Having been surprised by the rise and rise of Reform, Conservative commentators have of late taken a new tack; Farage won’t last and his party will implode as the Gang of Four did back in the 80s. They are so wrong.
I’ve seen a couple of pieces, one by Iain Dale, an amiable old Tory cove, and another by the writer Alan Cochrane basically putting one of two arguments 1) That it’s early days for Badenoch and the leadership should stand up for it’s record over 14 years and 2) Farage will disappear as quickly as David Owen.
Both arguments are ridiculous. The reason Reform is doing so well is because of what the Tories did over the last decade. There are no votes in explaining the It was a nightmare. They didn’t believe in anything Right of centre and were always trying to satisfy a strange Lib-Dim agenda.
Nigel Farage and Reform will be taking votes from both Labour and the Conservatives.
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If, under Badenoch, they go down that route I guarantee she won’t be the Tory leader in two years’ time. Her problem is that a number of her MPs, including my hopeless chap, a guy called Ben Spencer, who has done and said nothing worth a carrot since being elected, are to her Left.
If they impose their thought process on her they too will be thrown out big time in at the next election. They are surely not that stupid.
The second argument deployed against Reform is that they should remember Thatcher and how unpopular she was and how the SDP became a huge political force until it imploded and merged with the Liberals.
I don’t buy the similarity. The astonishing success for Farage, and make no mistake this is Farage’s party, has come since the Election. Normally minority parties disappear after polling day. The electorate had their little rebellion and then went back to sleep for five years.
Not this time. Reform represents a thought process which the Conservatives either won’t or can’t replicate. And thanks to Starmer’s inept leadership – he can’t even go Madeira with his family without making a huge error – they will be picking up votes from the Left.
Boris Johnson could make his comeback after the 2026 Welsh Senedd election.
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A fascinating Sunday Times poll showed that Reform would win back all those Red Wall seats. How incredible. Not one Red Wall constituency would go back to the Tories despite the fact it was Boris that swung them away from Labour in the first place. That should be a massive warning bell for Badenoch.
It should also be a massive boost for Boris. I am told, by a longtime close confidant (and drinking partner) that he will definitely have a tilt at being leader again.
My bet is that will come in 2026 after the Welsh Senedd election where I expect Reform to poll between 30-35% and for the Tories to come fourth of four with around 5%.
The inquest after that scale of defeat will hurry Badenoch out the door and give Boris his chance. The personal hostility to Farage from Badenoch has been a clear error and I would expect Boris to hold out the hand of friendship.
He’s a pragmatist and as long as he was going to be Prime Minister he would do a deal with the devil. If the Right were united come Election day there is no doubt they would win. If not a Lib-Lab pact is always the ghastly possibility.
So, I see nothing but Reform getting stronger over the years and there is no similarity between Farage and Roy Jenkins, except their mutual love of a glass of decent red.