Let’s be upfront. Progressive forces, including socialists, have done a pretty poor job in confronting the divisive venom that Nigel Farage and his Reform UK party have been spreading for months and months all across the UK.
On 7 May, this venom – the best word to use my thesaurus says – led to this far-right, anti-immigrant party winning the most local council seats of any party in England, being tied with Labour as the main opposition party in Scotland and becoming the main opposition party, by a wide margin, in Wales. In fact, the chances of Reform replacing Labour as the UK government in the next UK-wide general election have gone up several notches in the past 72 hours.
“Nigel Farage is galloping towards Downing Street,” predicted Scotland’s first minister John Swinney on Saturday. Bookmakers have put Reform as odds-on favourite to triumph in the next UK general election.
A great deal of fear in the land
How to confront and challenge Reform has therefore also moved to a more prominent place on the progressive agenda in coming months. To be blunt, there is a great fear about in the land. With this in mind, The Left Lane will start a six-part series later this week where we’ll be asking six readers/progressive activists to write 600 words on two questions: 1. What are the most significant factors that have served as a catalyst for the electoral growth of Reform? And 2. What are the best tactics, strategy and overall approach that socialists should use to vanquish Reform?
Also, in our news and events columns in coming months, we’l be putting a priority on details of anti-Reform activities. We hope the logic and the stakes behind these two questions are clear. If you don’t know why an issue has arisen, you will have great difficulty solving it. It gets us nowhere, for example, if people say on radio phone-in shows (as they did over the weekend) that Reform voters are “just thick and uneducated”.
Nor does it help when some, especially on the left, suggest that Reform is a “fascist party”. As former vice president of the Public and Commercial Services Union John McInally wrote in his book The State of Struggle, “Characterising Reform as a fascist party, is not just wrong in itself but a serious tactical error. Doing so is also a consequence of the ubiquity of liberal ideas on the left, which has led to the term ‘fascist’ being thrown around as an insult rather than a serious designation.”
We must factor in Labour’s role in the rise of Reform
We also must factor in the role of the Labour Party and its own anti-immigration stance. Make no mistake, the anti-foreigner announcements and pronouncements of home secretary Mahmood have done a great deal to normalise Farage’s own anti-immigrant rants. Back in November 2025, after unveiling one of her schemes, Farage said about Mahmood: “She sounds like a Reform supporter.” (see this article titled Labour’s desperation plan on refugees) Even Tommy Robinson saluted Mahmood’s “us vs them” message.
Moreover, we need to contextualise the rise of Reform both historically and globally and to connect the dots as the crisis of capitalism deepens. Many of the places where Reform did well on Thursday, such as former coal mining villages and towns in the north, are locations that have been pulverised by the uneven development of capitalism in recent decades.
Ditto for Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. This is where MP Rupert Lowe’s Great Yarmouth First party swept all nine seats in this economically depressed coastal town. Lowe’s other party, Restore Britain, occupies a political space to the right of Reform and calls for mass deportations and restoration of the death penalty.
And we must not forget that the rise of Reform comes at a time when, to the east, France may elect a far-right government in 2027 and to the west, the USA is still in the grip of Trumpism, even as that grip loosens over its illegal imperialist war against Iran.
Some practical questions to face
But our series of forthcoming articles and commentary will also focus on a range of practical questions in the upcoming struggle to weaken – and ultimately crush – Reform and erode its hateful impact. Does it work to point out how poorly Reform has done as a local government in Kent or Durham and broken so many promises? If not, why not? Is mass leafletting a good tactic? Or is it more effective when combined with one-to-one discussions?
Or how about working together with Reform voters on class issues such as housing? Will this show them practically that it is the mechanisms of the capitalist housing market and NOT asylum seekers are the main reason rents are so high and decent housing is so scarce?
Also, how do we assess the work of groups such as Stand Up to Racism and Hope not Hate? Or take on elections? Should there be more use of tactical voting against Reform? In the local elections, this approach was seldom used. And how can we broaden the base of anti-Reform sentiment? And more importantly, mobilise it. Trump is extremely unpopular in the UK. Is constantly linking Trump and Farage one approach to take?
Yes, Reform won many of Thursday’s electoral skirmishes. The thought of it also winning the wider war should be enough, we hope, to mobilise ever-wider anti-Reform forces to step up.
If you have thoughts and comments on two questions quoted above or have personal political experiences organising against Reform, do write us, including your contact details, at [email protected]
