EVERY summer, Westminster goes quiet.
MPs vanish to Cornish cottages, French farmhouses and Mediterranean beaches.
GettyNigel Farage and Reform UK have been busy this summer[/caption]
EPAFarage hogged the summer airwaves, drowning out a flailing Sir Keir Starmer[/caption]
Some are out of the country for the entire month.
But while Labour and Conservative MPs were snoozing in the sun, Nigel Farage and Reform were busy.
Reform’s summer started with its “Britain is Lawless” campaign, with Farage pledging to send Britain’s worst criminals to El Salvador’s mega-prisons.
It peaked with the announcement of a radical immigration plan to detain and deport hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants.
Nigel Farage hogged the summer airwaves: He drowned out a flailing Sir Keir Starmer and pushed Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch further into obscurity.
Immigration is the top issue for Reform voters
James
The results are clear. Reform UK is now at its best polling rating ever in the latest poll by J.L. Partners, shared exclusively today with The Sun.
Reform is on 32 per cent, up three points since mid-July.
That puts Reform ten points clear of Labour on 22 per cent.
The Conservatives follow on 18 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats and Greens bringing up the rear with 11 per cent and seven per cent respectively.
That would mean a landslide win for Farage’s party if replicated at a general election.
The driver is simple — trust in the mainstream parties, already weak, has all but vanished.
A huge portion of this is due to migration. Immigration is the top issue for Reform voters, and the main reason Reform voters say they would back the party is because it “would stop the boats crossing the English Channel”.
But this goes beyond just Reform voters. Immigration is now ranked above the NHS and the economy as the top issue facing Britain by the public.
Only a few months ago, voices from the Left told us the British public were at ease with record levels of immigration.
If migration was “controlled”, they told us, the British public would not put it at the top of their list of concerns again.
They were devastatingly wrong. Concern about migration never went away.
ReutersThe next election is far from decided and Farage has a mountain to climb before 2029[/caption]
With record numbers of Channel crossings, and people feeling the effect of hundreds of thousands of migrants on their own lives and communities, patience has snapped.
Labour seems unable to fix it and, as far as the average voter is concerned, the Conservatives caused it.
But it would be wrong to put all of Reform’s surge down to migration.
When we ask the public what Labour’s worst mistakes have been since winning the election last year, they also mention the Government’s (now largely reversed) decision to cut winter fuel allowance for some pensioners, as well as a more general charge of broken promises.
Labour promised moderation and credibility; voters see chaos and betrayal.
I now think Nigel Farage could become Prime Minister after the next election, even with his own majority
James
The Conservatives claim a record of action; voters see years of failure.
And in this vacuum, Reform have become the singular repository of anger.
In December, I wrote in The Sun that Farage could reach No 10 — but that it would take him two or even three elections to get there.
My logic was that no other party in modern political history has managed it so quickly.
I was wrong. I now think Nigel Farage could become Prime Minister after the next election, even with his own majority.
Two things have changed. First, Kemi Badenoch’s stewardship of the Conservative Party has led to the party cratering further rather than recovering.
Instead of fight in a live battle with Reform for right-leaning voters, she has played Opposition like the old days, in slow time — a TV briefing here, a policy speech there. Doing so abandoned the field to Nigel Farage.
Second, in the local elections this year, Reform turned political history upside down.
It mounted a 13-point lead over Labour, picked up ten councils and more than 600 council seats.
Putting aside the old Liberal Party of David Lloyd George, it was the best local elections performance for any party that is not called “Labour” or “the Conservatives” in British history.
The party delivered real votes in their droves.
AlamyLabour seems unable to fix Brits care about[/caption]
It has more coming next May in Scotland and Wales.
Polls show that across the border it has pushed the Scottish Tories into a distant fourth; across the Severn it is leading the pack by two points overall.
None of this means the next election is decided. There are four caveats worth holding in mind.
First, and most obviously, an election is still years away.
Polls this far out often flatter insurgents.
Anything could happen between now and 2029: Party infighting, changes of leaders, seismic global events.
Second, despite everything, Keir Starmer still leads Farage when it comes to who voters feel would make the better Prime Minister.
Labour might be on 20 per cent now, but that could rocket up to 30 per cent if it can spook disaffected lefties back on to its side with a straight “it’s Keir or Nige” choice.
If they ever want power, Reform needs to ignore the keyboard warriors
James
Third, Farage will need to ensure the party does not veer off to the extremes.
Voices on the so-called “online Right” hankering for deporting migrant children or kicking out British-born ethnic minorities do not represent the British people.
If they ever want power, Reform needs to ignore the keyboard warriors.
Fourth, a change at the top could revive Conservative fortunes.
Talk in Westminster is that there could be a Tory leadership challenge as soon as November.
Rob Jenrick, armed with a razor-sharp comms strategy and a hardline immigration policy, could win some Reform voters back to the Tory fold.
But without an implosion within Farage’s own ranks, it is hard to see how any party closes the gap on Reform.
And in our system, it doesn’t matter how high a party’s share of the vote is, as long as tit has a substantial vote lead, it wins a majority.
It is tempting to look for a historical parallel to map out what is happening in our politics today. There isn’t one.
For a century, British politics has run along two roads: Labour or Conservative.
Every insurgent was eventually tamed or sidelined. But Reform is defying gravity.
It is riding decades of discontent to write its own rules.
Right now, there is no map. Farage is driving without one, and he may just be headed straight for No 10.
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