British politics has traditionally described voters in simple terms of left (prioritising collective politics and a strong state) and right (prioritising individual freedom and personal responsibility). Historically, that has mapped well onto the distinction between Labour and Conservative parties and voters. However, the emergence of UKIP, Brexit and now Reform UK parties show that this is an inadequate way of understanding people’s complex political views. In response, some political scientists add a second dimension to the map, a social axis which ranges from authoritarian to liberal.
The politically homeless
Traditionally the Labour party is left wing on economics and liberal on social issues, while the Conservatives are right wing on economics and authoritarian on social issues. For most of the post war period the economic dimension dominated political debate, so people on the economic left would vote Labour, even if they had authoritarian social views. However, in recent years the social dimension has risen in importance, and the gap between the Labour party’s liberal social attitudes and many of its supporters has widened.
Prioritising the social over the economic, some of these voters switched allegiance, firstly to Leave in the Brexit referendum, and then to the Conservatives in the 2019 general election. But they have now found that while they like Conservative rhetoric on the social issues, they are not well served by the Conservatives’ economic priorities. This leaves them politically homeless: to the left of the Conservatives on economics and the right of Labour on social issues. This is the gap which Reform hopes to fill.
How big is Reform’s support
Although Reform has been polling well recently, and they plan to stand in every constituency in the next general election, they are unlikely to actually win any seats, but their impact, especially on the Conservative party, may be significant. So what does their growth mean for our politics?
Opinion poll estimates of Reform support range from 4% to 13%, but all agree that their poll numbers have doubled in the last year. How big the support is depends partly on how the question is asked. Polls which treat Reform as one of five parties to choose from produce larger numbers than polls which offer only the three main parties and ‘other’, with a follow up question. The fact that online polls give them a larger vote share than telephone polls suggest that there are also ‘shy Reformers’ who will only admit to their voting intention in the anonymity of an online poll (or perhaps a polling booth).
An unknown factor is the potential impact of desertions by Conservative MPs. After losing the Conservative Whip, Lee Anderson, the former Vice Chair of the Conservatives, has now joined Reform, making him their first MP. At the press conference to announce his joining he suggested that he expects other Conservative MPs to join him in the near future.
There has also been speculation that Nigel Farage, currently Reform’s Honorary President, might become the party leader. He would certainly raise the public profile of the party, and with it their vote share (though he has yet to win a Parliamentary election, despite having stood seven times).
Will they return to the Conservatives?
Nearly three quarters of the people who now say they would vote Reform voted Conservative in 2019, and the remainder voted Brexit. Like the referendum Leave voters, they are more likely to be male, older and non-graduates.
In 2019, the Conservatives cooperated with the Brexit party, who stood down in Conservative seats. This forced people who disliked the Corbyn Labour party to vote Conservative. The result was a dramatic swing to Conservatives in ’red wall’ constituencies. The test case was Hartlepool, the only ‘red wall’ seat where the Brexit party stood, and Labour won because the two parties split the right-wing vote. At the subsequent by-election, with only a Conservative standing, those voters returned to the Conservatives, who won comfortably. So will they do the same again?
How distinctive is the Reform agenda?
This time, Reform have made it clear that they will stand in all constituencies, and they are well ahead of the other parties in selecting candidates. In the Eastern region they have already chosen candidates in 49 of the 61 seats (well ahead of other parties). It is also clear that they will eat into the Conservative vote, and that many of their current supporters will not vote Conservative again. A private Focaldata poll which asked how strongly Reform voters were likely to consider switching to the Conservatives found three quarters ‘very unlikely’ to do so.
As a group, Reformers have distinctive priorities. They are more authoritarian and more inclined to want a supportive state than Conservatives. Their most distinctive feature is hostility to immigration, and they also put a lot of emphasis on withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights, and on removing public support for the BBC.
Conservatives have been trying to attract these voters back, but ironically their emphasis on immigration issues has served to highlight their failure to achieve what the Reform voters want.
Reform opens the way for Labour
In the short term, the main beneficiaries of the rise of Reform will be Labour. Most recent polls show Labour with a 20-point lead over Conservatives, and with Reform around 10%. In a general election, that might create a Labour majority of around 200 seats. But if Reform took a further 2% from the Conservatives, the Labour majority would rise to nearer 250.
That would give Reform a vote share to match UKIP’s 2015 peak. But, in that election, as a result of first past the post elections, the 3.5 million UKIP votes did not win them any MPs. The same is almost certain next time. So the bigger the Reform vote, the bigger the Labour majority. They may get an economic result they like, but probably not the social one.
What about the Conservative party?
The Conservative party would then face a dilemma. With fewer MPs than in 1997 – their worst ever election – and without a lot of their most experienced MPs, they are likely to face a real battle over the future direction.
Imitating or merging with Reform is unlikely to be a winning strategy, because the constituency for their particular policies is noisy, but not large. Adopting the combination of left-wing economics and right-wing social issues, which is where many Reformers are, would mean abandoning their traditional economics. Moving back to ‘one nation’ conservatism would be a rejection of the Reformers in favour of a centrist position on economics and social issues. In the end, governments are built in the centre, but whether that is where the Conservative party will go is another matter.
It is rumoured that Labour is planning to be in power, like the Blair/Brown governments, for at least two Parliaments. Reform may be about to give them their wish. Whether, in the long term, that is good for democracy is another matter.
Thanks to Sam Freedman for polling evidence for this article
