‘I’ve changed my mind!’ It is a year this week since Nigel Farage uttered those fateful words, marking his decision to return as leader of Reform UK during the general election campaign. Much has changed in those 12 months. The party’s polling has doubled, membership has soared to 235,000 and new faces make up most of the backroom staff.
Now that the party has hit 30 per cent in the polls, Reform strategists insist the vote share can go higher: 40 per cent is viewed as a realistic target. Zia Yusuf, the party chairman, likes to describe Reform as a ‘start-up’, breaking apart SW1’s monopolistic cartel. This high-ambition, high-growth strategy yielded 677 councillors in the local elections last month.
But, as with any new firm in a competitive market, the challenge is how to scale up at speed. More than 3,000 candidates must be found by next May, owing to a bumper set of elections across the country. In London alone, there will be 1,800 council seats up for grabs. ‘The vetting will be a nightmare,’ groans one aide. Most attention will be on Scotland and Wales, where the different electoral systems will influence decisions on candidate announcements. Cardiff Bay’s new voting system, which is not constituency-based, means organisers see little benefit in publishing names until next year.
Such work is happening alongside planning for the general election in 2029. The British system has traditionally prized party loyalty and slow, steady advancement through the ranks. MPs attempt to climb the greasy pole; cabinet ministers emerge after many years in parliament. A Farage victory would, by necessity, make a break with all that.
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