By Sam Casey
Reform UK swept the recent local elections in England, beating out the Labour Party and the Tories in a result that signals a major political realignment that is taking place. Nigel Farage’s party won 31% of the vote compared to the Tories on 23%, the Lib Dems on 17% and Labour on 14%.
This translated to Reform UK winning 41% of the seats contested, taking nearly half of all the seats that Labour and the Tories were defending. Reform UK entered the local elections this year with zero seats to defend and went on to win 677 council seats.
The Tories have not recovered from their electoral collapse in last year’s general election, following 14 years of Tory rule marked by brutal austerity and massive levels of inequality. But the deep anger that toppled the Tories remains, and it is now being directed at Labour. The latest YouGov poll indicates that Reform UK would now be the largest party in a general election, leading the Labour Party 29% to 22%.
The rise of racism and reaction
Reform UK are a racist, LGBTQphobic, far-right party. Past Reform UK candidates have included former members of the fascist British National Party (BNP). A Reform UK candidate in the last general election, Ben Aston, posted racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories to his social media account, claiming that “Jews” were “agitating” to import “third-world Muslims” into Britain.
Another candidate, Ian Gribbin, described women as “the sponging gender” and said they should be deprived of healthcare. Leslie Lilley, former Reform UK candidate in Southend East and Rochford, publicly fantasized about murdering migrants who had arrived by “small boat” in Dover, writing: “‘I hope I’m near one of these scumbags one day. I won’t run away, I’ll slaughter them then have their family taken out.”
Immediately upon her victory in the local elections, Reform UK’s newly elected Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire called for “illegal migrants” to be housed in tents, referring to the horrific conditions that migrants and asylum seekers are forced to live in in Calais, France.
The rise of Reform UK comes in the context of growing far-right and fascistic political parties and movements around the world. Farage models his political strategy on Trump in the US, and similarly seeks to blend toxic nationalism and racist, anti-immigrant politics with anti-establishment rhetoric designed to appeal to working-class people angry at the system. This is mainly possible due to the absence of a genuine working-class alternative to Starmer’s austerity agenda, and it is precisely what makes Reform UK so dangerous. Capitalism globally is creating the fertile soil for racist forces and their vile ideas to grow in broader society–we truly are in the “age of monsters”.
Labour government despised
“Labour’s treatment of working people has been appalling”, said a resident of Runcorn and Helsby, a previously safe Labour constituency in the north of England where Reform UK won their fifth MP, in a huge blow to Starmer’s Labour. His words were echoed by many other former Labour voters who voted for Reform UK this time around. “Starmer is worse than the Tories”, another says, “they hit pensioners by taking away the winter fuel allowance and now they’re going to hit disabled people.”
Labour have continued the Tories’ war on working-class people while the wealth of the UK’s billionaires continues to soar. People’s living standards are collapsing; caught between high prices, rents, and rates on the one hand, and stagnating wages and brutal austerity measures on the other. Labour’s recent austerity measures have come alongside an increase in military funding of £2.2 billion, as working-class people are being expected to pay for capitalism’s increasing drive towards more war and destruction around the world. All this is creating massive anger in society.
Reform UK have been able to capitalise on this anger, using racist propaganda to direct it away from the system and towards migrants, blaming them for the scarcity created by austerity and inequality. They are benefiting from years of ruthless anti-immigrant propaganda from politicians and the media. Both Labour and the Tories fueled this by pledging crackdowns on “small boat” arrivals at the last election.
Whose party?
Reform UK claim to offer a “revolt” against the establishment, which is clearly part of their appeal to many working-class voters facing collapsing living standards. Deputy leader Richard Tice has cynically claimed that Reform UK are now “the party of the workers”. But whose interests do Reform UK really represent?
Tice himself is a multimillionaire from a dynasty of property developers. Farage is a privately educated former City banker with a net worth of over £3 million. Reform UK’s major donors include aristocat Robin Birley and the financier David Lilley, who runs the investment fund Drakewood Capital. The party’s biggest backer in the mainstream media, GB News, is owned by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Marshall. Billionaire donors Nick Candy and Richard Harpin, have jumped ship from the Tories, now pledging millions to Reform UK.
In reality, Reform UK are just another tool of the ruling class. They want to exploit the popular anger in society to spread racism and LGBTQ+phobia, aiming to implement a right-wing, pro-business agenda. Their previous manifesto called for a reduction of corporate tax; the acceleration of NHS privatisation; tax breaks for landlords; the virtual abolition of inheritance tax; and attacks on unemployment benefits.
Right-wing agenda
Emboldened by the presidency of Trump in the US, Farage has pledged to create a “British DOGE” to gut the public sector. In addition, he has promised that at the top of Reform UK’s agenda is the slashing of asylum claims and the mass deportations of “foreign criminals”, also echoing the Trump regime’s horrific abuses, deporting migrants to a prison in El Salvador, and using ICE to target political activists and trade unionists.
Since his party’s victory in the local elections, Farage further echoed Trump in a speech, saying: “I would advise anyone working for Durham County Council on climate change initiatives or diversity, equity & inclusion [DEI], or thinks they can go on working from home, I think you all better be seeking alternative careers very very quickly.” In the US, Trump has used the cover of attacking “DEI” initiatives to launch an assault on public sector workers and civil rights.
What this indicates is that Reform UK plan to use their new political base in local government as a pulpit to spread far-right ideology. This will likely be a significant factor shaping British politics in the years to come.
At the same time, local governments will be put in the position of administering the austerity agenda handed down from Westminster. This also gives Reform UK the opportunity to further posture as an “anti-establishment” party, using anger at the Starmer’s cuts to strengthen their political position. This is a significant threat to the entire working-class that needs to be taken seriously.
Labour chase Reform UK to the right
Neither Labour, nor the Tories, are capable of doing anything except for fuelling the growth of Reform UK. The Tories, for their part, are already flirting with the idea of a future coalition with Reform UK if they become the largest party.
Labour’s response to the rise of Reform UK has been to chase them as far as possible to the right. In February they announced they would invest nearly £400m into deporting “undocumented” migrants – enough money to train more than 10,000 new nurses. Starmer’s party has posted dehumanising, anti-migrant propaganda to its official Twitter account. Now, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered the publication of the nationalities of “foreign criminals” – fuelling the racist conspiracies of the far-right.
Despite the election results, Labour’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney has claimed that Starmer is right to pursue a “Blue Labour” strategy “to address the populist threat”. Reportedly, Starmer is planning to announce a further crackdown on immigration, one that will not only lead to further misery and dehumanising conditions for migrants and asylum seekers, but will only strengthen the hand of the far-right. Just as with Macron in France or Biden in the US, Starmer is fuelling the rise of the populist right by attacking the living standards of working-class people while giving in to the reactionary demands of the far-right.
Working class party needed
It is very likely that Farage’s party could fundamentally reshape British politics in the coming period, with all evidence pointing to an electoral collapse for the Labour party similar to that of the Tories in the last general election. Currently, Reform UK are the only party in a position to capitalise on this situation.
The workers movement needs to take this threat seriously and to organise against it. The only thing that can put a break on this process would be the emergence of a political party based on the power of the working class, one that is capable of mobilising working-class people against Starmer and the capitalist system he represents.
It is urgent that a new working-class party is built, one that can fight against Labour’s “Austerity 2.0”, while also fighting for migrant rights, against inequality, transphobia and racism, and for jobs and housing for all. Such a party could mobilise people to fight for a different kind of society – one based on working-class solidarity, with democratic public ownership of the wealth in society, and an economy geared towards public need rather than private greed. This is the only thing that can cut across the rise of the populist right, and their agenda of division, oppression and corporate plundering.
