It’s hard to imagine the pint-swilling, fag-toting Nigel Farage as a fierce Viking invader jumping from a longship, sword in hand.
But according to Professor Ben Ansell at Oxford University, that’s exactly how Reform UK should be seen, as Farage’s party makes inroads across the areas the Vikings captured from the plucky, indigenous Anglo-Saxons.
“Britain’s new multi-party politics are creating regional divides that harken back a millennium,” Ansell told The i Paper. “Reform UK’s voting base is largely along England’s east coast, especially Lincolnshire and East Anglia, as well as in neighbouring counties such as Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.”
“In other words, Reform are strongest in the parts of England under Danish rule in the 9th and 10th centuries – the Danelaw,” he said.
It’s an arresting image but the Vikings were an impressively organised fighting force. Can Farage turn his rag-bag of pirates into a fearsome foe?
That’s certainly the aim in 2025 as the party moves away from reliance on exposure on GB News and Tik Tok to a “ground operation.” That means fanning out to contest 90 per cent of the 2,240 seats in May’s local elections across England next year. Strategists hope to win between 200 and 300 seats, and at least one mayoralty, probably in Greater Lincolnshire.
At these set of local elections the Conservatives are defending a high watermark of seats won in a polling bounce after the Covid vaccine was rolled out in 2021. Then Reform stood in just 118 wards.
The Tories should be the most worried by Reform’s growing popularity, according to one Labour MP.
“Reform is like a tidal wave that’s coming in. The Tories are standing on the on the beach, and we’re in huts bit further back. But if we’re not careful, the water is going to come for all of us,” the Labour MP said.
A government source said they thought the bulk of Reform’s support is still coming from former Tories, even though some Labour areas are under threat.
Farage “clearly wants power, but he doesn’t necessarily want the destruction of the Labour Party. He wants to destroy the Tories first,” the source added.
2024 was a bumper year for Reform, securing five seats in Parliament and coming second place in 98 constituencies at the general election, including 89 which were won by Labour. Farage isn’t limiting himself to Tory areas.
“If you ask me ‘where will our future increase in vote come from?’, I think more will come from Labour from this position, than it will come from the Conservatives,” Farage said in December, adding that there had been “a realigning of how voters view the old left-right spectrum”.
In December, Reform rolled out a series of defections, designed to show momentum. So far none of the names they have won over have been a killer blow to the Tories or Labour.
They include Tim Montgomerie, a longtime Conservative commentator and former party employee and Rael Braverman, husband to former home secretary and sitting Tory MP Suella Braverman. Reform MPs still hope they can woo her over as well.
More significant was the switch by billionaire property tycoon Nick Candy from the Tories to Reform (via support for Labour), taking on the role of fundraiser and vowing to bring in “tens of millions” for the party alongside wooing other former Conservative donors.
A pre-Christmas visit by Farage and Candy to meet Elon Musk at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort was direct and mercenary: to drum up cash from the tech billionaire. Montgomerie suggested the party could be in receipt of $20m (£16m), with other reports suggesting Reform could benefit to the tune of $100m.
Reform is also taking electoral lessons from Trump’s US victory. While immigration is still its central policy platform the party is also taking notes on contesting green policies in favour of economic growth.
Back in the UK the hype has clearly caught on. One bookmaker now puts odds on Farage succeeding Sir Keir Starmer as prime minister, ahead of Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. That seems extremely unlikely.
There are several things standing against a Viking-helmeted Farage romping home to victory at the next general election, spear in hand.
One is the first-past-the-post electoral system. Reform finds itself in an odd alliance with the Liberal Democrats – all bungee jumps and Ed Davey’s cuddly Christmas single – in that both parties would do much better under a proportional representation system.
According to Ansell’s modelling, even a 10-point swing towards Reform in every single constituency would still leave Farage far from power with 99 seats to Badenoch’s 233 and Starmer’s 199 at a general election.
The other problem standing Reform’s way is how often members of the party make fools of themselves. Reform MP Lee Anderson was widely ridiculed for a bizarre X post likening the First World War’s brutal Battle of the Somme with periods, pregnancy and menopause.
Farage claims the party has a tighter vetting system for local elections and the party is fast professionalising. How quickly it can become a slick operation will be in part down to how much money and outside advice it can bring in.
Reform is clearly on the march with 400 branches across the UK and more than 100,000 members. The party has just launched a live tracker to see when it overtake their main rival. But the Viking invaders may do best to make alliances with natives, in this case the Tories.
Any chance Farage has to sit in government is most likely in a coalition with the Tories in the event of a hung Parliament. For the moment both sides have ruled it out.
If Badenoch’s Conservatives lose ground to Farage at the local elections in May, the pressure to make peace with the Viking hordes will undoubtedly grow stronger.
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