3 hours Ago By The Independent
Nigel Farage and Reform UK have been proudly sitting on top of many of the polls for months since the general election on 4 July last year. The latest Techne UK tracker poll for The Independent revealed that they stand joint top with Labour on 24 per cent each, two points ahead of Kemi Badenoch’s Tories. But on 1 May Farage and co will have their first big electoral test to see whether the polls are genuine or whether when it comes to the actual ballot box voters are less inclined to put their cross by Reform.
It is fair to say that May day is also a serious first test for Keir Starmer as prime minister and Kemi Badenoch as Tory leader but Mr Farage more than any other political leader has his credibility riding on this set of elections. But while multiple victories will confirm Reform as a serious political threat to its rivals, victory will also bring serious challenges to Farage’s style of leadership and answer questions over whether his party can actually be one of government. What victory could look like for Reform As things stand they are the favourites to win the Runcorn and Helsby by-election - failure to do so would actually leave serious doubts over whether Reform can make a serious election breakthrough in a general election.
Added to that their private polling suggests they will win at least three of the mayoralties with Tory defector Dame Andrea Jenkyns leading the way in Greater Lincolnshire, former boxer Luke Campbell in Hull and East Yorkshire, and Alexander Jones in Doncaster. Added to that “Brexit bad boy” millionaire Arron Banks cannot be ruled out in the West of England mayoral race. The party also seems to be on course to be the biggest in Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
On a really good day they could win a majority in one or two of those county councils. Given that the turnout is like to be around a third of eligible voters, if Reform cannot achiever this with a more motivated voter base then they probably will not be looking at sweeping to power in a 2029 general election. The shadow of Rupert Lowe In March, Mr Farage ruthlessly dispatched one of his five MPs, Rupert Lowe , with allegations of bullying and threats against chairman Zia Yusuf.
The decision to suspend Mr Lowe on the basis of those allegations, though, came just 48 hours after the Great Yarmouth MP had given an interview claiming that Reform was still just “a party of protest” and describing Mr Farage’s leadership style as “messianic”. It fed into allegations from others ditched by the party like former deputy leader Ben Habib that Mr Farage is unable to work as a team and it is all about him as an individual. While it is true that his presence in the general election more than doubled the party’s vote share from 7 per cent to 15 per cent, there seems little space for collaboration with others.
Mr Farage has denied this. But this is all about to be tested in county halls and mayoral offices around England. How Reform could turn into “Monty Python politics” The renowned pollster and Tory peer Lord Robert Hayward has warned of the danger of Reform holding power in various parts of England becoming “something akin to that famous scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
” The scene referred to involves the eponymous hero Brian’s attempt to join the radical People’s Front of Judea with the members sitting around complaining about “the splitters” in the similarly-named offshoots the Judean People’s Front and the Judean Popular People’s Front. In other words, he envisages the party splitting and fragmenting into different groups. Lord Hayward noted: “We have seen it with previous versions of Farage led parties.
Especially with Ukip in Wales and even more so in Norfolk. They quickly turned on one another and fell apart.” The Brexit Party MEPs group infamously fell apart just before the 2019 general election as well.
One of the criticisms which came out of the Rupert Lowe issue was that Reform like the Brexit Party and Ukip before is that it attracts people who have a more individualistic and less collective approach to politics. Personality clashes Already there are reports that Mr Yusuf - the much-criticised chairman of Reform - and Mr Farage want to try to run council groups remotely from their party headquarters, deciding on group leaders and so forth. We have already seen whole branches of Reform expelled for not taking the dictats from the centre and having the temerity to try to select their own candidates.
But with an electoral mandate behind them it is hard to see Reform councillors being easily bullied by the party centrally especially when faced with the demands of local politics. The would-be mayors could pose an even bigger problem. Mr Campbell has gone rounds in the ring with people as a boxer, Dame Andrea is no shrinking violet, and Mr Banks will not be taking instructions from anybody.
The probability of personality clashes is very much on the cards once the warm glow of victory fades. Candidate vetting problems While the party has tried to professionalise and eliminate the vetting issues which undermined them in the general election last year and proved in the past to be a nightmare for Ukip and the Brexit Party, there are still problems. Their candidate in Runcorn Sarah Pochin would provide a much-needed female presence to the current boys club of Reform MPs but has issues from her past in the way she was reprimanded previously for abusing her role as a magistrate.
The Independent recently revealed how another candidate accused the late Queen Elizabeth II of “scrounging”. Who knows what personalities are set to emerge in council chambers around England after 1 May. Credibility as a party of power In order to win a general election in 2029 and for Mr Farage to achieve his ambition of being prime minister, the party will need to prove it can be competent when it wins power.
So there will be a lot of scrutiny on Reform mayors and even more on councils led by Reform with possibly a Reform majority. If these turn into disasters then Reform’s credibility will be hurt even more than the other parties because the magnifying glass will be on them. If council groups fall apart or the party ends up expelling people for not taking central instruction then the sense of chaos and incompetence will harm their future prospects.
Reform could fairly argue that the chaos of Labour-led Birmingham with its uncollected rubbish and giant rats should harm Keir Starmer’s prospects equally. But, unlike Reform, both Labour and the Tories have long histories of government to fall back on. Badenoch and Starmer not off the hook The local elections are not just a first major test for Mr Farage but also Kemi Badenoch as Tory leader and Keir Starmer as prime minister.
Unfortunately, for Mr Farage, the likely failures at the ballot box of those two is, as Lord Hayward puts it, “largely baked in”. Expectation management has long been in play. The Tories are defending 940 seats from an election previously which gave them an unusual high, so they know that they will lose hundreds this time round.
Labour is already in “mid-term blues” territory. Both will point to probable low turnouts making the results meaningless. It may be, though, that Ms Badenoch will struggle to survive beyond May 2026 with a whispering campaign already against her, suggestions that Robert Jenrick and James Cleverly could replace her, and no sign of a Tory revival.
But win or lose it will be Mr Farage whose credibility is most at stake with what transpires after 1 May..
