06.02.2025
March to the right
Reform is now polling ahead of both Labour and the Tories. But our prime focus should not be on the far right. No, says Eddie Ford, we need a principled programme and a working class alternative to Labourism
As we see almost everywhere, politics is moving to the right. We can see this in Britain with Reform UK, which is now riding high in the polls on an ‘anti-establishment’ ticket appealing to those totally alienated from mainstream politics, disgusted by its lies and hypocrisy, believing that Nigel Farage is somehow the answer (or at least an improvement).
Diehard pundits and eager young fogies in The Daily Telegraph are delighted by this situation, of course - saying with relish that Nigel Farage’s “insurgent party” is now calling itself the “real opposition”, therefore creating a far more fertile ground for reactionary ideas to flourish.1 As the paper is happy to report, in all seven of the latest surveys by the major pollsters, Reform is ahead of the Tories by at least one point - adding around 10 points to its support since the general election. Then it won 14.3% of the popular vote and five seats, while the Conservatives got 23.7%, its worst result on record. Labour is still ahead in the aggregate poll of polls, but The Times recently ran with a YouGov report of Reform being a 1% whisker ahead of Labour.2 Meanwhile, the government’s popularity has nose-dived relative to its performance at the general election only seven months ago - remember that Sir Keir Starmer’s party got half a million fewer votes than in 2019 under Jeremy Corbyn.
But, as has been widely reported, Reform is now regularly ahead of Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives. Sometimes by 1%, sometimes by 4%. The Tories are, of course, still much more successful with those aged above 55, while Reform - you guessed it - gets more approval for those below 55 (the ‘youth vote’!). In other words, Reform and the Conservatives have different demographics.
Putting two and two together, Michela Morizzo, chief executive of the Techne UK company (dedicated to “empowering business”), said that the combined votes of Reform and the Tories would represent an “unassailable” lead over Labour. Of course, we all know that things do not work out like that in the real world, as bolting the two parties together would have both positive and negative effects - possibly diminishing Reform’s vote because it is joining with the establishment and diminishing the Tory vote because they are joining forces with the ‘far right’.
However, though it would be far from straightforward, there is talk again of some electoral deal or alliance between the two parties - especially as a growing number of Tory MPs are beginning to question Badenoch’s overall strategy, particularly her refusal to roll out new policies or rebrand the party. Hence the discernible anger amongst the back benchers over the comments last week to The Sun by shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel, saying it was “totally distortionary” to suggest the previous Tory government had thrown open the UK’s borders under the points-based system for work visas introduced after Brexit - which saw net migration reach around 728,000 in the year ending June 2024.3
Afterwards, Patel realised she had made a political blunder even though the raw statistics are unarguable. She issued a statement insisting she “was not happy” about the levels of immigration under the previous Conservative government, after Badenoch had distanced herself from the remarks, and her spokesperson saying the Tories would “tell the truth about the mistakes we made”. But the damage had been done. Quick as a flash, Labour said the Tories were “out of touch with reality”, remarking that Patel “seems proud of her central role in the Tory open-border experiment”. Naturally, Nigel Farage saw an opportunity to make hay, declaring that the Conservatives had a “disastrous record on immigration” and, if given a chance, “would do it again”.
Coalition
Further confirmation that things are generally moving towards Reform can be found in a poll of almost 18,000 voters carried out by the Focaldata polling company, but commissioned by Hope Not Hate, the favourite organisation of liberals and the Socialist Workers Party, not to mention the intelligence services.4 Its analysis in particular of almost 4,000 voters inclined to back Reform is quite revealing. It found that one in five were “moderate, interventionist” voters, unlike most of those who had backed Farage at the last election, or had supported either Ukip or the Brexit Party in the past. For instance, they were quite positive about immigration and in favour of a ‘strong state’, but disillusioned with the ability of the main parties to deliver.
The breakdown of Reform voters further found that, apart from this newer group of voters that do not meet the traditional profile of gammons and bigots, there were “radical young men” inspired by the likes of Elon Musk, as well as older groups of Conservative and working class voters opposed to immigration - what you could call a coalition of libertarian free marketeers alongside those who want greater state intervention and ownership of key industries. According to the study, Reform is currently picking up 12% of those who voted for the Tories at the last election and 7% of those who backed Labour. It is picking up between 10% and 15% of those who voted Labour at the last election in seats where there is a large white working class population. By the same token, defections to Reform are much lower in Labour’s more ethnically diverse metropolitan seats - no surprise there.
From all this, the poll posits the idea of a “new era” of four-party politics, where “people are angrier” and there is a lot more voter fluidity. Focaldata suggests that Reform would win 76 seats if an election were held now. Of those, 60 would be won from Labour, including seats across the so-called ‘Red Wall’, as well as in Wales and across the south of England. However, here is the real sting in the tail for Starmer: the analysis also shows that even a relatively small further swing towards Reform could see it pick up another 76 Labour-held seats - meaning logically that the party is especially susceptible in the event of a high turnout among Reform voters.
This is what really concerns those who commissioned the poll, it goes without saying - the “clear and present threat” to Labour posed by Reform. Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope Not Hate, worries that “there is no single way” to fight Reform, as there are “different types” of Reform voters and each needs a different approach. He wants to restore faith in Labour, and in mainstream politics in general, by demonstrating that the government can “make a difference in their lives” - learn to love Sir Keir, not Nigel Farage, and then hopefully politics will revert back to normal. You must be kidding, Nick.
Of course, having said all of this, what will happen in a real election with a ‘first past the post’ electoral system might be a very different matter. Strangely enough, nearly all the articles about the recent polls fail to mention this incredibly important fact. After all, episodic surges towards parties not part of the big two are hardly unknown. In 1981 the Social Democratic Party/Liberal alliance was polling nearly 50% of the vote and was 20 points ahead of the ruling Conservatives. In 2010 came Cleggmania and the Lib Dems surged in the polls. Though they secured a coalition deal with the Tories, the Lib Dems were ‘squeezed’ in the general election by the two main parties. And lest we forget, in the summer and early autumn of 2019, Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats were polling almost as well as Reform is now - but no political earthquake followed.
It is also worth remembering that historically the Tory Party has gone through a series of not only splits, but also fusions. Some of us, growing up politically, used to know the Tories as the ‘Conservative and Unionist Party’, perhaps thinking that meant the Ulster Unionists. But, no, the name actually came from the Scottish unionists. So it would be foolish to dismiss the possibility of a ‘Conservative and Reform Party’.
Campaign
The typical left response to the rise of Reform, as readers well know, is to demonstrate and protest - look at almost any issue of Socialist Worker. Whenever Reforms rears its head, whether by standing in a council or national election, we will oppose them - no pasarán! Which might sound very militant to anyone new to politics (or just naïve), but what does it actually mean in practice?
For instance, a recent issue of Socialist Worker says that if there is there a Reform candidate standing in their local area, then “get in touch with Stand Up To Racism to campaign against them” - SUTR being the SWP’s favourite front organisation, of course.5 So does that mean voting Tory or Lib Dem if that would prevent the Reform candidate from winning? But if you are voting Labour for that reason (which is presumably what the SWP is really saying), then you are effectively joining forces with the very problem that people are rebelling against. They are not voting Reform because they are happy with Labour, to state the obvious, but because they are utterly alienated from the entire political establishment.
When it comes to the next round of council elections the SWP/SUTR is to become to all intents and purposes an adjunct of the political establishment. Party Notes proudly proclaims: “Our primary work will be campaigning against Reform UK by unmasking the Farage party’s racism and exposing R[eform] UK’s policies that target workers, the NHS and the unions.”6
This poses the very real danger - just like in the United States recently - that you become part of the problem, not the answer. Confronted by the choice between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, most of the left - like the ‘official’ Communist Party of the USA - said vote Harris (some justifying this on the grounds that Trump supposedly represented a fascist threat). Well, you voted Harris and got Trump, with no move to the left. In fact, society is stampeding to the right - the same being true for Germany, with the left being dragged more and more to the right. What was unacceptable a year ago becomes acceptable. What was unimaginable five years ago becomes the new norm, the new common sense.
Yes, the last general election saw the SWP vote for a very select few left-of-Labour candidates (including, of course, their own comrade, Maxine Bowler, in Sheffield). The problem is that the politics they were standing on were without exception Labourite - left Labourite, yes, but Labourite nonetheless. So, when Alex Callinicos says “revolutionary socialists” ought to “help initiate and build” an “effective radical left alternative” when it comes to elections, we should not get our hopes up too high.7
After all, the SWP played the leading role in both the Socialist Alliance and Respect. It even put a toe into Tusc for a while. This saw SWP members vote down manifesto proposals to stand for republicanism, a woman’s right to choose an abortion, opposition to migration controls, even international socialism.
From the CPGB perspective then, what we need is independent working class politics, which, as a matter of course, requires challenging Reform, Tory, Lib Dem and Scottish nationalist candidates, but above all provides an independent working class alternative to Labourism.
The only serious possibility of doing that is building a mass Communist Party solidly based on the sort of programme championed by German social democrats such as Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and Karl Kautsky, the sort of programme written by Karl Marx and Jules Guesde and the sort of programme that saw the Bolsheviks transform themselves into a mass party which, in October 1917, successfully led the worker-peasant masses to state power.
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The Daily Telegraph February 1 2025.↩︎
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The Times February 3 2025.↩︎
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theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/02/reform-uk-can-win-scores-of-labour-seats-in-england-and-wales-says-study.↩︎
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socialistworker.co.uk/news/is-reform-uk-standing-in-a-council-by-election-near-you.↩︎
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Party Notes February 3 2025.↩︎
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Socialist Worker January 7 2025.↩︎