Reform UK
Reform UK is the latest project of the Brexit Party to give it relevance four years after Brexit was achieved. The project had two phases: In November 2020, the party was suddenly renamed; and in June 2024, co-founder Nigel Farage stopped insisting he had no electoral ambitions (apart from going to America and cheerleading for Donald Trump's attempt to return to power), and after he stopped twisting his own arm, consented to stand for Parliament in the snap election set for July 2024.
Reform UK's putative leader, impresario Richard Tice (left in photo), consented to become Farage's beta male upon being convinced that his party would need more than Tice's neat bookkeeping, but actual heady rhetoric like Farage's, if it were to exceed its performance in the 2020 General Election — something that Farage could achieve by winning a single seat.
Reform UK are a populist-radical-right party. Their ambition is to replace the Conservative Party, declare war against France and be part of a new axis of Trumpian America, Putinist Russia and probably North Korea — a newborn Axis of Suddenly Relevant.
The party believes the government of Rishi Sunak is a crypto-Communist, fake Tory outfit and that Great Britain is crying out for a Farage premiership. Come July 2024, there will be an answer.
Origins[edit]
Brexit was the move to get Britain out of the European Union. When the goal was finally achieved in January 2020, it left the Brexit Party with a frantic search for a raison d'être, if one may go Continental again. 'Declare victory and go home' may have suited the Yanks after Vietnam, but Farage and his money-bags Tice didn't have a home.
However, the widespread expectation that leaving the EU would stop migration, save money, and mean a lot of free stuff was overtaken by reality. Thus Farage and Tice decided to 'keep the band together' and created the Reform UK party. It would be an organisation with a difference: Instead of party members having a say in policy decisions, these would be decided at the top. You could become a follower, subscriber and cheerleader but otherwise if Farage or Tice wanted to pursue votes in a certain direction, Reform UK would go there. It would be a limited company like the previous Brexit Party.
At first, the Reform party seemed eccentric. Boris Johnson was the Prime Minister who had made Brexit happen, so what was the point of a Reform outfit? It seemed destined to dwindle into pointlessness, like the limping UKIP, which was continually shedding both members and Members of Parliament.
Immigration and Woke[edit]
The Conservative government had promised that Brexit would stop people from coming to Britain looking for work (excepting footballers and financiers). But people kept crossing the English Channel in rubber boats from France. The French would do nothing about it; they had their own immigration issues from North Africa. So let the Brits deal with their own unwanted visitors — which could only be done once their boats washed up in Dover. Handling 'illegal' migrants raised issues about the 'legal' ones, and Farage and Company saw a mission. So the Reform UK party was launched in November 2020.
Aware that anti-immigration did not fill a manifesto, Reform UK also became anti-Covid-lockdown, anti-climate change, and anti-'Woke'. Farage hoped for an ally in his old friend Donald Trump. However, Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. Still, Farage and Reform UK remained staunch Trumpsters.
Uninspired Leadership[edit]
Despite an apparent range of targets to aim for the Reform party was stuck at around 3% of the national vote. Farage didn't want to be leader so supported his friend Richard Tice to become leader. Since Tice was also the main financial backer (possibly the only one), it seemed like a good idea he ran the company..er party as well. Tice did.
Politics is about impressions and Tice was poor at that. He looked like someone who would defraud your granny from her pension with some wacky financial nonsense. Farage for his part decided to pursue a career as a television host and got a gig on the new rightwing TV channel GBNews.
Reform were not expecting that the Conservative party would implode in 2022 as first Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss saw their administrations collapse over lies, incompotence and a lettuce. From this wreckage emerged Rishi Sunak. Though he had lost against Truss for leadership and the premiereship, he was installed in both positions without a vote. This had been in fear that Boris Johnson would make a rapid return.
Yet the Reform party appeared to gain no benefit from this Tory collapse. The beneficiaries were the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party by winning parliamentary seats.
Return of Farage[edit]
The flatlining of the Conservative Party in the polls showed that Sunak wasn't cutting through. By 2024 the polling gap between the Conservatives and Labour was often over 20%. Labour leader Keir Starmer was now a serious contender for No.10. Farage got the electoral itch. He wanted to get back in there. But he had no role in the Reform party except that as a main shareholder. So once Sunak called a surprise General Election for July 2023 , Farage at first said he wasn't going to stand. The Tories thought they had seen off Reform for this election. And then Farage changed his mind. He would run for a seat after all.
The news broke the Conservative Party morale.
Future?[edit]
Farage and the Reform party hope history will repeat what happened to the old Canadian Progressive Conservative Party. It lost all its seats in Parliament bar two in the 1993 General Election. Canada's Conservative party nemesis was an outfit called...Reform.