Reform UK reaches 65,000 members – up nearly two thirds in a month

Reform UK’s membership has soared by nearly two thirds in the past month, new figures show.

Nigel Farage’s party, which secured more than four million votes on Thursday, has attracted 25,000 new members since June 8, taking its total base to 65,000.

It reveals a groundswell of support for the party in the final weeks of the election campaign, when Mr Farage set his sights on squeezing both the Tory and Labour vote.

Reform, which ran on a platform of ending non-essential migration, was the third most popular party by vote share on July 4, winning 14 per cent of the vote, two points ahead of the Lib Dems.

But because of the nature of the UK’s electoral system, it won just five seats – or roughly 1 per cent of those on offer.

On Sunday evening, Mr Farage tweeted:

It comes a month to the day after he announced Reform’s membership has reached 40,000, adding: “Something is happening out here.”

Reform’s popularity with voters at the ballot box has prompted senior figures from across the political spectrum to sound the alarm, with Sir Tony Blair warning Sir Keir Starmer that he must control Britain’s borders to see off the threat posed by the insurgent party.

The former Labour prime minister urged his successor to learn from the rise of Marine Le Pen and Georgia Meloni’s populist parties in France and Italy.

He also called on Sir Keir’s government to take a tougher approach to law and order and avoid “any vulnerability” on wokery.

Meanwhile, Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary, has warned her party faces an “existential threat” from Reform.

She tweeted on Monday morning: “There is only space for one Conservative Party in British politics and we face an existential threat from Reform.

“We need to adapt and be credible on immigration, leaving the ECHR, lowering taxation & standing against identity politics.”

Reform has now vowed to set up branches around the country to build on its election success.

Richard Tice, who became the party’s chairman after Mr Farage took over as leader last month, likened it to the early days of companies such as Apple and Microsoft that began as startups in “in a garage”.

Pledging to continue to squeeze the Tory vote, Mr Tice revealed Reform would formalise local groups across the country, in a similar way to Conservative Party associations.

He said: “We’re going to have Reform branches around the country, go forward as a startup, fine-tuning everything, learning and growing and constantly improving, all of the things that Nigel said yesterday.

“We’re going to grow just like any startup in the corporate world. The equivalent would be Apple or any of the tech startups that have grown and grown. Microsoft was founded in a garage, for goodness’ sake.”

Mr Farage has claimed proportional representation would have given his party 97 MPs instead of five.

He said Reform would none the less provide “real opposition” and “build a mass movement for real change” leading up to the next election, at which he believes he will be a serious candidate for prime minister.