The populist, hard-right Reform UK party has topped a voting intention poll for the first time, sending shockwaves throughout the British political establishment.
A February 3 YouGov poll found that if an election were to be called now in the United Kingdom, 25 percent would vote for Reform UK, 24 percent would vote for the current governing Labour Party, and 21 percent for the Conservatives.
Fourteen percent would vote for the Liberal Democrats and 9 percent for the Green Party, according to the poll.
Founded in 2021 as a relaunch of the Brexit Party, Reform UK has focused on immigration, housing and combating what its party manifesto termed “woke ideology”, according to its party manifesto.
In the July 2024 general election, Reform UK, which is led by Nigel Farage, secured 4.1 million votes – a result widely seen as a triumph given the party’s young age.
The British campaign group against the far right, Hope Not Hate, also recently published a poll surveying 17,000 people and found that Reform UK could take up to 169 seats in Parliament out of 650 and is emerging as “a major political force in Britain”.
“Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is trying to present itself as a fresh alternative by tapping into … disillusionment to push their own extreme agenda. If they succeed, they will drag British politics further towards division, hostility and distrust,” the group wrote on X on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Guardian has reported that some Labour MPs had set up a pressure group in areas where Reform UK came second in the general election to strengthen their base.
One unnamed MP told the news outlet, “One of our main messages to the leadership is we need to do more on illegal migration especially.”
Al Jazeera spoke to Professor Aurelien Mondon, a senior lecturer in politics, languages, and international studies at the University of Bath, about the significance of these polls and what the far-right party’s growing popularity says about the country.
Al Jazeera: Reform UK topped a You Gov poll for the first time. Are you surprised by this?
Mondon: Unfortunately, I am not surprised as this follows a long trend and nothing has been done to stop it.
In fact, I would argue that the Labour government has paved the way for Reform to rise by focusing on its pet issues [issues the party focuses strongly on like immigration] and prioritising its supporters.
This has led to the mainstreaming of their ideas and some people feeling emboldened to voice support for Reform as even the nominally left-wing government agrees with their diagnosis.
Al Jazeera: What do these surveys suggest about people’s feelings towards Reform?
Mondon: It says more about how people feel about Labour than it does about Reform. It is crucial not to read this poll as suggesting that Reform is on course to winning the next election.
What should concern us is that Labour has proven unable to respond to the many crises facing the UK, has continued down the path of austerity and mainstreaming of far-right ideas.
At the end of the day, and as we have seen in countless cases, you do not need Reform to win for it to set the agenda, for its discourse to become mainstream and for far-right politics to be implemented.
Al Jazeera: In the summer of last year, far-right riots targeted several Muslim and ethnic minority communities across the country. How do you characterise the political response to those tensions?
Mondon: The lack of a proper response from mainstream actors to these riots has emboldened the extreme minority, as had the downplaying of counter-protests even though they showed anti-fascist sentiment is far more popular than its counterpart.
It is striking that these sections of the population, either at the sharp end of far-right politics or publicly and decisively opposing them, have been consciously ignored by the Labour government, which has chosen instead to only cater for the reactionary interests of the minority.
Al Jazeera: Figures like the tech billionaire Elon Musk have become involved in the UK’s political divide, engaging in hateful speech about immigration with his supporters. What does this tell us about the way in which right-wing populism is growing?
Mondon: This is a symptom of a wider failure of institutions to counter the rise of what my colleague and I have called “reactionary tech oligarchy”.
Never should so much power and wealth be given to so few people when it was always clear that their commitment to democracy was thin at best.
Musk is not an exception but a product of mainstream failures in the face of an increasingly weak democratic system.
Al Jazeera: If Reform becomes more popular, will people become more outspoken about their support of the party, and its agenda?
Mondon: Unfortunately, this has happened in other contexts and is likely to happen here.
Seeing not only Reform rise in the polls, but mainstream politicians and media repeating its discourse as if it was based on legitimate concerns, will put immense pressure on communities at the sharp end of these politics.
Al Jazeera: Could Reform UK one day lead the country?
Mondon: Only if mainstream actors continue down this path and refuse to counter its rise by addressing the many crises facing this country and the planet through radical reforms.
