally and externally, they’re targeting the same groups and figures that the Tories and far right do. That’s not a winning strategy.

Labour’s bought into the myth that voters harmed by the cost of living crisis want harsher immigration controls, pro-business policy, lower taxes, less focus on the environment, more industry, and “anti-wokeness.” They signal all that — while simultaneously reviving austerity, cutting the welfare state, and telling the poor to endure more suffering “for the greater good.”

Yeah, no fuel allowances, no scrapping of child’s benefit…

Exactly. And no real progressive or constructive action on housing, the NHS — nothing. So when people talk about the “left behind” working class voting Reform, I don’t really buy that. But for those who might be inclined to do so, Labour is actively pushing them away in terms of material interests, concerns, and needs.

Material needs matter. And this whole anti-immigration narrative is a distraction — one that harms people and hides the policies that genuinely hurt those suffering most from inequality. And Labour isn’t just playing along; they’re doubling down. “Oh, the distraction isn’t enough? Here’s more of it — front and centre.”

Do you think there’s room for a rise on the left, not Corbyn himself, but maybe the Greens, or an insurgency in the Labour? 

I’ve long argued that we require something new on the left — not like Reform, but something that truly challenges the system. The political spectrum keeps shifting right, and we desperately need a force to push back — one that addresses racism, gender, and capitalism seriously, not as performance.

The right isn’t going to do that. It’s not what they do. They don’t engage in structural or material analysis. Instead, they use the working class as a stand-in for systemic racism, rather than confronting inequality head-on.

The widespread hatred of Corbyn — even from centrists and so-called centre-left figures — shows how little hope being offered from or inside Labour. That doesn’t mean hope is impossible, but the party machinery is built and functioning to crush the alternative that would bring it. 

We do have a Green Party — and I’ve been asking for a long time, especially after the last national election: why is Reform seen as the only alternative? The Greens only won one seat, but it’s not just about numbers — their issues simply don’t receive the same political or media attention. Still, I think we’re seeing growth now.

Aaron Bastani said on Novara Media that if the Greens had mobilised properly, Labour might have collapsed just like the Conservatives. They missed the opportunity.

But I think that’s changing — you can already see some mobilisation in the last 24 hours. Zack Polanski just announced his candidacy for party leader. There’s real energy, especially among younger voters, for a green, left-wing political vision. It’s been called “eco-populism” — I’m not a fan of the term, particularly as I think it reflects the idea that we need a Reform-style disruption from the left and “populism” has functioned as a euphemism for racism and the far right.

While I dislike the term “populism,” the Greens’ positions — on the environment, immigration, Palestine, foreign policy, militarism — show where genuine resistance and alternative politics could emerge. Of course, there’s a lot to do — the Greens still lack the infrastructure of the establishment parties and both attention and momentum Reform now enjoys, especially in the media and political mainstream who actually may be less threatened by them.

But after these local elections, that momentum for Reform will likely grow more. It’s crucial that the media and establishment recognise that there are other political forces at play, alternatives available, issues to deal with and constituencies to represent other than those that are reactionary. They should be taken seriously. That is how to safeguard democracy.    

Cover photo: Former and current Reform MPs, Nigel Farage first from the right.

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