Reform should enter into a coalition, but with the mainstream Right not the hard Right
Daily Telegraph 03/08/26
Regardless of their recent slip in the polls, it’s been clear for some time Reform can only take power at the next election as part of a Right-leaning coalition. But Nigel Farage will be making a huge mistake if he pursues any pact with Rupert Lowe’s Restore. This risks sending Reform tumbling further in the polls and drastically reducing the prospect of victory.
Speaking today at a press conference on illegal immigration, Farage said he was open to an informal chat with Lowe’s party. This came after Lowe’s prior offer of a closer relationship and Farage’s comment at the weekend that he wanted to create a broad coalition on the Right to rescue Britain
Farage needs to walk back this offer of a chat. A relationship that ended so appallingly between the two men is irreparable. The characters of the two men are such that a sensible working relationship could never happen. And any deal would merely be lighting the fuse on a metaphorical time-bomb.
More importantly, though, a deal would taint Reform as being a party of the unacceptably hard Right. Yes, Left-wing politicians and activists think this already, but a massive chunk of voters – indeed, those that might send Reform into Downing Street – really don’t. Such voters would be less likely to vote Reform if an association were to develop with Lowe’s party.
Reform isn’t meaningfully vulnerable on their Right-flank, and haven’t slipped in the polls because they’re seen as insufficiently Right-wing. On the contrary, they’ve slipped because they have fallen out of the political mainstream, and have looked increasingly irrelevant and eccentric.
Even an informal chat of the sort being suggested by Farage would be a problem. For Lowe’s offer came with significant caveats: demands Reform commit themselves to the deportation of millions, a referendum on the death penalty, a ban on Muslim women wearing the burka; and more besides.
Polls often show support or sympathy for some of these policies. But they’re always an irrelevance compared to other issues like the cost of living, and, taken collectively as a prospective policy platform, most voters would find them unpleasant and extreme. The mass of the electorate is self-consciously moderate.
Many want massively reduced immigration, and a much tougher approach to crime and justice, but the sort of approach Lowe sets out is simply not acceptable for the people of Britain. Those pundits and activists that suggest Reform’s performance in the polls is entirely down to Restore’s rise have massively exaggerated the position of Lowe’s party.
A year ago, Reform was reliably polling in the high-20s; now they’re polling in the low 20s. Those voters that have drifted away have gone in different directions. While a small number have unquestionably turned to Restore, at least as many have drifted away to the Tories and Labour.
Voters have peeled away from Reform to different parties of the Left and Right overwhelmingly for three main reasons.
Firstly, the surge in concern about the cost of living meant political attention moved away from Reform’s main area of strength: illegal immigration. While immigration has jumped back into public consciousness after the events in Ceuta, which will surely help Reform. But the party’s narrow platform is often a liability, as politics ebbs and flows.
Secondly, because Reform yet again looked like a gang of jokers, with endless stories about Nigel Farage’s financial affairs, his and the party’s donors, and the party’s candidates. While many voters will certainly be sympathetic to Farage’s claim that private donations to bolster his security are reasonable, all these stories confirm that chaos follows the party as night follows day.
Thirdly, the rise of Andy Burnham within the Labour Party meant that Reform were finally being challenged by a popular politician in their Northern heartlands. It wasn’t just that Burnham replaced a deeply unpopular prime minister, Keir Starmer; Burnham himself has high name recognition and widespread respect across the North.
Emphatically, Reform hasn’t struggled because of being seen as insufficiently Right-wing. Insufficiently mainstream and serious? Absolutely yes. Insufficiently Right-wing? Not in a million years.
And all this takes us to another issue: what about the voters who haven’t yet registered in the polls as likely Reform voters, but who nonetheless express some sympathy for Reform and can therefore be thought of as prospective Reform voters? These are the party’s biggest prize, and they should be ruthlessly courted.
The mass of these prospective voters is to be found in the Conservative Party; they’re around a quarter to a third of those currently pledging a Tory vote. They’re Right-leaning, mainstream voters who have so far stayed the course with the Conservatives – currently watching how politics evolves, before deciding whether the Tories or Reform offer the best chance of getting the Left out of power.
If Reform is going to once again push towards (and over) 30 points in the polls, it’s these Right-leaning voters who will get them there.
These Tories are sympathetic to Reform and Nigel Farage, but they’re self-consciously patriotic and decent; for them, there’s a way of conducting politics – and indeed business and personal life – which makes them worry that voting Reform simply isn’t what respectable people do. These voters will not be won over by a deal with Restore; rather, they’ll be horrified.
Farage is absolutely correct that he’ll need a coalition to take power, and he’s right to start building one. But this must be done with like-minded, mainstream politicians in the Conservative Party.
These politicians offer not just the professionalism and policy knowledge the party desperately needs right now, and which will be even more important in Government. They will also speak to the mass of Tory voters who Reform will need to win.
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