THE Makerfield by-election ought to give Reform UK pause. Not because by-elections are always prophetic: most are not. But because the result exposed a weakness that months of buoyant polling have obscured.
Reform has spent the past year surfing a wave of public frustration. The Conservatives are finished as a serious governing force. Labour’s honeymoon ended almost as soon as it began. In those circumstances, polling at 30 per cent is hardly a miracle. The harder task is staying there. That is where Reform’s problems begin.
A party polling in the high twenties should by now be assembling something resembling a government-in-waiting. Reform is not. It remains heavily dependent on Nigel Farage, with real power concentrated in the hands of a small leadership clique around Farage and Mohammed Ziauddin Yusuf. That may be enough to run a campaign. It is not enough to run a country.
The party also faces a more awkward question. How can it claim to represent a break with Britain’s failed political class when it increasingly recruits from it? One of Reform’s selling points is that it stands apart from the people who governed Britain through years of drift, stagnation and decline. Yet a growing number of former Conservative ministers, MPs and advisers have found their way into Reform’s orbit. The party is steadily acquiring the personnel of the system it was founded to oppose.
Farage evidently believes this strengthens Reform’s credentials. Perhaps it does in Westminster. Outside Westminster the calculation is less obvious. Voters looking for something new may reasonably ask why so many familiar faces keep appearing. Nor is it only a question of personnel. Reform increasingly exhibits some of the same habits that destroyed the Conservative Party. Patronage matters. Loyalty matters. Internal influence appears concentrated among a narrow circle. Activists who helped build the party complain of being pushed aside. None of this is unfamiliar. Conservatives have watched the film before.
The danger for Reform is that it peaks before it matures. Protest movements can rise with astonishing speed. Political parties capable of governing take years to build. Reform has mastered the former. The latter remains a work in progress. Makerfield may prove to be a blip. Equally, it may mark the point at which voters started asking harder questions. Reform’s challenge is no longer persuading the public that Britain is broken. Most voters already agree. The challenge is persuading them that Reform would be any different.
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