Politics: rewriting the paradigm

By Richard North - June 20, 2026

It feels that, ever since the last general election, the rise of Reform seemed unstoppable, with media and the smart money speculating that Farage would become the prime minister in 2029.

My memory, however, doesn’t serve me well. A review of multiple sources suggests that it was Farage himself that set that hare running, declaring on 17 June 2024 that he planned “to run for PM in 2029”.

The occasion was the launch of his election manifesto (which he called a “contract with the people”), when he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that his “real ambition” was the 2029 general election. He saw the vote for the then general election as creating a “bridgehead” in the House of Commons.

He would, he said, use that to build a “big national campaigning movement around the country over the course of the next five years for genuine change”. At that point, when asked if it was his intention to vie to be prime minister at the next election, Farage said: “Yes, absolutely”.

The effect of this declaration was to prompt major news organs and betting sites to begin calculating his 2029 odds, creating a momentum which carried past the 4 July election, when Farage successfully won the Clacton seat and Reform UK secured five seats in Parliament.

It was then that a secondary wave of media analysis emerged, with the likes of the Independent asking whether a Farage premiership in 2029 was genuinely feasible if Starmer’s Labour government failed to deliver.

As the narrative developed, it was reinforced by a polling surge during the summer when Labour popularity fell rapidly, magnified by the Southport murders and the civil unrest that followed.

By September 2025, polling data showed that Reform UK was well ahead of the traditional major parties, the narrative was so well established that Starmer was forced onto the defensive and the Farage band waggon seemed unstoppable.

Come last month’s local elections, speculation peaked heavily when local election results were projected by the Telegraph, showing that, under a similar national vote share, Farage would likely become prime minister in a hung parliament.

By then, though, national polling had already peaked and it was largely the media chatter which maintained the momentum, buoyed by the by-success in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, held in May 2025.

However, in that victory lay the seeds of decline: Sarah Pochin’s victory was achieved by the narrowest of margins of just six votes, the closest by-election result ever in the post-war era.

This, as it turns out, has been the only one of five Westminster by-elections held since the 2024 general election that Reform has won. On the back of the humiliation in Gorton and Denton last February – which went to Hannah Spencer for the Greens – we have had Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, taken by the SNP, Aberdeen South won by the Tories, culminating in the Makerfield contest which has so spectacularly gone to Labour’s Andy Burnham.

For any one of these defeats, Reform could put up plausible mitigation, especially in Makerfield where the anti-Starmer vote which sustained the party through the local elections went this time to challenger Andy Burnham.

When the timescale is extended, though, the picture looks even more grim. In total, Reform UK (including its previous iteration as the Brexit Party) has fought 29 Westminster by-elections and has won only the Runcorn seat.

In the 2017–2019 Parliament (as the Brexit Party), two seats were fought, Peterborough (June 2019) and Brecon and Radnorshire (August 2019). Neither were successful.

Come the 2019–2024 parliament, when the party had assumed its current identity as Reform UK, 22 seats were contested out of the 26 by-elections held during this parliamentary cycle (skipping multi-party anomalies like Southend West). Notable results included strong second-place finishes in early 2024, such as Wellingborough, Kingswood, and Blackpool South. But there were no victories.

Again, there are plenty of good reasons that Reform/Brexit Party might offer to excuse their lack of success, but the fact remains that even its best friends cannot claim that Farage’s enterprises are election-winning machines.

But now, with the latest failure at Makerfield, questions are being asked as to whether Reform can stand up to its promise of forming the next government (with or without the Tories). The shine is wearing off and the hype is looking distinctly overwrought.

Thus we have the Telegraph running a piece headed: “Protest or power: What does Reform do now?”, featuring a graph illustrating that the chances as between Labour and Reform being the largest party in the next election are neck and neck at 34 percent.

All of a sudden, with Andy Burnham of the helm, Labour (for the moment) is no longer the basket case consigned to the dustbin of history, but a viable proposition set to sweep all before it.

The Telegraph in its article speculates on the role of Restore in dragging Reform down but, as its performance in Makerfield illustrates, the party is well-capable of failing through its own efforts, without the help of outside agencies.

In fact, given Lowe’s inability to restrain the neo-Nazis in his party, Makerfield could well have been peak Restore, with the party now tipping into decline and eventual obscurity.

With or without Restore, Farage’s party is unlikely to remedy its greatest weakness – the lack of a coherent raft of policies – and nor can it do so if Farage is to retain his tabula rasa stance that has served him so well through his political career.

Nevertheless, while the party does not deny that the result in Makerfield was a setback, the Telegraph thinks that there is no sign that fatalism has set in. One official, the paper tells us, says Reform began preparing for a change at the top of Labour over a year ago, when Starmer’s premiership first began to wobble, and was well prepared for Burnham.

The party expects the former Mayor of Manchester to enjoy a temporary bounce and acknowledges his popularity, but say they expect it will swiftly wane as he faces the same problems, and pursues many of the same policies, as Starmer.

“You’re in the scene in the movie that comes just before the end, when it looks like the bad guy is resurgent and the hero has taken a knock”, the source tells the Telegraph, adding: “But you’re actually just before the glorious victory at which point everyone lives happily ever after. This is the penultimate scene and we’re looking forward to the grand finale”.

This, of course, could be the same hubris that had Reform predicting that the Makerfield contest was “too close to call”, representing a Walter Mitty tendency which ignores the fatal inability of the party to translate its polling figures into votes.

Certainly, Marina Hyde in the Guardian is less charitable – as one might expect.

Sardonically, she reveals Reform’s “genius plan”: field terrible candidates then lose”, an accusation too close to home, reflecting the party’s dearth of genuine political talent and its reliance on etiolated Tories to make up ranks. Commenting on what is all too obvious, she observes: “The unstoppable Nigel Farage is looking increasingly stoppable in the wake of Makerfield”.

For the first time in a long time, we are looking at a paradigm shift where Reform is no longer looking like the next party of government, and we have to get used to the idea that the 2029 election brings us closer to destruction with another Labour government.

Makerfield, writes Stephen Daisley in the Telegraph, raises an uncomfortable prospect for the right: that its struggles are ultimately about who gets to lead the side that loses to Labour.