How Reform fares on Thursday will also determine the Conservatives fate

Published

1 year ago

July 1, 2024

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They came in their droves: thousands of Reform supporters poured into a vast hall in a Birmingham conference centre on Sunday to hear Nigel Farage.

His backers brought with them Union Jacks, and brandished Reform placards. There were even one or two red baseball caps emblazoned with the slogan “Make Britain Great Again”, which seemed fitting for an event that felt quite Trumpian in style and tone.

Mr Farage came onto the stage to pounding music, smoke machines, fireworks, and a sea of “it’s time for Reform” placards to a 5,000-strong crowd with a speech that spoke about how Britain was broken and it was time for Reform.

He said his party would be the “leading voice of opposition” as he attacked ‘the establishment’ in all its guises, from the Conservative Party to Labour, the BBC, and Channel 4 to the Governor of the Bank of England.

While detractors describe Mr Farage’s platform as a type of dog-whistle politics that does little but to stoke grievances and division, there is an audience for him and his policies that politicians in larger parties should ignore at their peril.

When I spoke to many people in the hall afterwards, they were overwhelmingly former Conservative voters disillusioned with their old party.

One woman, who had travelled over from Hull for the rally told me she thought there were a lot of “silent people who may be frightened to say they are voting Reform”.

“I think it’s going to be shock,” she said.

2024 is the election for ‘the other parties’

The rise of the ‘other’ parties is a clear theme of this election campaign as the Liberal Democrats, who won just 11 seats back in 2019, now eye getting back to the levels of seats they enjoyed – in the 1940s or 1950s – before it was wiped out in 2015 on the back of the coalition years.

Nigel Farage’s Reform, meanwhile, is on 16.2% in our Sky News poll tracker, just behind the Tories on 20%.

Earlier this month, the Conservatives fell behind Reform UK for the first time in a national poll, leaving the Tories gripped by panic and in despair.

Mr Farage likes to make the argument that Labour could be heading to a landslide on a lower voter share.

Recent analysis in the Financial Times suggested Labour could win a record 450 seats – about 70% – on just 41% of the votes, lower than the figure Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour achieved in 2017, while the Lib Dems could pick up 50 seats with a lower share of the vote than Reform with just a few seats at best. If it turns out anything like this, prepare for plenty of noise from Mr Farage.

Whether undecided voters or those leaning to Reform stick with them on Thursday is a big unknown of this election. Tories are nervous, knowing that big Reform votes piling up in their constituencies could cost them their seat.

In 2019, the majority of Conservatives did not have a threat from the right, as the Brexit Party stood down candidates with a Brexit-backing Conservative candidate. They stood but 275 or 632 seats.

This time around, Reform is everywhere and no one feels safe: one poll put James Cleverly’s Braintree constituency, supposedly the 19th safest Conservative seat, on a knife edge as Reform clocks up an estimated 22% vote share in his Essex constituency.

Tories in all-out war

The Conservatives, who began this campaign trying not to get into a fight with Mr Farage (perhaps for fear of further alienating their traditional voters) are now at all-out war as they try to salvage as many seats as they can.

On Sunday the party said if “just 130,000 voters currently considering a vote for Reform or the Lib Dems voted Conservative, it would be enough to stop Labour’s supermajority”.

The prime minister, meanwhile, has become increasingly vocal in his criticisms of Reform and Mr Farage as the party looks for a way to pull voters back.

Mr Sunak has been vocal in his criticism of Mr Farage as a “Putin appeaser” after the Reform leader suggested Ukraine enter peace talks – something which Ukraine has emphatically ruled out unless Russia retreats from its territory.

The prime minister also spoke of his “anger and hurt” over revelations – contested by Reform – in a Channel 4 undercover report of a Reform canvasser calling Mr Sunak a “f****** P***”.

This, combined with a Reform organiser making homophobic remarks and candidates being suspended for racist, antisemitic and sexist views has caused difficulties for Mr Farage in recent days.

Tensions around Farage starting to show

In our interview in Birmingham on Sunday, some of those tensions were beginning to show.

For a start, the politician who had appeared with right-wing Tories such as potential future leader Dame Priti Patel at the Conservative Party conference last October, and openly toyed about returning to the fold, now ruled out any sort of tie-up.

Having spoken but a month ago about a reverse takeover of the Tories and refusing to rule out one day rejoining the party, on Sunday he was clear he would not rejoin, and wanted nothing to do with the Conservatives.

It comes after a clutch of senior figures, including Dame Priti, indicated that Mr Farage would now not be welcomed back into the party in the wake of the backlash over his claim the West provoked Russia to invade Ukraine and the racism row engulfing Reform.

He equally was more equivocal than he had been about Andrew Tate in the past, making it clear to me that he “disavowed’ him, and was also highly critical of Reform events organiser George James who made homophobic remarks, saying he was “furious” when he saw the footage (also in the Channel 4 report) of Mr James describing the Pride flag as “degenerate” and criticising the police for displaying the flag.

“They should be out catching the n***** not promoting the f******”,” he said in the report.

Mr Farage said Mr James was “crass, drunken, rude and wrong” and told me he had been asked to remove his membership. But he also said he was “down a few drinks” explaining: “We could all say silly things when we’re a bit drunk.”

When I asked him if people really say things like this when they are drunk, Mr Farage said: “People say all sorts of things when they’re drunk and often don’t remember. But it was awful.”

So awful that one Reform candidate announced on Sunday evening they were standing down and would instead back their local Conservative in the constituency of Erewash.

The question for Reform is whether their potential voters, looking at some of the controversy surrounding the party, decide it’s not for them after all.

What is absolutely clear is Reform’s performance will help determine that of the Conservatives on Thursday night as the election results come in.

If he’s successful, Mr Farage will be heading for parliament, not only giving him a bigger national platform but a democratic mandate. That spells trouble for a Conservative party already in turmoil.

Politics

Chancellor Rachel Reeves refuses to rule out manifesto-breaking tax hikes

Published

2 hours ago

November 4, 2025

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves refuses to rule out manifesto-breaking tax hikes

Rachel Reeves has refused to rule out breaking her manifesto pledge not to raise certain taxes, as she lays the groundwork ahead of the budget later this month.

Asked directly by our political editor Beth Rigby if she stands by her promises not to raise income tax, national insurance or VAT, the chancellor declined to do so.

She told Rigby: “Your viewers can see the challenges that we face, the challenges that are on [sic] a global nature. And they can also see the challenges in the long-term performance of our economy.”

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She went on: “As chancellor, I have to face the world as it is, not the world as I want it to be. And when challenges come our way, the only question is how to respond to them, not whether to respond or not.

“As I respond at the budget on 26 November, my focus will be on getting NHS waiting lists down, getting the cost of living down and also getting the national debt down.”

‘Each of us must do our bit’

Ms Reeves’s comments to Rigby came after a highly unusual pre-budget speech in Downing Street in which she set out the scale of the international and domestic “challenges” facing the government.

She also hinted at tax rises, saying: “If we are to build the future of Britain together, each of us must do our bit for the security of our country and the brightness of its future.”

Despite her promise that last year’s budget – which was the biggest tax-raising fiscal event since 1993 – was a “once in a parliament event,” the chancellor said that in the past year, “the world has thrown even more challenges our way,” pointing to “the continual threat of tariffs” from the United States, inflation that has been “too slow to come down,” “volatile” supply chains leading to higher prices, and the high cost of government borrowing.

She also put the blame squarely on previous Tory governments, accusing them of “years of economic mismanagement” that has “limited our country’s potential,” and said past administrations prioritised “political convenience” over “economic imperative”.

Ms Reeves painted a picture of devastation following the years of austerity in the wake of the financial crisis, “instability and indecision” after that, and then the consequences of what she called “a rushed and ill-conceived Brexit”.

“This isn’t about re-litigating old choices – it’s about being honest with the people, about the consequences that those choices have had,” she said.

‘I don’t expect anyone to be satisfied with growth so far’

The chancellor defended her personal record in office so far, saying interest rates and NHS waiting lists have fallen, while investment in the UK is rising, and added: “Our growth was the fastest in the G7 in the first half of this year. I don’t expect anyone to be satisfied with growth of 1%. I am not, and I know that there is more to do.”

Amid that backdrop, Ms Reeves set out her three priorities for the budget: “Protecting our NHS, reducing our national debt, and improving the cost of living.”

Cutting inflation will also be a key aim in her announcements later this month, and “creating the conditions that [see] interest rate cuts to support economic growth and improve the cost of living”.

She rejected calls from some Labour MPs to relax her fiscal rules, reiterating that they are “ironclad,” and arguing that the national debt – which stands at £2.6trn, or 94% of GDP – must come down in order to reduce the cost of government borrowing and spend less public money on interest payments to invest in “the public services essential to both a decent society and a strong economy”.

She also put them on notice that cuts to welfare remain on the government’s agenda, despite its humiliating U-turn on cuts to personal independence payments for disabled people earlier this year, saying: “There is nothing progressive about refusing to reform a system that is leaving one in eight young people out of education or employment.”

And the chancellor had a few words for her political opponents, saying the Tories’ plan for £47bn in cuts would have “devastating consequences for our public services,” and mocked the Reform UK leadership of Kent County Council for exploring local tax rises instead of cuts, as promised.

Concluding her speech, Ms Reeves vowed not to “repeat those mistakes” of the past by backtracking on investments, and said: “We were elected to break with the cycle of decline, and this government is determined to see that through.”

‘Reeves made all the wrong choices’

In response to her speech, Conservative shadow chancellor Sir Mel Stride wrote on X that “all she’s done is confirm the fears of households and businesses – that tax rises are coming”.

He wrote: “The chancellor claims she fixed the public finances last year. If that was true, she would not be rolling the pitch for more tax rises and broken promises. The reality is, she fiddled the fiscal rules so she could borrow hundreds of billions more.

“Every time the numbers don’t add up, Reeves blames someone else. But this is about choices – and she made all the wrong ones. If Rachel Reeves had the backbone to get control of government spending – including the welfare bill – she wouldn’t need to raise taxes.”

He called for her to resign if she raises taxes.