Following Reform UK’s parliamentary by-election win in Runcorn and Helsby, along with its spectacular surge at the English local elections which included taking control of councils in the former Labour strongholds of Durham and Doncaster, it is becoming increasingly clear that it wishes to park its tanks on the governing party’s lawns.

With Prime Minister Keir Starmer suggesting broader eligibility for the winter fuel allowance — and rumours swirling that the two-child benefit cap could be lifted in the upcoming budget — Nigel Farage has moved quickly to outflank Labour. The Reform UK leader has pledged to fully reinstate the fuel allowance and scrap the benefit cap if his party enters government. This follows his call to nationalise British Steel’s Scunthorpe plant, criticising Labour’s handling of the steel crisis. Farage has also been looking to charm the trade unions, waving party leaflets in public and adopting the language of workers’ rights. It’s a striking U-turn for a politician long associated with free markets and minimal state interference. So what explains this sudden conversion?

With the Conservative facing an existential crisis after its crushing defeat in the last general election and a truly disastrous round of English local elections, the insurgent Reform UK is confident that they have established themselves as the leading party of the British political Right. But this won’t be achieved by reheating Thatcherite neoliberalism — an approach Farage flirted with during his Ukip days. Back then, he pledged to scrap the UK’s progressive tax model in favour of a so-called flat tax — an idea that would be received poorly by Reform’s new supporters in places like County Durham, Doncaster, and Merseyside. Although Farage still appears to favour tax cuts and deregulation, he couches these ideas in populist language, framing them as ways to help ordinary people, rather than pushing a purely free market agenda.

Farage’s recent political interventions suggest that he knows the path towards government lies in the politics of protectionism. This includes bringing strategic national assets — such as the steelworks in Scunthorpe — under public ownership. This could be part of a broader strategy to reinvigorate the manufacturing sector, with the central objective of strengthening the UK’s military capabilities in-house. Many would agree that the UK must reduce its reliance on immigration and take greater control over the influx of migrants from regions marked by religious extremism and sectarian conflict. But this will require mammoth levels of public investment into a comprehensive skills, training, and pay strategy for British citizens — especially when it comes to making professions such as health and social care more attractive for domestic workers.

For Reform UK to be truly committed to weaning Britain off its immigration dependency, renationalising steel plants, and securing a welfare state which both protects the elderly and promotes pro-natalism, it must become a high tax-and-spend party. Currently riding high on the wave of anti-establishment sentiment, Reform UK’s greatest challenge is ensuring that it doesn’t find itself on the receiving end of the British public’s cynicism and discontent.

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Dr Rakib Ehsan is a researcher specialising in British ethnic minority socio-political attitudes, with a particular focus on the effects of social integration and intergroup relations.

 

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