left-wing supporters of Brexit, including former Respect Party MP George Galloway.[12] Following the election of leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party, Farage offered him an electoral pact at the 2019 general election; the offer was rejected, but the Brexit Party unilaterally decided not to stand candidates in constituencies won by the Conservatives in the previous election
. The Brexit Party failed to win any seats at the 2019 general election.
By May 2020, because it had styled itself as being focused on the reformation of British democracy, there were proposals to rebrand the Brexit Party as the Reform Party.[13][14][15] The COVID-19 pandemic began in the UK in 2020, and the Conservative government imposed a national lockdown to slow the spread of COVID-19. Farage rebranded the party as Reform UK around the end of the year to focus on anti-lockdown campaigning.[16][17] He stepped down as the leader in March 2021, and was succeeded by Richard Tice. Lee Anderson, who was elected in 2019 as a Conservative MP, defected to the party in March 2024, becoming the party's first and only Member of Parliament (MP).[18]
History
Brexit Party
A company called The Brexit Party Limited was incorporated with Companies House on 23 November 2018.[19] It was formally announced on 20 January 2019 by former UKIP economics spokesperson[20]Catherine Blaiklock, who served as the party's initial leader.[21] On 5 February 2019, it was registered with the United Kingdom Electoral Commission to run candidates in any English, Scottish, Welsh and European Union elections.[22]
On the day of the announcement, Nigel Farage, who had been an independent MEP since his departure from UKIP in early December 2018, said that the party was Blaiklock's idea, but that she had acted with his full support.[21] In a 24 January 2019 interview, Blaiklock said: "I won't run it without Nigel [Farage], I'm a nobody and I haven't got any ego to say that I am an anybody", and that: "I'm happy to facilitate Nigel and do the donkey work and work for him, but I don't have any illusions as to myself".[23] On 8 February 2019, Farage stated he would stand as a candidate for the party in any potential future European Parliament elections contested in the United Kingdom.[24][25] MEPs Steven Woolfe and Nathan Gill, also formerly of UKIP, stated that they would also stand for the party,[26][27] though Woolfe was subsequently not permitted to.[28]
On 1 February 2019, Blaiklock told The Daily Telegraph the party had raised £1 million in donations, and that over 200 people had come forward offering to stand for the Brexit Party at the May 2019 European Parliament election, if the United Kingdom had not left the European Union by then.[29]
After announcing the party's formation, Blaiklock attracted criticism for Islamophobic comments on social media, made between 2017 and 2019.[30][31][32] She resigned as party leader on 20 March 2019 over since-deleted anti-Islam messages on Twitter, including re-tweeting messages by far-right figures including Mark Collett, Tommy Robinson and Joe Walsh.[31] Farage said that he would take over as leader, that Blaiklock was "never intended to be the long-term leader"[33] and that the party "is at the moment a virtual party – it's a website".[34] On the party's launch on 12 April, asked about issues with Blaiklock, Farage said: "I set the party up, she was the administrator that got it set up. We had a couple of teething problems, yes, but are we going to be deeply intolerant of all forms of intolerance? Yes."[35]
In April 2019, the party's treasurer Michael McGough was removed from his position after The Guardian uncovered antisemitic and homophobic social media comments he had posted in 2017.[36]
On 22 November 2019, the Brexit Party set out its proposals for the 2019 UK general election. They included a wide range of policy areas including taxation, reforming politics, immigration and the environment.[37][38] The party received two percent of the vote in the election, with none of its 273 candidates winning a seat.[39]
Transition into Reform UK
Before the general election on 8 December 2019, the party's leader Nigel Farage announced that, following Brexit, the party would change its name to the "Reform Party", and campaign for changes in the electoral system and structure of the House of Commons.[40]
In July 2020, Italexit, a Eurosceptic party inspired by the Brexit Party, was founded in Italy.[41]
In November 2020, Farage and Tice announced that they had applied to the Electoral Commission to re-name the Brexit Party to 'Reform UK', and stated that the party would campaign on a platform that was opposed to further
COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns (due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic) and that it would seek to reform aspects of UK Governance, including the BBC and House of Lords.[16][17] The group supports the Great Barrington Declaration.[42]
An analysis by the pollster YouGov cast doubt on the prospective appeal of the rebranded party, stating that the overlap of voters with a positive opinion of Nigel Farage and those with a negative opinion of COVID-19 lockdowns was small, at an estimated 7% of the electorate.[43] The charity Reform, which holds the domain name reform.uk, had complained to the Electoral Commission regarding the name change, claiming that it risks damaging its goodwill through name confusion.[44] The Renew Party also logged a complaint with the Electoral Commission on the grounds that the rebrand would mislead voters on the grounds that it was easy to confuse 'Reform' and 'Renew'.[45]
On 4 January 2021, the party's name change to Reform UK was approved by the Electoral Commission.[46]
In 2021, Reform UK gained representation in the Scottish Parliament when former Conservative and then independent MSP Michelle Ballantyne joined the party and was named Reform UK's leader in Holyrood by Nigel Farage.[47] She lost her and the party's only seat in Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.[48][49] She quit as the party's leader in Scotland in February 2022.[48][49] Farage stepped down as leader in March 2021, being replaced by party chairman Richard Tice.[50] Former North West England MEP David Bull was appointed as deputy leader of the party on 11 March 2021.[51]
On 26 March 2021, it was announced that former Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill had become the Leader of Reform UK Wales.[52]
In 2021, Reform UK announced its intention to field a full slate of candidates in the Senedd, Scottish Parliament and London Assembly elections with leader Richard Tice standing for election in the latter.[53][54][55] However, the party did not nominate a candidate for London Mayor after making a pact with Reclaim Party leader and actor Laurence Fox. Fox finished sixth in the mayoral election with less than 2% of the votes.[56] The party failed to win any seats above local level in the 2021 elections in May, as well as losing their deposit in the Hartlepool by-election.[57] In the Senedd election, the party fielded a full slate of candidates in every constituency and on the regional lists, but picked up just 1.6% of the constituency vote (7th place) and 1.1% of the regional list votes (8th place).[58] In the Scottish Parliament election, no constituency candidates were fielded and the party received just 5,793 list votes across the whole country despite standing in every region in Scotland.[59] In the London Assembly election, none of their constituency candidates were elected and the party finished tenth on the London-wide list with 25,009 votes.[60][61]
In October 2022, Reform UK and the
prospective parliamentary candidates for the party.[64][65]
The press gave renewed attention to Reform UK in December 2022—during the
cost-of-living crisis—after Farage announced it would stand a full slate of candidates at the next general election.[66][67][68] Tice remains leader of the party. After some opinion polls indicated a modest increase in support for Reform UK, The Daily Telegraph described the party as a "threat on the Right" to the Conservative government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.[69]
On the weekend of 7 and 8 October 2023, Reform UK held its party conference in London with 1,100 attendees.
spoiler party for the Conservatives, as it attracts former Tory voters. According to The Guardian, the party could enable more than 30 additional seat losses for the Conservative Party.[72]
In March 2024, the party formed an electoral pact with the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), in which the two parties would stand mutually agreed candidates within Northern Ireland.[73]
Representation
House of Commons
Reform UK have not won any parliamentary elections. However, member of parliament (MP), Lee Anderson defected to Reform UK on 11 March 2024, giving the party its first MP. Anderson was elected as an MP for the Conservative Party in the 2019 UK general election, before having the Conservative Party parliamentary whip suspended in February 2024.[74]
MEP Andrew England Kerr was expelled from the party on 29 September 2019 over a potential conflict of interest. Farage explained that England Kerr made "comments about a business and a product that he has a direct financial investment in and we think that is unacceptable."[79] MEP Louis Stedman-Bryce resigned on 19 November 2019 in response to "The Brexit Party’s recent decision to select a Scottish candidate who has openly posted homophobic views".[80]
With Brexit on 31 January 2020, all UK MEP positions ceased to exist.
Senedd
On 15 May 2019, four Members originally elected or co-opted for UKIP (
David Rowlands) joined the Brexit Party.[81] Reckless was appointed as Leader of their group. One Member, elected as UKIP but by this time sitting as an independent, Michelle Brown, was told she would not be welcome in the party.[82] In the Welsh language, the party was known as Plaid Brexit.[83] The Brexit Party Wales was to campaign in 2021 Senedd election to scrap the current system of devolution, and replace it with a directly-elected first minister accountable to Welsh MPs. The leader of the party in Wales, Mark Reckless, said in the interview on 15 May 2020 that Nigel Farage is "consulted over key decisions... but he doesn't micro-manage us here".[84] On 18 August 2020, Caroline Jones released a statement stating that she had quit the Brexit Party Welsh Parliament Group to sit as an Independent member due to the newly-adopted anti-devolution stance the Brexit Party had adopted.[85]
The party did not hold any MS seats after the 2021 Senedd election.[89]
Scottish Parliament
On 11 January 2021, independent MSP Michelle Ballantyne joined Reform UK. Ballantyne became an MSP for the 16-member district of South Scotland in 2017 when incumbent Rachael Hamilton resigned to stand in a by-election for a single-member seat. Ballantyne first sat as a Conservative but left the party in 2020 over opposition to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.[90] Ballantyne continued to sit as an independent until January 2021 when she joined Reform UK and was appointed leader of the Scottish party.[91] She continued to sit with the party until the 2021 Scottish Parliament election, where she lost her regional seat to a candidate from the Scottish Conservatives. She quit as the party's leader in Scotland in February 2022.[48][49]
Ideology and platform
The party's lead aim was for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, now achieved, and then trade with countries on World Trade Organization terms.[92] On 12 April 2019, Farage said that there was "no difference between the Brexit party and UKIP in terms of policy, [but] in terms of personnel, there's a vast difference", criticising UKIP's connections to the far right. He also said that the party aimed to attract support "across the board", including from former UKIP voters and from Conservative and Labour voters who supported Brexit.[35] Later in April, Farage said that the party would not publish a manifesto until after the European elections had taken place.[93] Farage said the party would have a policy platform instead of a manifesto.[94] Farage has described his admiration for how fellow Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy members, Italy's Five Star Movement, had managed to grow from a protest group into the country's largest political party in both houses of the Italian Parliament. He has described the Brexit Party as doing the same kind of thing and "running a company, not a political party, hence our model of registered supporters" and building a base using an online platform.[95]
The British politics professor
The party's constitution was published by the Electoral Commission as a result of a freedom of information request in May 2019.[106] It describes the party as seeking to "promote and encourage those who aspire to improve their personal situation and those who seek to be self-reliant, whilst providing protection for those genuinely in need; favour the ability of individuals to make decisions in respect of themselves; seek to diminish the role of the State; lower the burden of taxation on individuals and businesses."[107]SDP politician Patrick O'Flynn, who was elected as a UKIP MEP under Farage's leadership and supported the Brexit Party in the 2019 European elections, commented on the constitution's description of the party as following classical liberalism and described them as having a Thatcherite ideological core.[108]James Glancy, one of the party's MEPs, has compared the party to the Referendum Party, being a "united and diverse group of people from different political backgrounds".[109]
The party's first non-Brexit-related policy was announced on 4 June 2019: a proposition to transform
HS2 project and introducing free WiFi on all British public transport.[111] Furthermore, the party has said it will scrap all interest paid on student tuition fees, has suggested reimbursing graduates for historic interest payments made on their loans,[112] and has pledged to abolish inheritance tax.[113]
2019 UK general election platform as the Brexit Party
On 22 November 2019, the Brexit Party set out its policy proposals for the 2019 UK general election. Its key policies for the election included:[37][38]
Making MPs who switch parties subject to recall petitions
Reform the postal voting system to combat fraud
Introduce Citizens’ Initiatives to allow people to call referendums, subject to a 5 million threshold of registered voter signatures and time limitations on repeat votes
2020–present as Reform UK
Following the UK's departure from the European Union on 31 January 2020, that is "Brexit", Farage has sought a new right-wing populist project for the party under its new name of Reform UK by opposing COVID-19 restrictions, paralleling right-wing populist anti-lockdown sentiments in other countries.[115]
On 3 October 2021, the party's leader, Richard Tice, criticised the Conservative Party as a party of "high tax" at Reform UK's party conference in Manchester. He pledged to offer a lower-tax vision at the next election, saying his party would stand on a low-tax and low-regulation platform. The party supports raising the threshold at which people start paying income tax from £12,500 to £20,000, and exempt the smallest businesses from corporation tax. He also criticised the Conservative Party's plans to decarbonise the economy, saying that the UK should instead focus on exploiting reserves of shale gas. Tice has also said that net zero is an "absurdity" and "the greatest act of financial self-harm ever imposed on a country" that will "achieve nothing".[71] He has said that energy companies should be owned by the government or British pension funds to stop profits going abroad.[116]
Reform UK wants to resume fracking and re-establish coal mining in the United Kingdom. It also wants to expand the production of oil and gas from the North Sea.[117]
Healthcare
The party has stated that it would cut NHS waiting times within two years by increasing the use of private healthcare operations, at a cost of £30 billion.[117]
Funding and structure
In its early days, The Brexit Party officially had 3 members, who were Farage, Tracey Knowles and Mehrtash A’Zami. The party opted for signing up registered supporters rather than members. Over 115,000 people paid up as supporters at their height. The party structure was criticised for not providing the party's over 115,000 paying registered. Since 2021, the party has options to become a member, rather than a supporter [118] url=[119] with any voting power to influence party policy;[120] Farage retained a high level of control over decision-making, including hand-picking candidates himself.[120][121]
Farage has said the party would largely be funded by small donations and that they raised "£750,000 in donations online, all in small sums of less than £500" in their first ten days. The party also accepts large donations, such as £200,000 donated by Jeremy Hosking, a former donor to the Conservative Party.[122] He further said that the party would not be taking money from the key former UKIP funder Arron Banks.[35][123] Farage personally faced questions during the 2019 electoral campaign after Channel 4 News revealed undeclared travel and accommodation benefits provided by Banks before Farage joined the Brexit Party, and on 21 May 2019 the European Parliament formally opened an investigation.[124] In response to the reporting, the Brexit Party banned Channel 4 News from its events.[125]
Two days before the 2019 European election, Farage accused the Electoral Commission of "interfering in the electoral process" after the independent watchdog visited the Brexit Party headquarters for "active oversight and regulation" of party funding.[127] Official donations of £500 or more must be given by a "permissible donor", who should either be somebody listed on the British electoral roll or a business registered at Companies House and operating in Britain. When asked if the party took donations in foreign currency, Farage replied: "Absolutely not, we only take sterling – end of conversation." Shadow ChancellorJohn McDonnell called for "a full and open and transparent, independent inquiry into the funding of Mr Farage".[128] On Sky News in May 2019, a Scottish National Party MEP, Alyn Smith, claimed that the Brexit Party is "a shell company that's a money laundering front". The Brexit Party threatened legal action unless Smith retracted the claim.[129] Smith apologised unreservedly and admitted that he had no evidence for his allegation, and made a donation to the party's legal costs as well as to the charity Help for Heroes.[130]
As of February 2020,[131] and probably since May 2020,[126] Farage holds 8 of the 15 shares in The Brexit Party Ltd.
As well as the leader and chairman, other leadership roles were assigned to Brian Monteith as Chief Whip in the European Parliament (before Brexit)[132] and David Bull as health spokesperson during the 2019 election.[133]
In January 2021, former Conservative and then independent MSP Michelle Ballantyne joined the party and assumed the role of Leader of Reform UK Scotland.[134]
Leaders
Reform UK has had three leaders. Catherine Blaiklock was its first leader and served from 20 January 2019 to 20 March 2019, before resigning as party leader due to anti-Islam messages she posted on her Twitter account before she took on the role.[135]Richard Tice, the party's current leader, took on the role following the resignation of Nigel Farage.[136]
David Bull, author and television presenter,[145]Brian Monteith, a former Conservative Party MSP, Rupert Lowe, a businessman[146] and retired Rear Admiral Roger Lane-Nott.[147]John Longworth, the former director-general of the British Chambers of Commerce, announced he would be standing as a candidate for the party on 15 April 2019.[148] The party was not registered in Northern Ireland and did not field candidates there.[149]
A survey of 781 Conservative Party councillors found that 40% planned to vote for the Brexit Party.[150] On 17 April 2019, the former Labour and Respect Party MP George Galloway announced his support for the Brexit Party "for one-time only" in the 2019 European Parliament election.[151] On 24 April, the political columnist Tim Montgomerie announced that he would vote for the party and endorsed Widdecombe's candidature,[152] and the Conservative MP Lucy Allan described the candidates of the party as "fantastic".[153]
On 2 May, one of the party's candidates for the North West constituency, Sally Bate, resigned from the party in response to previous comments made by Claire Fox, the lead candidate in the constituency, on the
In May 2019, several polls forecast the party polling first for the European elections,[155] though earlier polls had suggested it would come third to Labour and the Conservatives.[156]
The party held 14 seats (acquired through defections) going into the elections, and saw an increase of 15. It won five more seats than UKIP, at the time under Farage's leadership, had at the previous election.
Three of the MEPs resigned the whip in December 2019 in order to support the Conservative Party at the 2019 general election, A fourth, John Longworth, was also expelled for "repeatedly undermining" the party's election strategy.[157]
Farage said the party intended to stand candidates at the 2019 general election.[158] In April 2019 he promised not to stand candidates against the 28 Eurosceptic Conservative MPs who opposed the Brexit withdrawal agreement.[159] In the Peterborough by-election in June, the Brexit Party came second with 28% of the vote, 7% ahead of the Conservatives and 2% behind Labour.
Following
Sunday Telegraph and the Brexit Party took out advertisements in Sunday newspapers offering an electoral pact with the Conservative Party in the forthcoming general election, in which the Brexit Party would not be opposed by the Conservatives in traditional Labour Party seats in the north of England, the Midlands and Wales, and the Brexit Party would not contest seats in which they could split the Leave vote. Farage wrote that Boris Johnson should ask himself "does he want to sign a non-aggression pact with me and return to Downing Street?"[161]
Farage had suggested that the Brexit and Conservative parties could form an electoral pact to maximise the seats taken by Brexit-supporting MPs, but this was rejected by Johnson.
Newsnight reported that conversations between members of the Brexit Party and the pro-Brexit Conservative group, the European Research Group (ERG) had led to this decision.[164] The Brexit Party is reported to have requested that Boris Johnson publicly state he would not extend the Brexit transition period beyond the planned date of 31 December 2020 and that he wished for a Canada-style free-trade agreement with the EU. Johnson did make a statement covering these two issues, something which Farage referenced as key when announcing he was standing down some candidates. Both the Brexit Party and the Conservatives denied any deal was done between the two.[164][165][166] The decision to not run in those seats met with criticism by some Brexit Party supporters and candidates; some candidates who had been selected to vie for Conservative seats opted to run as independent candidates on a Pro-Brexit platform.[167]
In December 2021, days before the North Shropshire by-election, local councillor and Deputy Mayor of Market Drayton Town Council, Mark Whittle, defected to the party from the Conservatives.[187]
It was reported that all of Reform UK's candidates in the 2022 United Kingdom local elections "will campaign on the benefits of fracking and restarting exploration in the North Sea".[188] Three of the eight council seats held by the party were up for re-election in 2022, all of which had arisen from defections. Both Derby seats were held, but a seat in Redbridge was lost. No new seats were gained.[189]
In December 2022, two former Conservative councillors - one in Barnsley and the other in West Oxfordshire - defected to the party.[190] Another Conservative councillor, Barry Gwilt, of the Fazeley on Lichfield District Council, defected to Reform UK in January 2023.[191]
^Matthew Goodwin and Caitlin Milazzo (2015), UKIP: Inside the Campaign to Redraw the Map of British Politics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 126.
^Matt Reed (2016), "'This Loopy Idea': An Analysis of UKIP's Social Media Discourse in Relation to Rurality and Climate Change", Space and Polity, 20(2), pp. 226–241.
^ ab"The new Ukip? Nigel Farage offers 'full support' for another Brexit party". Irish Independent. Dublin. 20 January 2019. Archived from the original on 2 February 2021. Retrieved 30 January 2019. [..] former UKIP economics spokeswoman Catherine Blaiklock applied to register the new party last week and she sounded out Mr. Farage for a role in the organisation. He told the paper: "This was Catherine's idea entirely – but she has done this with my full knowledge and my full support.
Jim Pickard (8 February 2019). "New 'Brexit Party' backed by Nigel Farage launches". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 9 February 2019. Retrieved 9 February 2019. A new political party backed by Nigel Farage has been launched in an attempt to attract hardline Conservative activists unhappy with Theresa May's attempt to forge a compromise Brexit plan.
^Bruce, Andy (8 February 2019). "Farage ready to be new 'Brexit Party' candidate if EU exit delayed". Reuters. Archived from the original on 27 July 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2019. A filing by the Electoral Commission showed the Brexit Party had been approved this week to field candidates across England, Scotland and Wales.
^"It's time: From Brexit to Reform UK". ReformUK: The Brexit Party. Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved 2 December 2020. Our party of Reform is the only political party that supports the Great Barrington Declaration.
Camilla Long, "Now he's shed the swivel-eyed loons, Farage has a truly dangerous proposition: the truth", The Sunday Times, 28 April 2019, p. 21. "The Brexit Party is more dangerous than anything Farage has ever done [...] He appears to have spent the past two years learning from the mistakes of Jeremy Corbyn and indeed his own former party, producing a leaner, greener, more efficient populist monster"
^Peter Walker (20 March 2019). "Leader of Nigel Farage's party resigns over anti-Islam messages". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 19 August 2021. Retrieved 20 March 2019. The leader of the new pro-Brexit party backed by Nigel Farage has abruptly resigned, after the Guardian asked her about a series of deleted anti-Islam Twitter messages sent from her account before she took on the role.