What would happen if the Reform vote collapses?

The Tories’ double by-election loss on Friday has inevitably led to an internal party debate about strategy. While Keir Starmer’s Labour party won in both Kingswood and Wellingborough, the fact that the Reform party secured more than ten per cent of the vote in both seats is being taken as evidence from the right of the party that the government needs to be more conservative. The New Conservatives – largely made up of Red Wall MPs from the 2019 intake – have called on Rishi Sunak to respond by cutting tax, slashing legal migration and being prepared to leave the European Convention on Human Rights. Meanwhile, the One Nation Tories have sounded the alarm – with Damian Green suggesting any attempt to become the Reform party ‘seems politically disastrous to me’.

There are some in the party who take comfort that the Reform party has not managed to replicate the success of Ukip or even the Brexit party yet. The fact that Nigel Farage is still on the fence about a comeback – suggesting his focus could be on spending time in America ahead of the US presidential election – means Tory MPs could be spared their worst fears of a Farage-led Reform. However, even if the Reform party polls around ten per cent it has the potential to be a big problem – as new polling from Labour Together makes all too clear.

Labour Together – the think tank that Keir Starmer’s top aide Morgan McSweeney used to be director of – has modelled two scenarios of what they believe are realistic election outcomes despite current polling. According to the latest YouGov/Labour Together poll, Labour recorded a 20-point lead, which would deliver a 1997-style Labour landslide of a 192-seat majority. However, the Starmerite think tank says there are three reasons that result could fail to transpire were a vote held tomorrow: The share of ‘don’t know’ voters is large at 17 per cent; the Reform vote strength is questionable as upstart parties tend to underperform their poll position at the ballot box; some of those who have switched to the Labour party from the Conservatives could still be ‘soft-switchers’, who, after an aggressive election campaign, switch back.

The think tank envisages two other scenarios on the current polling to a 1997 landslide. First, ‘a realistic projection’ whereby ‘many “don’t knows” return to the party they supported at the last election. Wavering switchers, whose support for either Labour or Reform is close to their level of support for the Conservatives, switch back’. They calculate that this could see the Labour lead reduced to 13 points and the party win a more modest, yet still comfortable, majority of 78.

But the second scenario is centred on the idea of a collapse of the Reform vote. Under this model, ‘the insurgent right-wing Reform UK collapses, either because Sunak delivers on his promises on immigration, because Reform’s own fortunes fall dramatically, or perhaps they choose not to stand against the Conservatives (as their predecessor, the Brexit Party, did in 2019)’. They calculate this would result in ‘a dramatic narrowing of the vote’ with Labour’s lead cut to 4 points. The outcome would be a hung parliament, with Labour picking up 312 seats, 14 short of a majority.

Labour Together caveats that ‘while this is not a likely scenario, it shows the importance of Reform’s vote, and the cost to Labour of a Reform collapse’. Of course, these models are helpful to Starmer and hammer home the key message of his campaign director Morgan McSweeney that the party cannot be complacent. It’s also hard to see Reform leader Richard Tice pulling out of a general election, given he has said he wants to inflict pain on the Tories. It means the most likely way for the ‘Reform collapse’ scenario to happen is for Sunak to deliver on immigration which right now seems a long shot. But for those MPs on the right pushing for the party to win back Reform voters, this poll will only further incentivise them to make their voice heard.