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As those around Nigel Farage are fond of pointing out, Reform UK has now led in more than 300 consecutive national polls. When it comes to byelections, though, it is fair to say the party’s results are more mixed.
Yes, Robert Kenyon came second in Makerfield to a popular regional mayor backed by a Labour campaign so relentless that the main risk was annoying voters by knocking too often on their doors. Kenyon also increased his and Reform’s share of the vote from the 2024 general election.
This, though, was a seat so demographically Reform-friendly that some pundits warned Andy Burnham was taking a big risk using it as his vehicle for a return to Westminster. In that context, as Farage himself said on Friday morning, Makerfield was a disappointment.
The larger danger is that it could become a trend. Of the five byelections held since the general election in 2024, Reform has only won a single seat, last year in Runcorn and Helsby – and that by precisely six votes.
The two byelections held in Scotland on Thursday were never on Farage’s agenda. But Makerfield comes four months after Reform also came a distant second in Gorton and Denton, that time to the Greens.
Both seats are in Greater Manchester, if politically and demographically very different. But they arguably contain some of the same lessons for Reform, including the importance of selecting the right candidate.
In Gorton and Denton, the party put its faith in Matthew Goodwin, a former academic who is very popular in hard-right social media circles but whose often peevish and prickly demeanour and St Albans vowels contrasted with the cheery positivity of the Green candidate – now MP – Hannah Spencer, a local plumber.
For Makerfield, the choice seemed easy. Kenyon is also a plumber, also local, and had even been an army reservist. The problem for Reform was that he had also been a hugely prolific online poster.
Journalists and activists for other parties pored over his X accounts, plus comments on a now-defunct rugby league message board, finding scepticism for vaccines, strong support for Donald Trump and – most damaging of all – some excruciatingly crude comments about women.
As well as openly saying he was a sexist and calling abortion “cowardly”, Kenyon was very publicly called out by Carol Vorderman after it emerged he had emphatically endorsed another poster’s lewd remarks about her, an incident Reform insiders acknowledged had put off a number of female voters.
Another lesson is how Reform is vulnerable to tactical voting. In Makerfield and Gorton and Denton, the parties seen as not in the race were squeezed massively, with anecdotal canvassing evidence suggesting many of these votes were going to whoever was seen as more likely to wipe the grin off Farage’s face.
Makerfield also had a message of its own for Reform: that it now faces a competitor on its right flank. Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain, not even registered as a party by the time of the Gorton and Denton byelection, took 7% of the vote, less than Restore supporters had predicted but enough, if replicated nationally in a general election, to cost Farage dozens of seats.
For all that it disparages Lowe, Reform is spooked by its former MP’s rise as an openly far-right largely online phenomenon. The valuable support he gets from Elon Musk, X’s owner and the curator of what millions of Britons see in their social media feeds, only makes it more worrying.
The result has been apparent in a notable shift by Farage and his colleagues to the nativist right, particularly the decision to use the case of Henry Nowak to argue that the UK is now institutionally biased against white people.
With this comes danger. Farage has for years maintained what he describes as a firewall between his parties and thuggish far-right types such as Tommy Robinson. Every speech about “two-tier Britain” or “British workers first” risks undermining this.
If Restore threatens to do to Reform what Farage’s various parties have done over the years to the Conservatives – shift them on to his turf – he has been hampered in his ability to fight back in recent weeks.
Farage’s previously regular press conferences have all but dried up since news emerged about the £5m gift he received before the general election. He has appeared to avoid answering questions about a subject that some people in Makerfield said had made them think twice about voting Reform.
Some pundits believe Reform’s message, even now, could have a national ceiling of about 30%. A confirmed shift towards Lowe or Robinson territory might see that drop. Farage is experienced enough a politician to not panic. He will need all that experience now.
