United Kingdom
The story
Unlike its continental peers, the UK's pure majoritarian electoral system strongly favours a two-party structure and has long suppressed anti-establishment parties at the seat level — the Liberal Democrats took 11.5% of the vote in 2019 but won only 11 of 650 seats. Instead, radical currents have historically been absorbed inside the major parties themselves: militant socialist factions within Labour, national-conservative factions within the Tories.
1991–2016 · UKIP and the road to Brexit
The UK Independence Party (UKIP), founded in 1991 as the Anti-Federalist League by Alan Sked, took its current name in 1993. After internal conflicts, Sked left in 1997, later arguing that nationalist and racist elements had gained influence. Nigel Farage became the dominant figure and refocused it on immigration, delivering wins in the 2013 local elections, first place in the 2014 European election, and over 12 percent nationally in 2015. Its defining triumph came in 2016: not just securing a Brexit referendum, but winning it. Farage resigned afterward, and UKIP declined without him.
2019–2024 · The Brexit Party becomes Reform UK
After leaving UKIP, Farage founded the Brexit Party to ensure Brexit's implementation, winning the 2019 European election with more than 30%, then taking 2% in that year's general election after standing aside in Conservative-held seats. Rebranded Reform UK in 2021 with a pivot toward anti-lockdown politics, the party is populist and nationalist in orientation, right-wing and socially conservative, and hard-eurosceptic by default given the UK's departure from the EU.
2024-2026 · REFORM’S BREAKTHROUGH
Reform won 14.3 percent in the 2024 general election but only five seats, far fewer than the Liberal Democrats’ 72, and its breakthrough continued in 2025 with 677 council seats, ten councils and two new mayoralties. It first led a national poll in February 2025 and peaked at 34% that September, but its support declined through 2026 and by September Labour had moved ahead. It combines economic liberalism with welfare chauvinism, tax cuts and large-scale deportations, and sits well to the right of the Conservatives on immigration. Candidate scandals recur, and Farage’s closeness to Trump became a liability. It backs NATO but is more sceptical about Ukraine.
2025-2026 · REFORM AND RESTORE BRITAIN
Reform accepts electoral democracy but challenges liberal limits on majority rule: it backs leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, curbs on legal routes against deportation and repeal of parts of equality law. Farage’s “uniparty” rhetoric and Trump affinity add to concerns, so Reform is rated medium on authoritarianism. On its right flank, Rupert Lowe, suspended in March 2025 after clashing with Farage, launched Restore Britain in February 2026, advocating mass deportations, a ban on the burqa and niqab and a referendum on the death penalty. It won 6.8 percent in the Makerfield by-election and polls at a few percent.
REFORM
Reform UK
- Economics Right
- Social issues Conservative
- EU Hard euroscepticism
- Authoritarianism Medium