In the wake of the far-right riots, Chris Bambery analyses the nature of support for the Reform Party and how it can be countered by the left

On 7 August 2024, a YouGov poll found when asked ‘would you say that you support or oppose the recent protests and/or unrest?’ a third of British people, 31%, answered that they ‘support’ or ‘somewhat support’ them. Seven percent of respondents said they ‘strongly support’ the unrest at these protests. That 7% “strongly support” the Islamophobic and racist violence that has accompanied the protests is bad enough, but that another seven percent said they ‘somewhat support’ the unrest is even more disturbing.

How could that be? How could a third of the population approve in any way of attempting to burn down a hotel housing migrants in Rotherham, of the destruction of a café in South Belfast owned by a Syrian refugee or a vicious attack on a mosque in Southport? To understand that you have to connect to what happened in England and Wales on 4 July, the day of the UK general election.

Little attempt has been made by establishment politicians and media to point out that much of this racist assault took places in areas where, just four weeks previously, Reform UK polled well Southport, Hartlepool, Rotherham, Hull, Sunderland and Stoke-on-Trent among other places.

The YouGov poll found Reform UK voters are more likely than others to think the unrest is justified, at 33%. Forty-nine percent said those taking part in the protests (not the riots) were ‘people with legitimate concerns.’ With 4.1 million votes, 14.3% of the total, Reform UK’s result represents the largest ever vote for a far-right party at a general election, exceeding the 3.9 million achieved by UKIP in 2015.

While they won only five seats – not something easy for a new party to do given the first-past-the-post electoral system – they outpolled the Liberal Democrats by 14% to 12%. The latter won 72 seats because its vote was concentrated in particular seats, largely south of the River Trent. Reform UK’s vote was more evenly spread, resulting in it winning far fewer seats. But it did come second place in 98 constituencies, 89 of which were won by Labour, including large parts of North-East England, Midlands and South Wales, and gained above 20% of the vote in 147.

It is worth adding Reform UK has admitted that in many constituencies it ran paper candidates, as many as 115, putting up no campaign. In North Northumberland, Katherine Hales did not publish a picture of herself but still came third with 15.7 percent of the vote.

In the month after the UK general election, Reform UK’s membership surged to 65,000 members, up nearly two-thirds in four weeks. This was, of course, prior to the Nazi-led onslaught on mosques, hotels housing migrants and businesses. The Response of Nigel Farage and Reform UK to this wave of far-right-led race riots has been one, that while formally condemning violence, seeks to keep the party clearly apart from the established parties and to show sympathy for what they claim motivates the riots.

Thus, in an official statement, Farage claimed that, ‘The majority of our population can see the fracturing of our communities as a result of mass, uncontrolled immigration.’ He also compared the current violence with the Black Lives Matter protests, claiming that the ‘soft policing’ of those events led to a ‘sense of injustice’. Lee Anderson, Reform UK MP for Ashfield, was less subtle claiming:

‘These are not far-right thugs, they’re just young idiots who got carried away’.

Lee Anderson

Of course, in this, Farage has been helped by the repeated failure of establishment politicians, including the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, and the established media, especially the BBC, to call out that it is the Nazis leading this and Islamophobia which is feeding it. To do so would be to accept their own responsibility for making Islamophobic statements and for targeting migrants.

There is a sizable tranche of the population which dislikes Reform UK. But there is a sizable grouping too who are sympathetic. A poll published two weeks after the general election across Britain found 41% believe the Reform Party is racist, 51% that it risks bringing prejudice into debates about immigration and 43% that it’s dangerous and divisive. Conversely, 45% think it’s ‘bravely outspoken’, 41% believe it is an important new voice just saying what most people think and 43% that it’s a mainstream party with a right to their views.

So who votes for Reform UK?

A University College of London Policy Lab analysis of voters in the 2024 UK general election found that:

‘Sixty-four percent of Reform UK voters said their vote for the Party was driven by levels of immigration and 51 per cent said the same of channel crossings. This outweighed the NHS (34 per cent) and was tied with the cost of living (51 per cent).’

They backed Boris Johnson in 2019, with 62% voting Conservatives then, and were incensed by his removal. The same report quoted John, a retiree in Clacton, saying: ‘Brexit was largely all about getting back our border controls, which the Conservative Party haven’t managed to do that. Labour haven’t got any real concrete plan to do it either.’

The report looked at a group they called ‘Loyal Nationals’, describing them as: ‘A group that is anxious about the threats facing Britain and facing themselves. They are proud, patriotic, tribal, protective, threatened, aggrieved, and frustrated about the gap between the haves and the have-nots.’ At the 2019 general election, 56% of Loyal Nationals voted Conservative, but on 4 July the Tories were pushed into third place among them, behind Reform UK, with just 19% of the Loyal National vote.

The Reform UK vote was driven by three factors. First, extremely high levels of concern about immigration. Second, distrust of both Starmer and Sunak; a belief that the two mainstream parties were just as bad as each other. Third, their positive views of Nigel Farage who ‘says it like it is’ and has the potential to shake up the system. The report concludes that the average Reform UK voter is ‘a white 55-year-old man who voted to Leave the European Union. He most likely lives in a village and didn’t go to university.’

The received wisdom is that Reform UK’s success is due to them taking votes from the Tories over immigration. The supposed answer is for the new Tory leader to tack right to regroup that support.

However, it’s not as simple as that. Reform’s rise is due to voters’ protest against a system and the ruling parties that has failed them time and time again. Just 31% of Reform voters considered voting Tory on 4 July.

The weekend after the election The Guardian talked to Reform UK voters in Barnsley: ‘Not every Reform voter here was motivated by immigration. George Vetters, who used to run a pool hall but now works in the town centre, is cynical about the two main parties, calling Labour ‘more conservative than the Conservatives.’ He likes Farage because he seems to be a straight talker. ‘He gives answers that are in the real world, whether or not you agree with him. And I don’t agree with any of the parties about immigration.’ In fact, Vetters would like to bring his foreign partner to live in the UK, but she remains overseas because he doesn’t earn a £29,000 salary, the minimum income requirement for her to qualify for a spousal visa. But since neither the Conservatives nor Labour will help him, Reform makes just as much sense.

Reform and the Tories

Another pro-immigration Reform voter is Adam Metwally, an eighteen-year-old aiming to become a car mechanic. ‘I think they have a lot to offer,’ he says. ‘The country and the state it’s in, the cost of living crisis. I thought apart from that one issue, Nigel had a lot of good points. My personal opinion is everyone should be treated equally – we just need to get the country back on track.’

The idea that Nigel Farage is a ‘straight talker’, and a voice for common people will stick in the craw of readers here, but it illustrates how extensive alienation with the established parties is. Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, points out: ‘Most Reform voters don’t like the Conservative Party … Conservatives assume that because most Reform voters backed the Tories in 2019 that they are low-hanging fruit, easy to win back. But this doesn’t follow. They feel let down by the Conservative Party, and just saying nice things to them isn’t going to cut it for them. Even if you can get some of them back you will lose others in doing so.’

The same article that quotes Rob Ford also quotes a right-wing Tory MP: ‘The big question about Reform is whether it’s just about immigration,’ one MP on the right of the party said, ‘or whether it’s also about economics and trust. Some of us think it’s something much bigger, a bit like a Marine Le Pen moment. If we’re right, then it’s no good just pitching for Reform votes by going harder and harder on immigration because you can never satisfy enough of them, and with some of them you wouldn’t want to.’

Of course, Reform UK’s leadership is a timebomb waiting to explode, given the egos at work there. The party has to create a national apparatus quickly and it needs to make an impact at Westminster – not easy for five MPs to do.

But there are signs it has a solid core of support. Reform UK voters are committed to the party. Just 7% of them think a party’s chances of winning should override whether they are your first choice. For Labour and Lib Dem voters, though, the figure is closer to four in ten – 38 and 39%.

The UCL Policy Lab report found: ‘Of all groups of Conservative switchers, Reform voters are the most likely to say they will never vote Conservative again. Reform voters have had enough, and many of them can’t see themselves ever returning to the Conservative party.’ Twenty-six percent of them say they will never consider voting Tory again; higher than among Labour voters, 19%, and Liberal Democrat voters, 14%. But it is also worth stating that the Tory Party is in retreat and it’s opening up swathes of Britain to Reform UK.

The 2024 general election saw the Conservative vote retreat from urban areas and large towns back to villages. In 2019, more than a third, 36%, of the seats the Tories won were mostly urban; in 2024 it was just a fifth, 22%. In 2019, 34% of their constituencies were rural, while today its 45%.

This has created a more economically secure Conservative voter base, with 59% of Conservative voters saying they are very or relatively comfortable financially, compared to 47% of the country.  This shift leaves a large segment of once traditional, middle-class voters open to Reform UK in urban seats which once voted Tory.

Britain wide

It is worth also pointing out that Reform UK is not just an English party. In South Wales, Reform UK polled second in eleven seats, cutting Labour’s majority to just 1,504 in Llanelli. In Rhondda and Ogmore they came second to Labour with 26.1%. The Financial Times interviewed Laura McAllister, professor of public policy and the governance of Wales at Cardiff University, who concluded:

‘We estimate you’d need to get in the region of 12 per cent of the vote to be elected,’ said McAllister of the ‘closed list’ voting system being adopted for the Senedd, the Welsh Assembly. ‘Reform easily overcame that threshold [last week] in most parts of Wales, not just the valleys.’ McAllister warned of ‘complacency’ on the part of Welsh Labour, whose vote share dropped 4% on 4 July: ‘But if things are tough, and it feels like the economy isn’t improving, I think Reform will have an obvious in.’

In Scotland, complacency is widely on view on social media where many independence supporters seem to believe the border is a barrier to racism. In Scotland, the Scottish Tories won just 12.7% of the vote, less than six points ahead of Reform. In all six Glasgow seats Reform UK polled more votes than the Conservatives, despite three candidates having no visible presence at all and giving their addresses as being in England. Helen Burns, in Glasgow North, lives in Leicestershire, Morag McRae in Glasgow South West, lives in Derbyshire and Jonathan Walmsley in Glasgow North East, lives in Shropshire. Burns got 1655 votes (4.8%), McRae, 2236 (6.3%) and Walmsley 2272 (6.7%).

North of the border, John Curtice found that: ‘Much of the Tory party’s lost support is backing Reform. No less than one in six, or 17 per cent, of those who voted Conservative in 2019 are now supporting Farage’s party, a figure not far short of the 25 per cent who have made the same transition across the UK as a whole. That loss is on top of the 27 percent who are now backing Labour.’ Reform UK has now announced it will contest every seat at the next Scottish parliamentary election and has high hopes of winning a place at Holyrood. Curtice points out that if they replicated their 2024 vote share, they’d be looking at a ‘small, but not insignificant presence’ in Holyrood after 2026.

Confronting Reform

The idea that there are ‘legitimate’ concerns over immigration is not one confined to the Conservative Party. In Hartlepool, Labour retook the seat, having lost it in a 2021 byelection to the Tories, with 46.2% of the vote. Reform UK came second with 24.5%. The conclusion Labour MP, Jonathan Brash, drew was: ‘The important thing from our perspective is to start reflecting their concerns,’ he said, adding that his party would have to ‘face up to’ worries about immigration and the asylum system, at the same time as recognising the decline Hartlepool has suffered over many years.’ The last point is true. His main point is dreadfully wrong. Hartlepool is in the top 20% of the most deprived in England in terms of employment, and health deprivation and disability.

Migrants and asylum seekers are not responsible for the deindustrialisation of Hartlepool and the consequent dominance of low-paid, low-skilled jobs. Just 1.9% of Hartlepool residents are Muslims, Hindus or Sikhs. Brash should blame the Labour and Tory governments and the neoliberal agenda they have slavishly followed.

The other question might be whether Reform UK voters would switch to a copy of the party’s policy on immigration or stick with the original. I’m cribbing a line from Jean-Marie Le Pen and over three decades, his point on this score has been proven.

The Guardian reports that the Labour leadership wishes to shy away from confronting Reform UK: ‘Labour sources say the view is that it is counterproductive to give Farage and his crew the oxygen of too much direct criticism when the focus should be on the policing and tackling the rioters. However, others within the party are worried that Labour’s failure to challenge Farage more comprehensively head-on allows his anti-migrant insinuations to become part of mainstream political rhetoric, especially when he now has five MPs and received 4m votes at the election.’

The article does point to one issue Starmer ducks: ‘Hostile language about migrants has become increasingly mainstream in the last five years …’ Wrong as this approach by Labour is, Reform UK’s success is not just fuelled by immigration.

The problem for Labour is that many voters see them and the Tories as being uncaring and cut off from their day-to-day reality. As David, a landscaper, in Workington put it: ‘The problem is they’re exactly the same as each other. That’s the thing. The policies that they offer are exactly the same. I think that’s why Reform UK are so appealing to me as an individual. They’re different, they’re not the norm and that’s what we need personally.’

While 64% of Reform UK voters list immigration as their top concern the cost of living comes second, at 51%, and ‘supporting the NHS’ is fourth at 34%.  That presents an opening for the left, if we pursue the sort of twin-track approach I have written about recently: combining mass campaigning against racism and fascism with building a fightback against austerity and neoliberalism that can offer hope to dispossessed communities.

A lot hangs on how Labour performs in office. The outlook does not bode well. Starmer could well replicate Emmanuel Macron who succeeded, in his neoliberal enthusiasm, to hollow out his own support. That provided an opening for Marine Le Pen and the National Rally but, when the left got its act together in the New Popular Front, it also benefitted them. We can win back most of the people I have quoted who backed Reform UK, and isolate the hard racists and Nazis.

I would like to add one last point. Just a short time ago various politicians and pundits were queueing up to falsely accuse Jeremy Corbyn of anti-Semitism. Today he is on the front line in denouncing fascist violence and Islamophobia. Where are they? Silent is the answer, or, if they say anything, they avoid blaming it on fascists or Islamophobia. Indeed many have tried to compare fascists burning down mosques and hotels housing migrants to the pro-Palestine protests taking place over Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza (fewer people were arrested at these protests than at the Glastonbury Festival!).

Yet this is the nearest I have seen in my lifetime to the anti-Semitic pogroms which scarred the Russian Empire in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (they were initiated by the Tsarist authorities). These commentators are not standing up to racism. They are standing on the sidelines as real pogroms take place on our streets. Shame on them.