Across the Aisle: Oxford’s Political Parties Discuss Reform UK

A Note from the Editor

Welcome back to “Across the Aisle,” the Oxford Blue’s new column bringing together the University’s political societies from across the spectrum to discuss the week’s most pressing matters.

This week, we look back to the UK and address the recent YouGov poll suggesting, for the first time, that the majority of Britons would vote for Reform UK if a general election were to be held tomorrow. According to the poll, Reform leads Labour by one percentage point at 25%, whereas the Conservatives sit at 21%, and the Liberal Democrats at 14%.

According to the same poll, one in five individuals who voted Conservative at the last general election would now vote for Reform UK, and a total of 33% of Conservative voters would consider voting for Reform. This leads well ahead of the Labour (9%) and Liberal Democrat (8%) voters who would consider doing the same.

This corresponds to a decrease in Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch’s approval rating from -25 to -29 between January and February 2025, and an increase in Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage’s approval rating from -32 to -27 in the same period. On the other hand, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating plummeted to -36, currently making him the most unpopular party leader in the UK.

So, what is pushing people towards Reform?

It appears that the primary reasons for the rise of Reform’s popularity are a rise in anti-establishment sentiment among Brits and the popularity of the party’s flagship anti-immigration stances. 19% of Reform UK considerers cited that the most attractive aspect of the party is that they are “neither Labour nor Conservatives,” and 11% said that Reform is “different,” hinting at a trend of Brits becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the current political establishment.

Nonetheless, the rise of Reform UK is contentious. Many cite excessive media attention and leverage of social media as reasons for Reform’s message breaking the boundaries of popularity which typically curb the success of a non-establishment party. 

Reform’s popularity has not gone unnoticed by the major political parties, and new strategies are surely being drawn up at party headquarters across the political spectrum. Hence, Oxford’s Conservative Association (OUCA), Liberal Association (OSLA), and Labour Club (OLC) have contributed their perspectives on the matter to demonstrate the broad range of opinions held on either side of the aisle…

OLC: If Reform Capitalises on the Electorate’s Anger, Labour must Unite them with Policies that enact Real Change

Akshita Anand

Although Reform’s surge in popularity in recent opinion polls might be frightening, it cannot be surprising. 

For months now, so-called political clairvoyants who write in news publications have been warning us about the growing spectre of the far-right. Yet, the makings of the far-right have been visible to the plain eye for a while. Just look back at our country’s recent political history: the division over Brexit and a pandemic that broke our country, an outbreak of some of the most violent UK riots some of us have seen in our lifetime. Throughout these crises, politicians were either too self-interested or scared to take the reins, shifting the blame anywhere but their own front doorstep. Of course, that amount of neglect and rupture would leave space for parties like Reform to emerge. 

Again, I could join hundreds of other articles in discussing how the increase in misinformation, the creation of online echo chambers, and the oligarchs who buy and use media platforms as their political playground all further Reform’s grip over the media. In the UK especially, you can always talk about how pre-existing dog-whistle narratives in right-wing papers, like “stopping the boats,” created a vacuum for the kind of extremism present in Reform’s deeply exclusionary rhetoric. Yet, defining Reform’s success as part of a general trend of extremism in the media fails to acknowledge the root problem the UK faces which forged this path for Reform. 

Ultimately, the beating heart of Reform UK and its supporters is anger. Amidst all these crises and consequent political fracture, Reform, unlike other parties, has found a way to unite people across demographic divisions, capitalising on widespread anger over the variety of issues facing these groups. Whilst Tory and Labour MPs sit on opposite sides of the Commons chamber, for Reform UK these parties are united as a symbol of the “same old” system. A system that no longer feels equipped to deal with the levels of hardship facing the UK. The dystopian necessity and desperation for a change in Britain have been answered in the most malignant way by Reform. Farage claims to support an “alternative” Britain, which is actually a cesspit for hatred and exclusion. 

However, resigning ourselves to the idea of Reform as some sort of boogeyman, a mythic inevitability, is simply not an option. The growing anger and frustration at the current situation in the UK must be met with policies strong enough to actively change our fortunes for the better. It falls to this Labour government to fix those years of corruption that splintered this state. But there is also a responsibility in all of us, equally dismayed at past governments’ mistreatment and anxious towards the next steps, to not let parties like Reform prey on this political cynicism. Anger, left in the hands of Reform, can only breed more fragmentation and isolation. Yet built into community organisation, fostering relational power, anger can transform into real change.

OSLA: Reform’s Rise Exposes the Failure of Britain’s Political Establishment

Will Lawson

The startling rise of Reform in recent opinion polling has disquieted the political establishment. Hopes had risen that Brexit represented “peak populism” in the United Kingdom; such hopes have now been washed away.

Rudderless and confused, the British political class is desperately eager to explain away this phenomenon. The BBC is “dancing to the Farage tune,” – disproportionately amplifying his right-wing message – claims Alastair Campbell. Perhaps Russian interference is to blame, or Elon Musk or other social-media moguls. Panicked, the major political parties are incapable of admitting that the rise of Reform could rest on substantive, structural failings of the British government. To admit as much would be to impugn their own shared record.

But such failings are stark and manifold: soaring housing costs, a decade of economic stagnation, and an ever-worsening sense of national atrophy. It is these substantive failings of the British government, hitherto inconceivable, which have driven voters to look for alternatives. No matter that Reform has no serious policy, and no willingness to confront what is broken in the British government. 

To attribute the rise of Reform to the media, or Elon Musk, or some other factor is to buy into a convenient illusion. The sad reality is that over the last two decades, centrist government – the approach to government I endorse – has not only failed to improve living standards but has overseen their slow, painful decline. Successive governments ignored this mounting crisis, refusing to sacrifice even an iota of political capital in pursuit of the long-term national interest.  

It is striking that in times as difficult as these, establishment political opinion is so uniform. Consider the 1979 and 1983 elections, when two genuinely ideological parties clashed at the ballot box. The Labour Party of Michael Foot and the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher held profoundly different visions for Britain, and between them presented a genuine choice to the country on Thursday 9^th June 1983. Such radicalism befitted the difficult times, according to the general sense that the country needed comprehensive change.

Farage’s growing success cannot be wished away, but must instead be tackled with an aggressive focus on the substantive failures of the British state. Starmer is beginning to speak to this: attacking the tragic mantra of “managed decline,” supporting planning reform, and promising tough decisions. Yet his actions to date have been predictably underwhelming, and he is naïve if he thinks that technocratic tinkerings will deliver the national revival on which his re-election depends. 

But Starmer cannot transform Britain until he drags himself free from decades of establishment consensus and combats those conservative, resistive parts of the British political elite which are reflexively opposed to change. Until he does so, Farage’s mounting threat will not abate.

OUCA: The Populist Illusion That Won’t Hold Up

Christopher Collins

Last week marked the first time Reform UK has led the Conservative Party in every opinion poll. Nonetheless, the Conservative vote share remains somewhat equivalent to the levels seen in July, contrasting with Labour’s vote share collapse. Even if there is widespread buyer’s remorse at entrusting the country’s fortunes to Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves, voters have not been quick to forget their dissatisfaction with the previous government. Many feel that this has left Reform as their only option. One poll even had Reform overtaking Labour, which would make it the most popular political party (by share of the vote) if an election were to be held today. 

Just as Labour supplanted the Liberals as the main party of the left a century ago, it is not at all impossible — however far-fetched it may seem — that Reform could pull off the same feat on the right. Whereas UKIP and the Brexit Party were effectively single-issue parties, largely benefiting from protest votes, Reform firmly aspires to be a party of government. 

Reform’s surge can, to some extent, be attributed to the large amount of media coverage they have received since Nigel Farage’s sensational return to politics in June. Bitter public spats with Kemi Badenoch and Elon Musk have only served to increase press attention. Reform has also benefited from the string of avoidable errors that have arisen out of Keir Starmer’s efforts to punish right-wing voters. If the Labour Party is not interested in receiving the support of pensioners or farmers, Reform is more than happy to have their votes. 

However, it remains to be seen whether Reform will mature into something more than a vessel for the anti-establishment sentiment that has swept the Western world over recent years. Nigel Farage thrives on personality politics, using it to mask Reform’s lack of a coherent governing agenda. Reform is a party which believes in slashing taxation while spending lavishly on public services. This is a fundamentally unworkable approach to managing an economy. Reform’s last manifesto was not a blueprint for government, but, rather, a calculated effort to maximise vote share through inconsistent populism. Although his Euroscepticism is sincere, his broader political stances are often fluid, shifting to match his audience. Someone who believes everything must, ultimately, believe nothing.

If it looks like Farage is likely to be a credible candidate to be Prime Minister, perhaps the media will hold him accountable. He will find it difficult to explain and defend a manifesto founded on internal contradictions. Certainly, Farage’s goal is the top job, and he will stop at nothing to get it. After winning election to the House of Commons on his 14th attempt, he is not content to leave it there.