Published by The i paper (5th May, 2025)
Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform UK, has been busy in the media boasting about his party’s success in the local elections and calling for the “remoralisation of young people”. In one interview, he pointed to China and Russia as models for teaching a more patriotic version of British history in schools – two dictatorships that use their education systems to embed state propaganda with a distorted take on the past. He claimed also that gender dysphoria is not a problem in China, a nation that has had a transgender host of popular television shows and yet still suffers from the familiar issues of societal discrimination against such citizens.
Truth is the first casualty of culture wars, as seen often in recent times. We must expect to see more of this character, however, after his hard-right party confirmed it is a major player in British politics last week. Like many at the helm of populist forces that claim to represent ordinary people, he came to politics from the world of extreme wealth. Yusuf was a director of Goldman Sachs, then made millions selling his luxury concierge company that serviced the super-rich. A former Tory, he fell under Nigel Farage’s spell when they met at a millionaire’s drinks party, although seems he canny enough to see that his political survival rests on kowtowing to a sharp-elbowed boss. “There’s no two ways about it. Nigel, I think, is the most extraordinary British politician of our lifetime’ he trilled to The Sunday Times.
Certainly Farage has, once again, shaken up British politics as the traditional two-party system collapses amid widespread dismay at Westminster’s chronic failures. This is not the first time one of his parties has hit such heights: the Brexit Party won a similar 30.5 per cent in the 2019 European elections. Even Labour’s loss of its once-safe parliamentary seat of Runcorn by six votes pales in comparison with spectacular previous protest votes against floundering ruling parties in by-elections, such as the Tory loss of Chesham and Amersham four years ago. Yet now Reform has two mayors, 10 councils and 677 new seats as well as its first female MP, providing a strong platform with prominent voices across the country.
After last year’s general election, Farage rightly complained about the unfairness of our first-past-the-post electoral system. “For the Labour Party to get one-third of the national vote and two-thirds of the seats – it’s an absolute joke,” he fumed. Last week his party captured 70 per cent of council seats in Kent and two-thirds of those in Derbyshire on 37 per cent share of the vote, demonstrating again the urgent need for electoral reform as our traditional two-party system crumbles.
But this time Reform won the jackpot offered by Britain’s electoral lottery and is dreaming of Downing Street, while Labour and the Tories are the big losers.
No doubt some members of Reform’s hastily-recruited army will turn out to be the sort of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet-racists” once mocked by David Cameron as the former Tory leader grappled with the start of Farage’s surge two decades ago. All the parties led by this man – who fuses personal affability with dog-whistle politics – attract bigots into their ranks. This has led to a stream of unsavoury supporters being unmasked by the media and rival parties. Reform emerged from the Brexit Party, after all, which was founded by a woman forced to resign as leader over racist and Islamophobic tweets. Yet none of this sticks to slippery Farage, nor stymies his enduring appeal with a disgruntled slice of the electorate that has stayed loyal even after the blatant failure of his landmark Brexit mission.
Brexit has been a success for Farage himself, of course, boosting his global appeal and crushing the Conservatives. This party that dominated modern British politics is left confronting an existential crisis going far beyond debate over another useless leader and whether she should be replaced by the repulsive rival jostling for her job. The scale of Tory failure was epic, trapped in the pincers of Reform to the right and Liberal Democrats to the left. They lost 16 of 23 councils up for grabs, leaving them wiped out in traditional heartlands, while winning just 15 per cent of the national vote despite the struggles of a plodding Labour government. Yet their plight is predictable after they drove away liberal and younger voters in a misguided populist makeover based on fault lines exposed by Brexit, then displayed such breathtaking arrogance and incompetence in power.
Reform remains a one-man band, however, reliant on an egotistical leader who does not like to share the spotlight while lacking ideology beyond visceral loathing of migrants. It could not even manage to glue together a parliamentary team of five, leading to the exile of Rupert Lowe. These strains and divisions will become more apparent as it tries to develop a policy agenda that fuses the small-state instincts of its leaders with the demands of supporters while dealing with the realities of running cash-strapped local authorities.
Farage himself wants “net zero” immigration policy, which would damage public services while restraining growth, and supports tax cuts while spraying around cash after his latest shift into economic populism. Mimicking Donald Trump with talk of unleashing Doge units to tackle council waste has limited appeal in a country where eight in 10 voters disapprove of a United States president cuddling up to the Kremlin, imposing tariffs and promoting the far-right. Yet Trump shows a populist leader can win as he slides around the political spectrum, surrounds himself with extremists, and shatters all norms of conventional democratic politics.
So the big question for Britain is whether his fanboy Farage can follow his path all the way to power? Or will Labour finally wake up to the scale of challenge confronting our country and tackle the economic woes, social inequalities and public sector catastrophes that are fuelling Reform’s rise?