Reform UK

Reform UK is a populist centre-ground political party in the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage has been the party's leader since June 2024 and Richard Tice has been deputy leader since July. The party currently has five Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons and one member of the London Assembly. Following Farage's resumption of the leadership during the July 2024 General Election, there was a sharp increase in support for the party. In the election it was the third largest party by popular vote, with 14.3 per cent of the vote.

Foundation

Founded in November 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating a no-deal Brexit, it won the most UK seats (29) in the 2019 European Parliament elections, but did not win any seats in the UK 2019 General Election due to the UK's archaic electoral system. The UK withdrew from the European Union (EU) in January 2020. A year later, in January 2021, the party was renamed Reform UK. During the Corona virus-COVID-19 pandemic the party advocated against further lockdowns. Since 2022, it has campaigned on a broader platform, in particular pledging to reduce net migration, supporting low taxation, and opposing the government's net-zero energy policy.

Nigel Farage had been the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a liberal Eurosceptic party, in the first decade of the century, but resigned and became leader of the Brexit Party following the 2016 EU membership referendum, which had been called in response to UKIP gaining almost four million votes in an earlier General Election. The Brexit Party campaigned for a no-deal Brexit and there were high-profile defections to it from the Conservative Party, including Ann Widdecombe and Annunziata Rees-Mogg. Following Boris Johnson's election as leader of the Conservative Party, Farage offered him an electoral pact at the 2019 General Election, which Johnson rejected. The Brexit Party nevertheless decided unilaterally not to stand candidates against sitting Conservative Party MPs.

Reform

By May 2020 the British exit from the EU having taken place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy and a name change from the Brexit Party to Reform Party was proposed. The COVID-19 pandemic began in the UK at the beginning of 2020, and the Conservative government imposed a series of national lockdowns. Farage delayed the rebranding of the party, to Reform UK, until the end of the year, and focused on anti-lockdown campaigning. Farage stepped down as leader in March 2021 and was succeeded by Richard Tice. In March 2024 Lee Anderson, who was elected in 2019 as a Conservative Party MP, defected to Reform UK, becoming the party's first MP in the House of Commons. On 3 June 2024, Tice announced that Farage would again become leader, with Tice continuing as chairman.

Calls for Electoral Reform

In the UK General Election held on 4 July 2024, the party won only 5 seats in the House of Commons, despite receiving 14.3% of the votes, whereas the Liberal Democrats Party only gained 12.2% of the vote and received 61 seats. (The Reform vote share (14.3%) in 2024 was similar to the UK Independence Party (UKIP) vote share (12.6%) in the 2015 General Election when it was led by Nigel Farage, when it was only awarded one seat.) Farage had already called for Proportional Representation (PR) before the elections to replace the unfair British first-past-the-post electoral system which was again heavily criticised for this crazy set of results. Under proportional representation the results would have been wildly different, with Reform winning 93 seats.