‘Done with Labour and the Tories’: Reform UK attracts angry voters

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Admin

The rightwing populist party could play an outsize role in the next UK election – and cost the Conservatives dearly

“A sinking ship” was how Antonia, an administrator from Middleton, described Britain at the start of 2024. That assessment, while damning, isn’t unusual, with “broken”, “mess” and “struggling” the top words used to describe the UK today. But Antonia, and her fellow focus group participants – former Conservative voters from the “red wall” seats of Heywood and Middleton, Great Grimsby and Dudley North – weren’t planning on expressing their exasperation with the state of Britain by voting Labour. Instead, they were tempted by the successor to the Brexit party – Reform UK.

Since October, Reform has enjoyed a steady rise in support, hitting 10% in some opinion polls. While unlikely to win seats of their own, by attracting former Tory voters Reform could play the role of spoiler. An analysis by the thinktank More in Common suggests that at present polling levels Reform could enable more than 30 additional Conservative losses.

Luke Tryl is the UK director of the research group More in Common

Reform UK leader gives ‘guarantee’ that it won’t step aside for Tories at election

Posted on December 24, 2023 by Admin

Richard Tice assures senior members of his party in writing that he will not revive Brexit party’s 2019 deal with Conservatives

The leader of Reform UK has given “cast-iron guarantees” to senior members of his rightwing populist party that it will not step aside for the Conservatives at the forthcoming general election.

The Tories were able to win a majority in 2019 after Reform’s previous incarnation, the Brexit party, did not field any candidates against them in return for Boris Johnson’s commitment to leave the EU by 2020 before pursuing a Canada-style trade deal.

Tuesday briefing: Inside the populist rightwing plan to split the Conservative vote

Posted on November 28, 2023 by Admin

In today’s newsletter: Lee Anderson says he turned them down, but the party created by Nigel Farage will be trying to smoke out more Tory defectors

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Good morning. Think of what Lee Anderson could do with £430,000: by his own dubious estimation, that’s about 1.4m nutritious meals. Sadly, we will never see exactly how many tins of beans the Conservative party’s deputy chair would buy, because, in a recording obtained by the Sunday Times, he says that’s the amount he turned down from rightwing Tory irritant and former Nigel Farage vehicle Reform UK to defect.

The money, it is alleged, would be paid as a guaranteed salary matching his MP’s income for five years if he were to lose his seat under the party’s banner. That claim is vigorously denied by Reform UK’s leader, Richard Tice, who says Anderson was merely offered “the chance to change the shape of the debate”.

Israel-Hamas war | Eleven more Israeli hostages have been freed from Gaza in return for 33 Palestinians held in Israeli jails, as the two sides agreed to extend the existing ceasefire by two days. Hamas said that the continuation of the ‘pause’ will continue under the same conditions after the intervention of Qatar and Egypt, mediators for the initial agreement.

Parthenon marbles | Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with Greek prime minister Kyiakos Mitsotakis at the last minute on Monday after his counterpart gave an interview calling for the Parthenon marbles to be returned from the British Museum. In a renewed row over the fate of the antiquities, which were taken from the Acropolis in the 19th century, Mitsotakis told reporters he was “deeply disappointed by the abrupt cancellation”.

NHS | Senior doctors reached a pay deal with the government on Monday, paving the way for the cancellation of strikes that could have hit the NHS during the usual winter crisis. The offer will mean an average 4.95% pay increase for the last three months of the financial year and some consultants seeing a 19.6% salary increase over the year.

Ukraine | The Ukrainian government is planning to change its conscription practices as it seeks to sustain fighting capacity after nearly two years of full-fledged war with Russia. Amid widespread conflict fatigue, the changes will use commercial recruitment companies to reassure conscripts they will be deployed in roles that match their skills and not simply sent to the front.

I’m a Celebrity… | The Guardian’s restaurant critic Grace Dent has told fellow contestants that her “heart is broken” as she left I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! on medical grounds. Dent had told fellow contestants she was struggling with her time in the jungle.

Reform UK leader says party has not offered Tory MPs money to defect

Posted on November 26, 2023 by Admin

Richard Tice responds to claims by Conservative deputy chair Lee Anderson that he was offered ‘a lot of money’ to switch

Conservative MPs have not been offered money to defect to Reform UK, the party’s leader, Richard Tice, has stressed, amid claims that Lee Anderson was offered “a lot of money” last month.

Anderson, the MP for Ashfield and one of the Conservative party’s deputy chairs, was recorded telling Tory activists last month: “A political party that begins with an R offered me a lot of money to join them. I mean a lot of money, I mean a lot of money.”

Kemi Badenoch dismisses idea of trialling menopause leave because it was proposed ‘from a leftwing perspective’ – as it happened

Posted on March 1, 2023 by Admin

Minister for women and equalities dismisses suggestion government should pilot menopause leave for women

PMQs is about to start.

Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s chief whip, has said that he thinks the Stormont brake – the mechanism at the heart of Rishi Sunak’s deal to revise the Northern Ireland protocol – will turn out to be “fairly ineffective”.

Let’s not underestimate the fact that when the EU introduces new laws in the future, it will have an impact on Northern Ireland. And the point of the brake was meant to be to give a means for unionists to oppose that. I think it will have to be used on lots of occasions, though I suspect to be fairly ineffective.

As long as it takes us to get, first of all, the analysis, and secondly, the answers from the government, before we make that decision, that’s the time we’ll take.

But the one thing I’ll say to you is that we will not have a knee-jerk reaction to this deal. It means too much to us. And we have got to give it real consideration.