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The 2024 General Election and its Aftermath: Reform UK as a Disruptive Force in British Politics

Les élections générales de 2024 et leurs suites : Reform UK comme force de déstabilisation sur la scène politique britannique
Karine Tournier-Sol

Abstracts

From the UK Independence party (UKIP) to Reform UK (including under its original name, the Brexit Party), Nigel Farage and his successive political parties have been major agents of disruption of the British political order, generating significant instability. This is an inherent part of their nature as populist parties. This article focuses on Reform UK, the latest illustration of Farage’s disruptive potential, as a destabilising force during and after the 2024 General Election, with the aim of exploring the party’s use of disruption as both a strategy and an explicit goal. The first part examines the origins of Reform UK, tracing its political lineage back to UKIP and the Brexit Party, with Nigel Farage as its defining figure. The second part delves into the 2024 General Election, analysing how Reform acted as a disruptive force in the campaign, which resulted in a historic breakthrough marking a turning-point for the party, but also for British politics. The third part addresses the post-election period, characterised by an increasing visibility of Reform. The party has actively cultivated a constant media presence, by performing crisis to stage its own disruptive dimension. This was illustrated by the 2024 summer riots, but also by the party’s extensive publicisation of its progress in building up its “people’s army” to carry out its revolt against the establishment.

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Introduction

  • 1 Octavia Bryant, Benjamin Moffitt, “What actually is populism? And why does it have a bad reputation (...)
  • 2 Slogan of the Brexit Party and then of Reform UK.

1From the UK Independence party (UKIP) to Reform UK (including under its original name, the Brexit Party), Nigel Farage and his successive political parties have been major agents of disruption of the British political order, generating significant instability. Disruption, in this context, can be understood as a deliberate political strategy designed to challenge the status quo, established norms and traditional practices, to justify radical change. This is an inherent part of their nature as populist parties1, aiming to lead an anti-establishment revolt and uproot the status quo by sending a shock to the political system so as to “change politics for good2.

  • 3 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (St (...)

2This is reinforced by what Moffitt describes as another core feature of contemporary populism, “the performance of crisis”, which refers to populist actors' ability to inject and propagate a sense of crisis and urgency in their message, allowing them to pit the people against the elite, presenting themselves as the real voice of the people3. This performance of crisis is key to justifying the disruption they advocate. According to Moffitt,

  • 4 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation, (S (...)

“Populism gets its impetus from the perception of crisis, breakdown or threat, and at the same time aims to induce crisis through dramatization and performance. This in turn leads to the demand to act decisively and immediately. Crises are often related to the breakdown between citizens and their representatives, but can also be related to immigration, economic difficulties, perceived injustice, military threat, social change or other issues. The effect of the evocation of emergency in this fashion is to radically simplify the terms and terrain of political debate”4.

  • 5 Tim Bale, The Conservative Party After Brexit: turmoil and transformation (Cambridge, Polity Press, (...)

3Nigel Farage has played a pivotal role in promoting this discourse and stands as a major disruptor in British politics. With his successive political forces, he has succeeded in having a significant impact on the British political order, acting as a game-changer – not only in relation to Brexit, but also in moving the tectonic plates of British politics towards the right, contributing to the transformation of the Conservative Party into a radical right party5.

  • 6 Often shortened to Reform.

4This paper focuses on Reform UK6, the latest illustration of Farage’s disruptive potential, as a destabilising force during and after the 2024 General Election, with the aim of exploring the party’s use of disruption as both a strategy and an explicit goal, an intrinsic part of its populist nature.

  • 7 Nigel Farage in debate with Nick Clegg on Britain’s membership of the European Union, BBC, 2 April (...)

5The first part will examine the origins of Reform UK, tracing its political lineage back to UKIP and the Brexit Party. Despite differences in organisation and context, these successive movements share a clear ideological continuity, with Farage as the central and defining figure throughout. The second part will delve into the 2024 General Election, analysing how Reform acted as a disruptive force in the campaign, which resulted in a historic breakthrough marking a turning-point for the party, but also for British politics. The third part will address the post-election period, characterised by an increasing visibility of Reform. The party has actively cultivated a constant media presence, by performing crisis to stage its own disruptive dimension. This was illustrated by the 2024 summer riots, but also by the party’s extensive publicisation of its progress in building up its “people’s army”7 to carry out its revolt against the establishment.

From UKIP to Reform UK: Nigel Farage and the disruption of British politics

6Although Reform UK is a relatively new party, it stands in direct continuity with Nigel Farage’s previous political ventures. Tracing this lineage requires revisiting the parties that preceded it – namely UKIP and the Brexit Party – both of which played a disruptive role in British politics and relied on similar rhetoric and strategies. Understanding this continuity is key to grasping Reform’s ideological positioning, strategic choices, and political aspirations.

  • 8 Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak, “Contemporary Euroscepticism in the Party Systems of the Europea (...)
  • 9 Matthew Goodwin and James Dennison, “The Radical Right in the United Kingdom”, in Jens Rydgren (ed) (...)
  • 10 Ibid., p. 757.
  • 11 Ibid., p. 739.

7UKIP was founded in 1993 as a single-issue party, campaigning for the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. UKIP was born out of the Eurosceptic political tradition, standing as a hard-Eurosceptic party8. Although immigration was not part of its political platform in its early years, UKIP gradually took on the trappings of a radical right party9, under the leadership of Nigel Farage. The party was “rebranded as an anti-immigration populist party10”, merging its “founding goal of Britain’s exit from the European Union with much of the radical right’s ideological trappings of anti-immigration, nationalism, and anti-establishment populism11.

8The turning-point was UKIP’s tactical move to make immigration its top priority, after skillfully fusing it with EU membership, which was portrayed as the root cause of uncontrolled immigration into the UK, and by extension, of mounting pressure on employment, housing, and public services, depicted as being “under threat”. Through this strategy, UKIP scapegoated the EU as the primary source of Britain’s ills, constructing a narrative of national crisis and decline. Moreover, Farage orchestrated a decisive populist turn, adopting a strong anti-establishment discourse that pitted the political elite against the people whom UKIP claimed to represent. He invited them to join in its self-proclaimed revolt, the people’s army”. Farage framed a narrative disruption and revolt against the political order.

9UKIP thus already injected a sense of crisis and urgency in its discourse, performing and instrumentalising crisis for political gain. The party’s surge culminated in its historic victory in the 2014 European election, testifying to its disruptive impact. UKIP therefore gradually reached a position where it was able to contribute to framing the terms of the political debate, not only on Europe but also on immigration. In doing so, it paved the way for the EU referendum, acting as a game-changer. The party was instrumental in securing the referendum: David Cameron’s 2013 pledge was a tactical move to counter the threat UKIP posed to the Conservatives, highlighting its disproportionate influence on the political game considering its lack of national representation.

  • 12 Nigel Farage, “With a heavy heart, I am leaving UKIP. It is not the Brexit party our nation so badl (...)

10The party also had an impact on the outcome of the referendum – not only through its own campaign, which focused almost exclusively on immigration (as epitomised by the “Breaking Point” poster), but also through its indirect influence on Vote Leave, the official Leave organisation. While Vote Leave formally distanced itself from UKIP and Nigel Farage, due to the perceived toxicity of their image, it nonetheless coopted elements of the party’s rhetoric in the final weeks of the campaign, resorting to dog-whistle politics. Although UKIP’s official contribution to the Leave vote was estimated at roughly a quarter, its influence extended well beyond electoral arithmetic. UKIP had shaped the public narrative in the years preceding the vote, promoting themes – immigration, sovereignty, anti-elite sentiment – that would later come to dominate the referendum campaign. In that respect, UKIP played a central role in both securing the referendum and influencing its result. It demonstrated its disruptive impact on the political game, challenging the status quo and breaking traditional norms and practices to trigger radical change. Following the party’s post-referendum existential crisis and its subsequent drift toward the extreme right, Farage and other key figures left UKIP in December 2018, openly disavowing its new direction12.

11Farage then launched a new political vehicle, the Brexit Party, which positioned itself within the political lineage of UKIP, while breaking away from its organisational model. The Brexit Party was conceived as a top-down political structure, managed with the efficiency and discipline of a private enterprise, with Farage at its helm. It was created as a disruptive populist movement, aimed at challenging the political establishment, “launching a revolution in British politics”. The party’s rhetoric denounced the “great betrayal” of Brexit by the “Westminster traitors”. This positioning resonated strongly with Leave voters and the new party triumphed in the 2019 European election, relegating the Conservative Party to fifth place. Once again, Farage demonstrated his ability to disrupt the political order, instrumentalising crisis to mobilise popular discontent. The Brexit Party’s victory acted as a catalyst for the right-wing populist turn of the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson’s leadership.

  • 13 Tim Bale, “Brexit shows how the populist right can be powerful without winning office”, UK in a Cha (...)

12UKIP and subsequently the Brexit Party thus demonstrated an ability to disrupt the national game of British politics from an outsider position. Despite their apparent failure to gain substantial representation at the national level, both parties managed to exert disproportionate influence13, contributing to framing politics and shaping the national debate on Brexit, before and after the referendum. Farage proved instrumental in this process, appearing as a game-changer.

13As Boris Johnson delivered on his “get Brexit done” pledge and the UK formally left the EU on 31 January 2020, the Brexit Party became largely obsolete. However, it seized the political opportunity created by the pandemic crisis to rebrand itself, officially changing its name to Reform UK in January 2021. Two months later, Farage handed over the party leadership to Richard Tice, yet retaining a controlling influence as honorary president (and party owner). Reform UK’s political positioning remains in line with Farage’s previous parties, standing as a populist radical right party14. Under Tice’s leadership, the party has maintained a focus on immigration, relying on social media to amplify its message. Like UKIP and the Brexit Party, it continues to perform and instrumentalise crisis, presenting itself as an insurgent force challenging the political mainstream. Its anti-immigration discourse has infused the political debate, contributing to the normalisation of increasingly radical right rhetoric within the Conservative Party. Starting with low polling numbers (2-3%), Reform began gaining traction, reaching double digits by late 2023 and averaging around 15% in the months leading up to the General Election15.

14Yet its electoral prospects under the first-past-the-post system, and therefore its ability to translate growing support into parliamentary representation in the forthcoming General Election, remained uncertain at that stage. Could Reform succeed in disrupting the political order like its predecessors, and what role would its emblematic figure play?

Disrupting the 2024 General Election

The campaign

  • 16 Nigel Farage, X, 23 May 2024.

15The campaign of Reform UK got off to a false start, with Nigel Farage initially announcing that he would not be returning to frontline politics, and therefore would not take over the leadership of the party and stand as a candidate in the election. In a letter posted on X, he said that he would “do his bit to help”, but had chosen to focus on backing Donald Trump in the US election, which was of “huge global significance16.

  • 17 Nigel Farage, “Patriotic British voters now have a real alternative to this failed elite”, The Tele (...)
  • 18 YouGov, 13 June 2024: 19% of voting intentions for Reform, 18% for the Conservative Party.
    https://y (...)
  • 19 “We are now the opposition to Labour”, Nigel Farage, X, 13 June 2024.

16This must have come as a relief for Rishi Sunak, as Reform UK, without its charismatic and emblematic leader, was indeed much less of a threat to the Conservatives. Yet, ten days later, Farage made a surprise U-turn, announcing that he would lead Reform and stand in Clacton (the only constituency won by UKIP in the 2015 election). This marked a tipping-point in the campaign, a first disruption in what was being described as a boring campaign. In his usual populist rhetoric, Farage declared that he wanted to “lead the revolt against the political establishment17, with the clear aim of sending a shock to the system once again. This move was a game-changer for Reform, giving the party major momentum: ten days later, a first poll had Reform overtaking the Tories18, which Farage opportunely exploited to present himself and his party as “the real opposition to Labour19, thereby putting pressure on the Conservative Party.

  • 20 Eventually, Reform contested 609 seats in Britain: 521 in England, 57 in Scotland and 31 in Wales. (...)

17However, Farage’s late return in the political fray also meant that the campaign was very short. This was all the more challenging for a small party such as Reform, which lacked organisational, human and financial resources. Even though Farage’s decision to stand boosted donations and membership, providing more money to the party, Reform had no local structures, and little time to organise and to recruit parliamentary candidates, while it was committed to contest every seat in Britain20.

  • 21 2 million followers on X and 776,000 on Tik Tok at the time of the election campaign.
  • 22 Tim Bale, Paul Webb, Stavroula Chrona, “UK election: Reform and Green members campaigned more onlin (...)
  • 23 Peter Walker, Ben  Quinn, Rowena Mason, “Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were (...)

18The party therefore campaigned mostly on social media, where Farage already had substantial following on X and TikTok21, and where Reform was also already very active. Nigel Farage and other key figures of the party, such as Richard Tice and Lee Anderson, also campaigned across the country, holding a major rally in Birmingham gathering 5,000 supporters on 30 June. Local campaigning activities were limited, as the party lacked the organisational structure and human resources for this22. The short time available also meant that some Reform candidates were merely “paper candidates23” who did not actually campaign on the ground, but helped increase the party’s national vote share.

  • 24 Karine Tournier-Sol,  Prendre le large : le UKIP et le choix du Brexit (Paris, Vendémiaire, 2017).
  • 25 Steerpike, “Full list: every controversial Reform candidate”, The Spectator, 28 June 2024.
    https://w (...)

19The campaign was not exempt from the scandals which had been a recurrent feature of UKIP’s history24, despite the party having hired a vetting company to scrutinise their potential candidates. Several candidates were linked to racism, antisemitism, or conspiracy theories25. This was certainly damaging for the party, which withdrew their support to several candidates – whom Farage described as “bad apples”, announcing that Reform would sue the vetting company.

  • 26 Peter Walker, “Nigel Farage claims Russia was provoked into Ukraine war”, The Guardian, 21 June 202 (...)
  • 27 Nigel Farage, “The West’s errors in Ukraine have been catastrophic. I won’t apologise for telling t (...)
  • 28 David Maddox, “Shock new poll confirms Reform lead over Tories despite Farage’s Putin comments”, Th (...)
  • 29 Théo Aiolfi, “Populism as a Transgressive Style”, Global Studies Quarterly 2, 2022, pp. 1-12. https (...)
  • 30 “A hard surface to which nothing sticks”, Alessandro Nai, Jürgen Maier, “Teflon Trump? Shifting Pub (...)

20Nigel Farage himself caused controversy, declaring that the EU and NATO had “provoked” the Russian invasion of Ukraine by expanding eastwards26. Faced with a considerable backlash from across the political spectrum, he strongly defended his comments27. Although this episode looked as if it could derail the party’s surge and undermine the credibility of its leader on international policy, opinion polls showed no discernible impact on Reform’s support28. Farage’s comments are typical of his approach to campaigning and to politics in general: the aim is to draw attention with provocative statements, acting as a disruptor supposedly not afraid of “speaking uncomfortable truths”. He has a long history of offensive and controversial comments. This is a political strategy, designed to break norms and differentiate himself from other politicians – what Aiolfi has conceptualised as ‘transgression’29, understood as a violation of a norm, here a rhetorical norm. It is part of the intrinsically disruptive nature of populism. As with other populist leaders, such comments do not undermine his popularity among his supporters, as this is part of his appeal as an anti-establishment figure who rejects political correctness: it is the “Teflon” effect30.

  • 31 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (St (...)

21Reform campaigned on a narrative of decline and betrayal from the elite, of an economically, socially and culturally “broken Britain” – thereby injecting a sense of urgency and crisis, “performing crisis 31, so as to justify the disruption they advocate and embody. This rhetoric of dramatisation has been familiar since UKIP, and is key to the party’s message. Reform called for voters to join its revolt against the establishment so as to “save Britain” – one of the main slogans of the party.

22The party deliberately chose to present not a manifesto, “associated with lies32, but a “contract” with the people33, which main points were: freeze immigration and stop the boats; zero NHS waiting lists; tax cuts; stop net zero; anti-wokery. In practice, the focus was primarily on immigration, with the party branding this election as “the immigration election”. This clearly struck a chord with Reform supporters, as Lord Ashcroft post-vote poll showed that immigration had been the first priority for 60% of Reform voters34.

The results

  • 35 Nigel Farage (Clacton), Lee Anderson (Ashfield), Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness), Rupert Lowe (G (...)

23Reform made a historic breakthrough, with five MPs entering Parliament35, including Nigel Farage, elected for the first time on his eighth attempt. He won the constituency of Clacton with 46.2% of the vote (an 8,400 vote-majority).

  • 36 In 2019, the Brexit Party won 2% of the vote share and no seats, fielding only 275 candidates after (...)

24This is an unprecedented result for Farage’s party, outperforming UKIP (only one seat in 2015, Clacton) and the Brexit Party (no seat in 2019)36. Nationally, Reform’s vote share was 14.3% (4.1 million votes), against 12.6% for UKIP in 2015 (3.8 million votes) and 2% in 2019 for the Brexit Party.

  • 37 Richard Tice, “This is a great day for Reform UK – but our broken system robbed too many voters of (...)

25The party came third, ahead of the Liberal Democrats, which won 72 seats with 12.2% of the vote. The Green Party, with 6.8% of the vote, won four seats. This is a consequence of the first-past-the-post system. This prompted Richard Tice to denounce the “rotten system” in The Telegraph37 and renew calls for proportional representation, which Reform had been advocating since its 2021 rebranding.

  • 38 In comparison, the Brexit Party came in second place in three constituencies in 2019, while UKIP ca (...)
  • 39 Rob Ford, “General Election 2024: A Big Night for the Smaller Parties”, Political Insight, 15:3, 20 (...)
  • 40 Oliver Heath, Christopher Prosser, Humphrey Southall, Paula Aucott, “The 2024 General Election and (...)

26Reform also had a significant indirect impact on the election, coming second place in 98 constituencies – second to Labour in 89 of them38. However, as Ford points out, “Reform are a long way behind in most of these seats, while six of their ten closest second places came in seats held by the Conservatives39”. Reform clearly split the right-wing vote, essentially damaging the Conservative Party in this election. Heath et al show that nearly 80% of people who voted for Reform in 2024 had voted for the Conservatives in 2019. The party lost one quarter of its voters to Reform UK, which “was catastrophic for the Conservatives whose vote share declined most strongly in places where Reform performed best 40.

27This was a major achievement for Reform, which managed to “get through the electoral threshold41: under the agency of Farage, the party succeeded in its aim to “shake up” the election. Its entry into Parliament sent a shock to the political system, demonstrating once again the ability of Farage to disrupt the political game and upend British politics. He achieved his first goal, which was “to establish a bridgehead in Parliament42 so as to “take on the establishment”. This is the first step of his six-year plan, with 2029 as the final target. He wants Reform to replace the Conservative Party as the main opposition, as Canada’s Reform party succeeded in doing43.

28Reform’s entry into Parliament marks a turning-point for the party, giving them an official political platform and endowing them with legitimacy and respectability. Based on Farage’s previous record in the European Parliament, where he demonstrated his potential for disruption, this raises the question of what Reform UK intends to make of this new status.

Reform UK post-General Election, or “disruption-at-work”

29Since the 2024 General Election, Reform has actively cultivated a constant presence in the media – traditional or social – and has become highly visible. The party has been staging its own disruption so as to reinforce it. It has been performing crisis, seizing every opportunity to attack the Labour government and Prime Minister, and to discredit the Conservative Party as the official opposition.

The 2024 summer riots

30The far-right riots of summer 2024 offered an early and striking indication of the party’s strategy and Nigel Farage’s intent to exploit his new parliamentary status.

31Following the murder of three young girls on 29 July at a dance class in Southport, false rumours spread quickly on social media about the alleged identity of the attacker, who had been rapidly arrested by the police. The young man was presented as a Muslim asylum seeker, an illegal immigrant who had arrived in the UK by small boat. In fact, he was 17, born in Cardiff to parents from Rwanda, and had no known links to Islam (at the time). Violence erupted in Southport one day after the attack, and targeted a local mosque. In the following days, disorder and riots quickly spread to several towns and cities across the country, mostly in England. The unrest lasted one week, resulting in 1280 arrests, with 796 people charged44.

32The point here is not to analyse the riots themselves, but the reaction of Farage and Reform to these riots. This is particularly interesting for several reasons: first, it was the first crisis of the incoming Starmer government, on a priority issue for Farage, namely concerns over immigration. Second, the sense of urgency and crisis conveyed by the riots was a perfect political opportunity for Reform, as it seemed to echo and illustrate its “broken Britain” discourse and repeated warnings. Third, the reaction of Reform and its leader is all the more relevant here that Farage, with his successive political parties, has been a major agent of the politicisation of immigration in the public debate for more than 15 years. This episode is therefore particularly revealing of Reform’s approach to its new status, with the respectability and legitimacy, but also the responsibility, that it entails.

  • 45 At the time of the riots, 2.2 million at the time of writing (May 2025).

33The main focus here will be on Nigel Farage, as an emblematic figure of his party and as instrumental in its success, as demonstrated by the General Election campaign. The newly elected MP regularly intervened during the crisis, mainly through social media (and GB News, where he has his own show). With 2 million followers on X45, Farage is clearly a major right-wing influencer, with considerable outreach. His successive interventions attracted sharp criticism.

  • 46 Nigel Farage, “My response to the attack in Southport”, X, 30 July 2024.
  • 47 Nigel Farage, “My message to Keir Starmer”, X, 1 August 2024.

34In the first video he posted on X on the day after the attack, just as disinformation was spreading quickly on social media on the identity of the attacker, he wondered “whether the truth was being withheld from us46”, thereby contributing to fuelling conspiracy theories. Farage seemed to fan the flames of unrest, not only legitimising the violence as “a reaction to fear, to discomfort, to unease that is out there shared by tens of millions of people”, but also emphasising the sense of urgency and crisis, by adopting an alarmist tone and warning that worse was to come: “We need folks to get real, because I tell you what, what you’ve seen on the streets of Hartlepool, of London, of Southport, is nothing compared to what could happen over the course of the next few weeks47.

35In a typically populist radical right rhetoric, he claimed that the riots only proved him right, and were merely the result of the elite ignoring the grievances of the people on immigration, despite his own repeated warnings:

  • 48 Ibid.

“The majority of our population can see the fracturing of our communities as a result of mass, uncontrolled immigration, whether legal or illegal. Yet to attempt to debate this in the public arena leads to immediate howls of condemnation. A population explosion without integration was going to end badly. I have said this for many years”48.

  • 49 Nigel Farage, “Parliament must be recalled for proper debate”, X, 5 August 2024.

36Farage seized this opportunity to attack the system, the establishment, as he was one of the first to denounce alleged two-tier policing, explicitly tracing it to Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 202049. In a clear instrumentalisation of the crisis, Farage resorted to scaremongering tactics, whipping up tensions and trying to gain political advantage. His interventions were echoed by his fellow MPs Lee Anderson and Richard Tice.

37While this raises the question of the responsibility of elected representatives, it is not surprising: it is strategic, Farage was talking to his supporters, to his electorate; he was well aware that there was a chord to strike. This was confirmed by surveys undertaken by YouGov50 and showing that the attitudes of Reform voters towards the riots were significantly different from other voting groups.

  • 51 Ibid.

38First, Reform voters were the only voting group to support the wider protests the unrest was stemming from, with eight in ten (81%) expressing some level of support. Their perception of the rioters also differed significantly from that of other voting groups. Among Reform voters, the most popular characterisation was ‘people with legitimate concerns’, which half (49%) viewed as an appropriate label. This clearly echoed Farage’s discourse. ‘Rioters’ was viewed as the right term for 47% of Reform voters, but what stood out most was their tendency to view the rioters as more ‘patriotic’ (27%) than 'racist’ (22%) or ‘far-right’ (20%). Finally, they were also more likely to blame immigration policy – 95% seeing it as a contributing factor –, with 82% also seeing immigrants themselves as responsible, surpassing the 49% who blamed far-right groups and the 31% who viewed Tommy Robinson as somewhat culpable51.

  • 52 Pamela Duncan, Carmen Aguilar García, Michael Goodier, Olivia Lee, Alex Clark, “Local. Left Behind. (...)

39There was therefore definitely a singularity of Reform UK supporters compared to other parties, which seems to validate Farage’s strategy of instrumentalisation of this episode. All the more so since a study of The Guardian into the profile of rioters shows that they came from areas which tended to have higher levels of support for Farage’s party – mainly under-privileged areas with a working-class background, i.e. red-wall areas. There is a kind of porosity here, as this is also the profile of part of Reform voters, the “left behind”52.

  • 53 Helen Pidd, “Who were England’s 2024 rioters?”, Today in Focus, Podcast, The Guardian, 2 October 20 (...)
  • 54 Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007); (...)

40There was reportedly a strong anti-establishment feeling in these riots53, coupled with slogans against immigration: those two dimensions are in line with the populist radical right discourse articulated by Farage’s successive parties54.

41Although Nigel Farage eventually condemned the violence and explicitly distanced himself from Tommy Robinson and the extreme right, this is the political ground he has been cultivating and on which he has built his electoral success, from UKIP to Reform UK, with his “broken Britain” rhetoric, stirring up anxieties and fear. Not only is this episode representative of Farage’s potential for disruption, exacerbating the crisis, but the riots themselves may be seen as the result of the process of normalisation of an anti-immigration discourse, a mainstreaming of this narrative in British politics, resulting from a long-term process in which he has been a major agent.

42The 2024 summer riots were therefore the first example of Farage’s and his party’s ability to disrupt British politics. They presented the crisis as an illustration of the establishment‘s failure to act upon what they had foreseen and warned about. This is a clear case of political opportunism, with a destabilising impact.

Building up the “people’s army”: A revolt against the establishment

43Reform’s ability to take advantage of events so as to draw attention has allowed the party to enjoy substantial visibility on the British political stage since the election, regularly capturing headlines. Reform has been publicising extensively its own progression and transformation since the election, staging its success to further boost it and contrast it with the supposed failures of the Labour government and the Conservative opposition. This is part of its strategy to destabilise and challenge the establishment and the status quo.

44Entry into Parliament was only the first step of Farage’s six-year plan, with the ultimate goal of winning the 2029 General Election and becoming Prime Minister. To this end, he has moved on to the second phase of his plan and undertaken to build up his “people’s army” – a massive grass-root movement as a basis for disrupting the political order –, and to set up a professional election-winning machine.

  • 55 Joshua Nevett, “Reform UK’s Trump-style rally fires up new members”, BBC News, 20 September 2024.
    ht (...)
  • 56 Zia Yusuf, Reform UK 2025 South East England Conference, 10 January 25, 11’40.
    https://www.youtube.c (...)

45The party has therefore entered a new phase in its development, as made clear during the 2024 annual conference, a large-scale rally reminiscent of Donald Trump events – with “Let’s Make Britain Great Again” baseball caps and a rock-and-roll entrance music for speakers55. The conference was presented as the “coming of age of Reform”, after what Farage called “the teenage tantrums”, in reference to the scandals around candidates which had marred the election campaign. The party was about to move from amateurism to professionalisation, under the new chairmanship of Zia Yusuf, a wealthy entrepreneur who had made a £200,000 donation to the party for the election campaign. The goal is for Reform to have a branch in every constituency, and things are moving fast. In January 2025, Yusuf announced that more than 400 branches had already opened across the country56.

  • 57 Nicholas Harris, “The world according to Reform”, The New Statesman, 23 September 2024.
    https://www. (...)
  • 58 Zia Yusuf, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.
  • 59 David Bull, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.
  • 60 Zia Yusuf, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.
  • 61 Ibid.
  • 62 Tereza Capelos, Alexia Katsanidou, “Reactionary politics: explaining the psychological roots of ant (...)
  • 63 Rupert Lowe, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.

46During the annual conference, although the party introduced its new slogan, “family, community, country”, designed to appeal to an old Labour target audience57, the discourse remained unchanged, relying on the same three familiar key themes: anti-immigration, anti-net zero and anti-woke rhetoric. In the various speeches, there was an accelerated sense of urgency about the need to “save” “broken Britain”: “Time is short, our mission urgent58”. The UK was repeatedly described as “in a perilous state59”, “in great peril”; “civilisation” was “under assault”, and the party was leading “a battle for the soul of our nation60”. The narrative of betrayal was also recurrent: “People feel betrayed and demoralised61”. The various speakers, among whom the self-proclaimed “Famous Five” (the 5 Reform MPs), presented themselves as disruptors, aiming to shake the establishment and uproot the status quo. There was a strong reactionary dimension in their discourse, advocating a return to a status quo ante, the restoration of a golden era, and recurrent references to an idealised version of the past. This is typical of populist parties, which “harness the restrospective gaze of reactionism, combining it successfully with anti-establishment and anti-elite narratives62”. This reactionary stance calls for uprooting the status quo. Rupert Lowe called for “seismic change. We must collectively, but legally, bring the fight to them63”. Reform members, “patriots”, were pivotal in this mission to save the country and were strongly encouraged to stand up and take an active part in this revolt.

  • 64 June 2025, party-reported figures.
  • 65 Kemi Badenoch, X, 26 December 2024.

47This seems to be working, as the people’s army has been growing extensively, from 40,000 members at the time of the election to more than 235,000 in June 202564. This even prompted a row with the new conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, after Reform announced that they had surpassed the Conservative Party membership on Boxing Day and were “now the real opposition” to Labour. Badenoch reacted on X by claiming that the membership counter was “a fake” and accusing Farage of “manipulating his supporters” and British voters65. Farage threatened legal action against her. Four media outlets (The Financial Times, The Telegraph, the Spectator and Sky News) were invited to verify the party’s numbers which he published online.

48Reform has therefore been skillfully staging its own growing success since the election, capitalising on it to shore up further support – strategically operating by virtuous circle. The party appears to have all the momentum in British politics right now, taking advantage of Starmer’s difficulties and the Conservatives’ apparent inability to bounce back under Badenoch’s premiership. Reform has been omnipresent in traditional and social media since the election, constantly challenging the Labour government and the Conservative Party, raising controversy and instrumentalising every subject for political gain.

  • 66 YouGov, voting intention tracker.
  • 67 Reform UK, X, 12 January 2025.

49The party’s strategy appears to be paying off, as reflected in the opinion polls, with Reform overtaking the Tories in voting intentions in January, and Labour in April66. Polls also seem to confirm that Reform is gaining increasing traction among young voters – especially men – whom Farage has been keen to mobilise to show that Reform was “the party of the future67.

  • 68 Nigel Farage, “Can we please Make Britain Great Again?”, The Telegraph, 22 January 2025.
    https://www (...)
  • 69 Kevin Schofield, “Even Reform UK Voters Are Getting Sick And Tired Of Donald Trump”, HuffPost, 29 A (...)

50The party’s momentum can also be seen as having been boosted by Trump’s victory in the US presidential election, as Farage has been boasting of his close personal relationship with Donald Trump since the Brexit referendum, increasingly imitating his rhetoric and tactics, echoing his message in the UK with the aim of emulating his success. Trump is a clear source of inspiration for Farage68, and both men share a similar reactionary political stance and present themselves as disruptors. However, this might be a double-edged sword for the party, given Trump’s growing unpopularity in the UK (even among Reform supporters)69, especially regarding his position on Ukraine.

  • 70 Tim Stanley, “Nigel Farage: ‘Elon Musk is a bloody hero’”, The Telegraph, 27 December 2024.
    https:// (...)
  • 71 Eliot Wilson, “Will Musk’s millions really carry Farage to victory?”, The Spectator, 19 December 20 (...)
  • 72 Elon Musk, X, 5 January 2025.
  • 73 Nigel Farage, X, 5 January 2025. “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on (...)

51The Reform leader seemed to have found another powerful US ally – and another fellow-disruptor – in Elon Musk, who has been increasingly interfering in British politics since the election, with repeated fierce attacks on Keir Starmer. In December 2024, rumours emerged that Musk was ready to make a major donation to Reform, possibly of $100 million. Although the figure was later dismissed as “complete nonsense70 by Farage, it attracted the party large publicity, and prompted speculation about its potential impact on Reform’s electoral prospects71. However, three weeks later Musk turned against Farage, calling for his replacement: “The Reform Party needs a new leader. Farage doesn’t have what it takes72. This U-turn was due to disagreement over Tommy Robinson, the extreme right activist, whom Musk had been defending in the previous weeks, calling for his release from jail. Farage did not share his views73, and refused to contemplate Robinson joining Reform – whom he has long been a vocal critic of, striving to draw a clear political line between his successive political parties and the extreme right.

  • 74 Andrew Pierce, “Elon Musk-backed Reform MP Rupert Lowe reveals how he’d save Britain”, The Daily Ma (...)
  • 75 Rupert Lowe, “I’m the victim of a witch hunt – and I’m innocent,” The Telegraph, 8 March 2025.
    https (...)
  • 76 John Curtice, “Brits don’t like Elon Musk – Farage is better off without him”, The I Paper, 6 Janua (...)

52These two competing visions of Reform’s positioning were also illustrated by the internal dispute between Nigel Farage and Rupert Lowe. In March 2025, the MP for Great Yarmouth publicly criticised Farage’s “messianic” leadership style, describing Reform as a “protest party74. The following day, Lowe was suspended following allegations of bullying and threats against party chairman Zia Yusuf. He denied the allegations, claiming they were part of a “witch-hunt75 orchestrated by Farage to silence dissent. He suggested that his suspension was due to his growing influence within the party and his advocacy for policies such as mass deportations, which he believed were at odds with the party leadership's stance. Though officially justified on disciplinary grounds, the row reflects deeper ideological tensions within Reform and disagreements over the party direction. Lowe’s rhetoric echoes the narrative promoted by Robinson and supported by Musk – who had named Lowe as a potential replacement leader of Reform. This episode illustrates the dilemma faced the party in its current development, as Reform supporters tend to “have views and sympathies that are more hardline than those espoused by the party76. For Reform to widen its electorate, it needs to avoid the toxicity associated with the extreme right in the eyes of the public.

Conclusion

53Reform UK therefore uses disruption as both a strategy and a goal. This is an inherent part of its nature as a populist party, aiming to destabilise the system, to lead an “insurgency”, a revolt against the establishment and uproot the status quo. The performance of crisis is key to this narrative as it is used to justify disruption. The party has also been staging its increasing success as another strategy to destabilise the two major parties, and the political system in general.

  • 77 John Curtice, “The map that shows Reform’s triumph was much more than a protest vote”, BBC News, 7 (...)

54Reform now represents a dual challenge to the political mainstream, posing a significant electoral threat to both major parties, as demonstrated by its strong performance in the May 2025 local elections. The party gained 677 council seats (41% of those contested), took control of 10 councils, and won two mayoral elections in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire. While many of these gains came at the expense of the Conservative Party, as most councils up for election were historically Tory strongholds, Reform captured the only council Labour was defending, Doncaster, a traditional Labour heartland. As Curtice points out, Reform’s share of the vote was equally high in previously Labour and Conservative wards, at 32%”77. Additionally, Reform won a parliamentary seat in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election on a 17.4% swing from Labour, in one of its safest seats. The election of Sarah Pochin brings Reform back to five MPs in Westminster, after Rupert Lowe’ expulsion.

55This electoral breakthrough reflects both the party’s organisational consolidation and growing momentum examined here. Recent polls place Reform consistently ahead of both major parties in national vote intention78. Some forecasts even predict Reform as a potential General Election winner, with projections suggesting that the party could win 362 seats in Parliament79. Such polling trends underscore the seriousness of Reform’s challenge and testify to its increasing visibility and appeal across the electorate.

56For the Conservative Party, the threat posed by Reform is existential, as evidenced since the General Election by the erosion of its traditional support base and by a series of high-profile defections, including Lee Anderson, Andrea Jenkyns, Marco Longhi and Tim Montgomerie. Reform's narrative, built on the claim that the Tories have abandoned their principles and failed to deliver on key promises, continues to resonate with disillusioned Conservative voters.

  • 80 Ibid.

57However, as shown by the May elections, Labour is also vulnerable to Reform, particularly in its traditional working-class heartlands. Reform is now explicitly targeting Labour, attempting to outflank the party on the left to consolidate support in Red Wall constituencies. This has been further illustrated by Farage’s recent policy proposals on welfare and the nationalisation of energy infrastructure, signaling a leftward economic turn aimed at economically insecure voters – all the while maintaining a socially conservative discourse on cultural issues such as immigration and national identity. This ideological synthesis is reminiscent of Boris Johnson’s strategy in 2019, which successfully rallied Leave voters. Reform’s current appeal is concentrated in Leave areas and in constituencies that supported Johnson in 2019. According to Curtice, the local elections show that “Brexit is still an important fault line” in British politics80.

58Reform is thus transcending traditional party alignments, capitalising on widespread dissatisfaction with the political class, and emerging as a serious contender. Whether it can consolidate this momentum in the long-term remains to be seen, but its disruptive impact on British politics is already considerable.

Top of page

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Top of page

Notes

1 Octavia Bryant, Benjamin Moffitt, “What actually is populism? And why does it have a bad reputation?”, The Conversation, 5 February 2019.
https://theconversation.com/what-actually-is-populism-and-why-does-it-have-a-bad-reputation-109874, accessed 5 January 2025.

2 Slogan of the Brexit Party and then of Reform UK.

3 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2016), p. 130; Paul Taggart, “Populism and representative politics in contemporary Europe”, Journal of Political Ideologies, 9:3, 2004, p. 275.

4 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation, (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2016), p. 45.

5 Tim Bale, The Conservative Party After Brexit: turmoil and transformation (Cambridge, Polity Press, 2023); Karine Tournier-Sol, « L’impact du UKIP et du Brexit Party sur l’échiquier politique britannique », Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique, XXVII-2, 2022. http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/9498, accessed 6 January 2025.

6 Often shortened to Reform.

7 Nigel Farage in debate with Nick Clegg on Britain’s membership of the European Union, BBC, 2 April 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXXiKCiwdKU, accessed 10 January 2025.

8 Paul Taggart and Aleks Szczerbiak, “Contemporary Euroscepticism in the Party Systems of the European Union Candidates States of Central and Eastern Europe”, European Journal of Political Research, 43:1, 2004, pp. 1-27.

9 Matthew Goodwin and James Dennison, “The Radical Right in the United Kingdom”, in Jens Rydgren (ed), The Oxford Handbook of the Radical Right (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 739-769.

10 Ibid., p. 757.

11 Ibid., p. 739.

12 Nigel Farage, “With a heavy heart, I am leaving UKIP. It is not the Brexit party our nation so badly needs”. Telegraph, 4 December 2018, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/12/04/heavy-heart-leaving-ukip-not-brexit-party-nation-badly-needs/, accessed 8 July 2025.

13 Tim Bale, “Brexit shows how the populist right can be powerful without winning office”, UK in a Changing Europe, 11 December 2019.

14 Tim Bale, “Populist Radical Right Parties can be beaten at elections, but they can’t be eradicated”, European Centre for Populism Studies, Interview Series, 9 June 2024.
https://www.populismstudies.org/professor-bale-prr-parties-can-be-beaten-at-elections-but-they-cant-be-eradicated/, accessed 3 January 2025.

15 YouGov, voting intention tracker: https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/voting-intention, accessed 26 May 2025.

16 Nigel Farage, X, 23 May 2024.

17 Nigel Farage, “Patriotic British voters now have a real alternative to this failed elite”, The Telegraph, 3 June 2024. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/03/patriotic-british-voters-real-alternative-to-failed-elite/, accessed 6 January 2025.

18 YouGov, 13 June 2024: 19% of voting intentions for Reform, 18% for the Conservative Party.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49735-reform-now-1pt-ahead-of-the-tories-although-this-is-still-within-the-margin-of-error, accessed 6 January 2025.

19 “We are now the opposition to Labour”, Nigel Farage, X, 13 June 2024.

20 Eventually, Reform contested 609 seats in Britain: 521 in England, 57 in Scotland and 31 in Wales. They lacked time to register in Northern Ireland, so they did not contest any seats there, but struck an election pact with the Traditional Unionist Voice.

21 2 million followers on X and 776,000 on Tik Tok at the time of the election campaign.

22 Tim Bale, Paul Webb, Stavroula Chrona, “UK election: Reform and Green members campaigned more online – but pounded the pavements less”, The Conversation, 27 September 2024.
https://theconversation.com/uk-election-reform-and-green-members-campaigned-more-online-but-pounded-the-pavements-less-239570, accessed 13 January 2025.

23 Peter Walker, Ben  Quinn, Rowena Mason, “Reform UK under pressure to prove all its candidates were real people”, The Guardian, 8 July 2024.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/08/reform-uk-under-pressure-to-prove-all-its-candidates-were-real-people, accessed 13 January 2025.

24 Karine Tournier-Sol,  Prendre le large : le UKIP et le choix du Brexit (Paris, Vendémiaire, 2017).

25 Steerpike, “Full list: every controversial Reform candidate”, The Spectator, 28 June 2024.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/full-list-every-controversial-reform-candidate/, accessed 13 January 2025.

26 Peter Walker, “Nigel Farage claims Russia was provoked into Ukraine war”, The Guardian, 21 June 2024.
See BBC interview: https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c8vv3vgngd0o, accessed 13 January 2025.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/21/russia-was-provoked-into-ukraine-war-claims-nigel-farage, accessed 13 January 2025.

27 Nigel Farage, “The West’s errors in Ukraine have been catastrophic. I won’t apologise for telling the truth”, The Telegraph, 22 June 2024.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/22/wests-errors-in-ukraine-been-catastrophic-i-wont-apologise/, accessed 13 January 2025.

28 David Maddox, “Shock new poll confirms Reform lead over Tories despite Farage’s Putin comments”, The Independent, 25 June 2024.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-poll-lead-tories-farage-putin-b2568005.htm, accessed 15 January 2025.l

29 Théo Aiolfi, “Populism as a Transgressive Style”, Global Studies Quarterly 2, 2022, pp. 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1093/isagsq/ksac006, accessed 23 January 2025.

30 “A hard surface to which nothing sticks”, Alessandro Nai, Jürgen Maier, “Teflon Trump? Shifting Public Perceptions of Donald Trump’s Personality Traits across Four Studies over 18 Months”, International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 33: 2, 2021, pp. 294-314. https://doi.org/10.1093/ijpor/edaa030, accessed 20 May 2025.

31 Benjamin Moffitt, The Global Rise of Populism: Performance, Political Style, and Representation (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2016), p. 130.

32 Reform UK manifesto launch, 17 June 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBWae-kbve0, accessed 13 January 2025.

33 Reform UK, “Our contract with you”, 2024 General Election, 2024, 24 p.
https://assets.nationbuilder.com/reformuk/pages/253/attachments/original/1718625371/Reform_UK_Our_Contract_with_You.pdf?1718625371, accessed 13 January 2025.

34 Lord Ashcroft, “How Britain voted and why: My 2024 post-vote poll”, 5 July 2024.
https://lordashcroftpolls.com/2024/07/how-britain-voted-and-why-my-post-vote-poll/, accessed 13 January 2025.

35 Nigel Farage (Clacton), Lee Anderson (Ashfield), Richard Tice (Boston and Skegness), Rupert Lowe (Great Yarmouth), James McMurdock (Basildon South and East Thurrock).

36 In 2019, the Brexit Party won 2% of the vote share and no seats, fielding only 275 candidates after standing down in 317 Tory-held constituencies. It averaged 5.1% where it ran.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/2024-general-election-performance-of-reform-and-the-greens/, accessed 20 January 2025.

37 Richard Tice, “This is a great day for Reform UK – but our broken system robbed too many voters of their voice”, The Telegraph, 5 July 2024.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/05/richard-tice-reform-uk-first-past-the-post/, accessed 20 January 2025.

38 In comparison, the Brexit Party came in second place in three constituencies in 2019, while UKIP came second in 120 constituencies in 2015.

39 Rob Ford, “General Election 2024: A Big Night for the Smaller Parties”, Political Insight, 15:3, 2024, pp. 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1177/20419058241282451a, accessed 20 January 2025.

40 Oliver Heath, Christopher Prosser, Humphrey Southall, Paula Aucott, “The 2024 General Election and the Rise of Reform UK”, The Political Quarterly, 96:1, 2025, pp. 91-101.

41 “Nigel Farage said he hopes Reform UK can get through the electoral threshold”, The London Standard, 14 June 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ5qXWL--Bo, accessed 13 January 2025.

42 Nigel Farage, Manifesto launch, 17 June 2024. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2024/jun/17/nigel-farage-says-reforms-ambition-is-to-become-real-opposition-to-a-labour-government-video, accessed 13 January 2025.

43 However, the situation is not comparable: in Canada in 1993, the Reform party won 52 seats against 2 for the Conservatives. Here, the Conservative Party won 121 seats.

44 UK Parliament, “Policing response to the 2024 summer riots”, 9 September 2024.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/policing-response-to-the-2024-summer-riots/, accessed 20 May 2025.

45 At the time of the riots, 2.2 million at the time of writing (May 2025).

46 Nigel Farage, “My response to the attack in Southport”, X, 30 July 2024.

47 Nigel Farage, “My message to Keir Starmer”, X, 1 August 2024.

48 Ibid.

49 Nigel Farage, “Parliament must be recalled for proper debate”, X, 5 August 2024.

50 YouGov, “The public reaction to the 2024 riots”, 6 August 2024.
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/50257-the-public-reaction-to-the-2024-riots, accessed 13 January 2025.

51 Ibid.

52 Pamela Duncan, Carmen Aguilar García, Michael Goodier, Olivia Lee, Alex Clark, “Local. Left Behind. Prey to populist politics? What the data tells us about the 2024 UK rioters”, The Guardian, 25 September 2024.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/sep/25/local-left-behind-prey-to-populist-politics-data-2024-uk-rioters, accessed 13 January 2025. The notion of left-behind is debated among scholars, see Robert Ford, Matthew Goodwin, Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support for the Radical Right in Britain (Oxon, Routledge, 2014) ; Neema Begum, Aurelien Mondon, Aaron Winter, “Between the ‘Left Behind’ and ‘The People’: Racism, Populism and the Construction of the ‘White Working Class’ in the Context of Brexit”, in Shona Hunter, Christi van der Westhuizen (eds), Routledge Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness (Oxon, Routledge, 2021), pp. 220-232.

53 Helen Pidd, “Who were England’s 2024 rioters?”, Today in Focus, Podcast, The Guardian, 2 October 2024.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/audio/2024/oct/02/who-were-england-2024-rioters-podcast, accessed 13 January 2025.

54 Cas Mudde, Populist Radical Right Parties in Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007); Jens Rydgren, “The Sociology of the Radical Right”, Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 2007, pp. 241-262; Matthijs Rooduijn,“State of the Field: How to Study Populism and Adjacent Topics? A Plea for both More and Less Focus”, European Journal of Political Research, 58:1, 2019, p. 365.

55 Joshua Nevett, “Reform UK’s Trump-style rally fires up new members”, BBC News, 20 September 2024.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqjrvl7vkp5o, accessed 20 January 2025.

56 Zia Yusuf, Reform UK 2025 South East England Conference, 10 January 25, 11’40.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42rwnJJXuns, accessed 20 January 2025.

57 Nicholas Harris, “The world according to Reform”, The New Statesman, 23 September 2024.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2024/09/the-world-according-to-reform, accessed 13 January 2025.

58 Zia Yusuf, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.

59 David Bull, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.

60 Zia Yusuf, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.

61 Ibid.

62 Tereza Capelos, Alexia Katsanidou, “Reactionary politics: explaining the psychological roots of anti preferences in European integration and immigration debates”, Political Psychology, 39:6, 2018, p. 1273.

63 Rupert Lowe, Reform UK Party Conference 2024, 20 September 2024.

64 June 2025, party-reported figures.

65 Kemi Badenoch, X, 26 December 2024.

66 YouGov, voting intention tracker.

67 Reform UK, X, 12 January 2025.

68 Nigel Farage, “Can we please Make Britain Great Again?”, The Telegraph, 22 January 2025.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/22/reform-uk-can-make-britain-great-again-trump-republicans/, accessed 22 January 2025.

69 Kevin Schofield, “Even Reform UK Voters Are Getting Sick And Tired Of Donald Trump”, HuffPost, 29 April 2025, https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/entry/even-reform-uk-voters-are-getting-sick-and-tired-of-donald-trump_uk_6810f4bee4b0b1eab34a6c94/, accessed 8 July 2025.

70 Tim Stanley, “Nigel Farage: ‘Elon Musk is a bloody hero’”, The Telegraph, 27 December 2024.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/27/nigel-farage-elon-musk-is-a-bloody-hero/, accessed 13 January 2025.

71 Eliot Wilson, “Will Musk’s millions really carry Farage to victory?”, The Spectator, 19 December 2024, https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/will-musks-millions-really-carry-farage-to-victory/, accessed 8 July 2025; Peter Walker, Aletha Adu, Dan Milmo “Could $100m of Elon Musk’s money sway a General Election for Reform UK?”, The Guardian, 21 December 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/dec/21/could-100m-of-elon-musks-money-sway-a-general-election-for-reform-uk, accessed 8 July 2025.

72 Elon Musk, X, 5 January 2025.

73 Nigel Farage, X, 5 January 2025. “Well, this is a surprise! Elon is a remarkable individual but on this I am afraid I disagree. My view remains that Tommy Robinson is not right for Reform and I never sell out my principles”.

74 Andrew Pierce, “Elon Musk-backed Reform MP Rupert Lowe reveals how he’d save Britain”, The Daily Mail, 5 March 2025, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14464947/Elon-Musk-Reform-MP-Rupert-Lowe-Farage.html, accessed 5 March 2025.

75 Rupert Lowe, “I’m the victim of a witch hunt – and I’m innocent,” The Telegraph, 8 March 2025.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/03/08/rupert-lowe-i-am-victim-witch-hunt-innocent/, accessed 8 March 2025.

76 John Curtice, “Brits don’t like Elon Musk – Farage is better off without him”, The I Paper, 6 January 2025.
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/brits-dont-like-elon-musk-farage-is-better-off-without-him-3464415?srsltid=AfmBOoolxOljD5o-06U55dRMYNI-XzVjLghulYKJM09KP1jmQ-4NACgm, accessed 13 January 2025.

77 John Curtice, “The map that shows Reform’s triumph was much more than a protest vote”, BBC News, 7 May 2025. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yg467m8mjo, accessed 8 May 2025.

78 YouGov, voting intention tracker.

79 Electoral Calculus, 23 May 2025. https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/prediction_main.html, accessed 2 June 2025.

80 Ibid.

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References

Electronic reference

Karine Tournier-Sol, “The 2024 General Election and its Aftermath: Reform UK as a Disruptive Force in British Politics”Revue Française de Civilisation Britannique [Online], XXX-3 | 2025, Online since 15 September 2025, connection on 15 December 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/rfcb/14770; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/14qkp

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About the author

Karine Tournier-Sol

Laboratoire Babel (EA 2649), Université de Toulon

Karine Tournier-Sol is Professor of British Politics at the University of Toulon. Her main research interests are in the extreme and radical right, populism, and Euroscepticism in the United Kingdom. Her publications include Prendre le large: le UKIP et le choix du Brexit (Vendémiaire, 2017), The UK Challenge to Europeanization: The Persistence of British Euroscepticism (Palgrave, 2015, with Chris Gifford), and The Faces of Contemporary Populism in Western Europe and the US (Palgrave, 2021, with Marie Gayte). She is co-editor of the journal Observatoire de la société britannique with Vincent Latour.

By this author

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The text only may be used under licence CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. All other elements (illustrations, imported files) may be subject to specific use terms.

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