Trump-backed Reform could shake up Britain’s two-party system

Reform UK, the right-wing party in the United Kingdom led by Nigel Farage, has emerged as the latest alternative party to top political opinion polls in the country. It has overtaken the Conservatives and Labour Party, which have held a monopoly on power for nearly a century, according to a poll conducted by YouGov.

Farage aims to become the political leader who finally breaks the dominance of Labour and the Conservatives in Westminster, particularly with Donald Trump’s influence in the US.

Recent polls, including this week’s YouGov poll, have placed Reform in the lead, with the party averaging 24.3 percent in a series of opinion polls this year. This positions Reform above the opposition Conservative Party at 23.1 percent and nearly level with the ruling Labour Party at 25.5 percent.

Historically, support for third parties has diminished as election day approaches, allowing the two main parties to consolidate their base. Reform’s predecessor, the Brexit Party, achieved a similar peak in support just after the 2019 European Parliament elections, the last election before the UK formally left the EU, polling around 23 percent.

However, after Boris Johnson became leader of the Conservatives and prime minister of the United Kingdom, the Brexit Party’s strength rapidly declined, partly due to an electoral deal where the party withdrew some candidates from seats contested by pro-Brexit Conservatives. The Conservatives subsequently won a landslide general election victory in December 2019, leaving the Brexit Party with zero seats.

Previous attempts to disrupt the two-party dominance of British politics have failed to make a lasting impact due to the United Kingdom’s first-past-the-post system. Under this system, parties can poll well, but if they do not secure a majority of votes in each constituency, they are left without representation.

In the early 1980s, the Social Democratic Party briefly surpassed both Labour and the Conservatives but fell to third place in the 1983 election. The Liberal Democrats experienced a similar surge in the lead-up to the 2010 elections, often polling the same vote share as the Conservatives and Labour. On election day, the Liberal Democrats won 57 seats with only 23% of the vote but formed a coalition government with the Conservatives.

The last time either of the two main parties in the United Kingdom was displaced was in 1922, when Labour replaced the Liberal Party as the official opposition, and millions of working-class voters were enfranchised. The Conservatives and Labour have remained the two largest parties since, but there are indications that their position is weakening.

In the 2024 general election, Labour won a large majority of seats, but the combined Labour and Conservative vote share fell to 59%, the lowest in a century. The Liberal Democrats, Reform, Greens, and independents also secured a record number of seats.

Current opinion polls indicate that Labour and the Conservatives may win less than half of the votes. The next electoral test will be the local elections in England in May.

Farage’s close relationship with Trump and the Republicans is also believed to bolster his party’s prospects. For instance, Nigel Farage, who attended the swearing-in ceremony in the US, stated in his speech in Wiltshire yesterday that he was proud to call US President Donald Trump “my friend” and believed that the Republicans’ success in America was a positive sign for his party.

Farage said he welcomed Trump’s “attractive” plan for the US to take over Gaza and transform the region into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

“I love ambition, the idea of a rich, wonderful, thriving place with well-paid jobs, casinos, nightlife is very attractive to me,” Farage stated.

Despite Elon Musk’s recent polemic with Farage, Trump’s conversation with the British leader continues.