Reform UK

Origins

Reform UK was originally founded as the Brexit Party in November 2018, having split from the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP). It was co-founded by financial trader Catherine Blaiklock, who served as its first, brief leader, and Nigel Farage, who had just stepped down as UKIP leader at the time. The party was set up as a single-issue vehicle to campaign for a "no-deal" Brexit, amid frustration that the 2016 referendum result wasn't being implemented quickly enough by the Conservative government. It dominated the 2019 European Parliament elections, winning the most seats of any UK party.

The party was formally renamed Reform UK in January 2021, with its focus broadening beyond Brexit into opposing COVID-19 lockdowns and calling for wider reform of UK institutions and the voting system.

Farage stepped back from the leadership that March, handing over to businessman and Brexit Party financier Richard Tice, who led the party from 2021 until June 2024, when Farage made a high-profile return as leader just weeks before the 2024 general election. Tice has remained Deputy Leader since.

Election results 

Reform UK secured five MPs at the 2024 general election, the party's first ever seats in Parliament, with a voteshare of 14.3%, over 4.1 million votes, the third-highest vote share of any party. It came second in 98 constituencies, 89 of them to Labour. Regionally, 60 of these second place seats were in the north of England and 13 were in Wales.

Since the election, Reform's parliamentary presence has grown considerably, mostly through defections from the Conservatives, but also a by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in May 2025 which saw them take a seat from Labour. So far, four MPs have defected, including former Cabinet minister Suella Braverman, former immigration minister Robert Jenrick, Andrew Rosindell MP and Danny Kruger MP, taking its total to eight MPs.

It's at the local level though, where Reform's growth has been seismic. In the May 2025 local elections, the party won 677 council seats and took control of 10 councils (including Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Durham and Kent), having held no council seats before. Then in the May 2026 local elections, Reform won again, gaining 1,452 councillors and taking control of 14 councils, including Essex (previously Conservative-run) and Havering, its first London borough. The following month, in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election, Reform won 17 seats, tying with Scottish Labour for second place at Holyrood, a significant result for a party that had no representation in Scotland before.

Nigel Farage has framed these results as evidence that Reform has moved beyond being a protest vehicle, declaring after the 2026 locals that "this marks the end of two-party politics as we've known it”. Much of Reform's growth has come at the direct expense of the Conservatives, whose voters have switched to Reform in many former Tory heartlands, though the party has increasingly also targeted and won over working-class voters who previously backed Labour, particularly the "Red Wall" areas in the North, capitalising on dissatisfaction over immigration, the economy and public services under the current government.

Key voter demographics 

Polling from YouGov shows that support for Reform UK is highest among Leave voters, those with lower levels of education and those in routine and manual occupations. 68% of current Reform UK supporters are over 50, and 56-63% of its main voter groups are men. Education is a particularly sharp dividing line. Reform holds a 42% vote share among those whose highest qualification is a GCSE or lower, but only 13% among university graduates, where it comes fifth. By contrast, just 9% of 18-24 year olds voted for the party at the 2024 general election.

At the last election, the party won its highest vote share in the North East of England (19.9%), followed by the East Midlands (18.9%). All five of its MPs were elected in the East Midlands and the East of England.

Environmental Policy

Reform UK’s environmental policy is largely absent from their 2024 manifesto ‘Our contract with you’, and is more clear in its ambition to cut policies to make savings for the taxpayer. The headline policy here is scrapping net zero and renewable energy subsidies, in the hopes of making household and business energy bills cheaper. Alongside this are policies to fast-track licences of North Sea gas and oil and lift the ban on fracking, with a signal to energy firms to prepare license applications should the party win power in the next general election.

The anti-EU sentiment is still present in many of Reform UK’s policies, with the party committing to legislating the scrapping of EU regulations that are still present in our environment, net zero and competition laws. ‘Nature’ however, does not appear once in the manifesto, but says “We can protect our environment with more tree planting, more recycling and less single use plastics”. Although it stops short of any detailed plan on how it would achieve more of these ambitions.

While there is no section on nature, there are several policies on ‘Fisheries’. This does show that Nigel Farage and Richard Tice, who both have coastal constituencies, have an awareness that a lot of their support comes from regions that have suffered economic decline for decades, which includes many seaside towns and villages.

Key climate and nature manifesto commitments

• Economy: Cut energy costs by 20p a litre off fuel duty for households and businesses, scrapping VAT on energy bills and removing environmental levies, to save households over £500 a year.

• Raise the income tax threshold to £20,000 a year, taking up to 7 million people out of income tax and saving workers almost £1,500 a year, while keeping the basic rate at 20% and starting the higher rate at £70,000.

• Housing: Abolish the Renters’ Reform Bill, fast-track planning and tax incentives for development of brownfield sites and incentivise the use of new construction technology to improve efficiency and cut waste. 

• Energy: Fast-track clean nuclear energy with new Small Modular Reactors, built in Britain. Increase and incentivise ethical UK lithium mining for electric batteries and explore clean coal mining. 

• Agriculture: Increase England's farming budget to £3 billion, shifting away from climate-related or rewilding subsidies toward direct payments aimed at food production. Grant powers to the Competitions and Markets Authority to ensure fair pricing, with taxpayer-funded organizations sourcing 75% of their food from the UK.

• Transport: Legislate to ban ULEZ Clean Air Zones and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Lifting the ban on petrol and diesel cars. Launch a new model that brings 50% of each utility into public ownership, with the other 50% owned by UK pension funds. 

Recent parliamentary activity

With 8 MPs in parliament, Reform UK have been vocal on issues around immigration, farming and energy policy in particular. One of the government's first political difficulties was after the October 2024 budget when it introduced a 20% inheritance tax on farms worth over £1million. Reform UK campaigned vehemently against it and positioned itself as the farmers parliamentary champion. Farage personally addressed over 13,000 farmers protesting outside Westminster in February 2025, claiming Labour MPs in rural seats were "getting scared" of the backlash. Following sustained pressure, the government softened the policy in December 2025, raising the threshold for full relief from £1million to £2.5million, though the underlying tax remains in place above that level, taking effect from April 2026.

On energy, Richard Tice MP, who is also the party's Business, Trade and Energy spokesperson, has made repeated criticisms in Parliament of the government's net zero policies using the phrase “net stupid zero”. Following the big local election wins in 2025 where Reform won control of 10 councils, Richard Tice said the party would use “every lever” available to frustrate renewable energy projects from being built.