Five Reasons why Reform won’t beat the Conservatives: There’s lots of focus on whether Reform will outpoll the Conservatives on the 4th July. Here’s why we believe it is unlikely that they will win more votes and certainly won’t win more seats than the Conservatives. - Reform isn’t standing in every constituency and so are hampered in their national vote share. There are forty-one seats where voters don’t have a Reform candidate to vote for which means that would have to significantly outperform the Conservatives in the other 609 seats. - They don’t have a ground-game that will get their vote out. It sounds strange to those not involved in politics, but party machines can be effective at turning out their supporters to vote. Reform just don’t have the organic or established community connections that the Conservatives have. And while the Tories’ have lost much of their local capacity after the defeat of so many councillors, they still have those all-important local tentacles. - Reform’s vote is too spread out to win many seats. Like nationalist parties across the world, they win votes in most parts of the country (England) but isn’t focussed enough in one city or group of constituencies to win seats. Perhaps Farage may finally break his eight-contest losing streak and win in Clacton. But he is likely to be lonely in parliament unless or until he is accommodated within a more nationalist Tory party. - They are a nationalist party in a country with a range of other nationalist parties. Scotland and Wales already have nationalist parties with their own grudges and grievances, which squeezes Reform out. In Scotland Reform are 10% behind the Tories, and in Wales the gap is 5%. - And most importantly, they are less popular than the unpopular Conservatives. They have been ahead in just one YouGov poll out of the dozens of polls so far been in this contest. All of this comes with one giant caveat which is that Sunak is running the worst election campaign in living memory, and there’s still two weeks to go.
For the benefit of UK, the best situation is one in which Reform UK get a little more votes than the Cons, even if, because of it, Reform UK may obtain one or another seat. For one time, I am happy that UK is still using the completely outdated system of the FPTP just in order to give to the Tory there most severe defeat in their history (at least since WW I).
Broadly agree as I have over decades with JM’s political / electoral analysis. 2 points however. 20th century monolithic party politics (big centre, big Centre right, space for liberals) is over. Voters like volatility and we have seen in most OECD democracies some big swings from election to election. There is no need to assume dear old FPTP U.K. politics will be same old, same old. Labour wil win because it finally recentred after a decade of nice leftism 2010-15 and nasty stupid leftism 2015-2020. It has not had to make any great choices. That luxury evaporates once in gov. Then and only then will we see if 2024 Labour has staying power. The Tories may stay Brexit idiots but history surely suggests that they will do anything to return to power asap. And going full Farage xenophobe treating Muslims as an enemy much as D Mail said Jews were taking over U.K. in 1930s is not route back to power. Labour will make unforced errors under Its Southgate style leadership and then a new generation of Tories will pounce
Still trying to work out if the strategy is ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’, or ‘if you can’t join them, beat them’.
Thanks for your analysis, Jim, and think (and fervently hope) you are right. Farage is a dangerous mixture of plausible speaker and, like all populists in the UK and elsewhere, a peddler of simple solutions to complex problems. These issues are boiled down to a new version of "the country is going to the dogs" and that only these solutions are answer. We saw where this led to with Brexit, and let's hope people remember that he was an author of that miscalculation.
I am not convinced they will get any, after all UKIP only won one seat on 12.6% in 2015 and Reform is unlikely to poll more than that in my opinion. I am convinced Farage won't win in Clacton. The media should stop giving him publicity.
Numbers aren’t quite that simple: Reform UK have an agreement (called into doubt by Farage’s recent actions) with TUV, who are contesting 14 of Northern Ireland’s 18 constituencies, while the NI Conservatives are only running five candidates.
You clearly haven't understood what Farage will do. This is a door opener. Once in, he will contrast innaction by "OneNation Wet " survivors with what Reform will do. Next time around they will have the ground game.
Jack Irvine
3w
Did you note he completely ignored Scotland and NI at his manifesto/contract launch this morning in Wales?
Gary Bennett
3w
Spot on. Less than 3 seats would be my estimate
Director at M Health Limited
3wFarage is Trumpian egotist who seeks power for its own sake. Remember his embarrassing last day in the EU Parkiament. His insulting rudeness. Imagine him on the world stage. He has the arrogance and insensitivity to create an even greater error in judgement than his role in Brexit.