Reform UK Becomes "A Political Force" As It Takes Huge Bite From Tory Vote

Reform UK won four seats at the general election in a historic night for the insurgent right-wing party, as it garnered more than four million votes.

Labour leader Keir Starmer secured an historic victory, winning more than 400 seats across the country with a landslide result, while the Conservatives struggled to win 120. Reform, however, helped ebb away at the Tory vote and in dozens of cases the combined vote was more than the Labour one. 

Reform won 4,073,607 votes at the general election, more than UKIP achieved in 2015 with 3,881,099. UKIP achieved just one seat in that election, on a far greater turnout. 

Successful candidates for the party included leader Nigel Farage to Clacton, Lee Anderson to Ashfield, Richard Tice to Boston and Skegness and Rupert Lowe to Great Yarmouth. All four Reform MPs beat incumbent Conservative candidates. 

After seven successful attempts, Farage was elected to Parliament with a majority of more than 8,000. 

Professor Sir John Curtice told the BBC that Reform benefited from the collapse in Tory support where the party had won seats in 2019, as well as increasing its support in constituencies which voted for Brexit in 2016. 

Chris Hopkins, Savanta's Political Research Director, told PoliticsHome he believed Reform UK had managed to establish itself as a "political force in UK politics" even if they only won four seats. 

"The next hurdle they face is more of a tactical one - it’s to what extent they become an arm of the Conservative Party, or to what extent they can become a bigger political force in their own right," he said. 

"All the noises coming from their leadership is the latter, and it’s apparent that Labour MPs defending seats where Reform are second will have a very different set of