Reform UK’s 2025 Conference: A Government in waiting?

​Reform UK held their party conference at the beginning of this month at the NEC in Birmingham – buoyed at being ahead in the polls and May’s local elections in which they won control of ten councils and two mayors. On the basis of how well Reform are polling, the Telegraph’s Election Predictor projects the party, should a general election be held today, would win a majority (with 331 MPs) for the first time. Despite still being in the negative, Nigel Farage’s net approval rating has now surpassed both Keir Starmer’s and Kemi Badenoch’s, and some polling shows voters believe Reform would perform better than Labour on key issues including the cost of living, immigration, the NHS and crime.

The conference itself was staged like an American-style political rally – as much about theatre and designed to rally grassroots support and project confidence. Delegates were even treated to the spectacle of Greater Lincolnshire Mayor Dame Andrea Jenkyns performing her self-penned song Insomniac, Farage entering the stage to fireworks, and merchandise was everywhere – including Farage (and other top Reform politicians)-branded football shirts.

Setting the agenda

In the same week the Prime Minister was setting the stage for ‘phase two’ of his government, Reform was similarly laying the groundwork to appear as a credible governing alternative, with the conference theme focused on the party ‘taking the next step’.  Immigration remains the party’s strongest card with its voters. With the issue consistently ranking as the top public concern, polling shows that voters trust Reform more than any other party to deal with it. There’s no doubt that both Labour and the Conservatives have chosen to shift rightwards on this issue in response, with the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood reportedly set to announce the use of military barracks to house asylum seekers – a policy already favoured by most Britons.

This starkly reveals Reform’s agenda-setting power. Increasingly, the party can no longer be dismissed as a single-issue protest party. There is a determined effort to consciously present themselves as a professionalised movement with a wider manifesto. By leveraging their dominance on immigration, Reform is seeking to build credibility across other policy areas and make the case that they are a government in waiting – with Farage also announcing former chairman and current head of the party’s Department of Government Efficiency, Zia Yusuf, as head of policy. Interestingly, immigration was less of a focus at the conference with keynote speeches instead on the economy, crime and justice, and health.

Media dominance

Angela Rayne’s resignation as Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Secretary, and the Cabinet reshuffle that followed, inevitably somewhat punctured coverage of Reform’s conference. Yet Reform’s growing power to influence opinion and set the narrative was already clear: polling suggests nearly half of voters see the party as the one most setting the national agenda – three times as many as say the same for Labour.

The missing piece: housing and the built environment

For the built environment sector, little was said, with housing and planning largely absent from the conference agenda. Beyond their 2024 manifesto commitments – some of which include prioritising brownfield development, scrapping net zero targets and opposing costly infrastructure projects like HS2 – little new has been added. But behind the scenes early tentative conversations are beginning to happen with business and the built environment sector more specifically. Slowly more is emerging from the party, with Deputy Leader and MP for Boston and Skegness Richard Tice pledging to scrap Northern Powerhouse Rail. While the Government’s flagship Planning and Infrastructure Bill works its way through parliament, Reform’s policy intervention was the party’s support for an amendment requiring swift bricks in new homes.

This highlights a clear gap: Reform is positioning itself as a government-in-waiting but remains largely silent on the delivery of new housing and of the need for planning reform. This may well be strategic – according to YouGov polling housing does not currently rank among the public’s top five priorities (except for in London). Perhaps Reform believes there is no rush in setting out a detailed housing offer while it consolidates its advantage on the issues its voters care about the most.

Defections and professionalisation

Another feature of the conference was the unveiling of new recruits. Former Conservative Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries appeared on stage with Farage, stating that the ‘Tory party is dead’. Since then, this week we have seen two more Conservative defections to Reform – former MP and Minister Maria Caulfield and MP for East Wiltshire, Danny Kruger (the first sitting MP to do so) plus.

Interestingly, Kruger will take up the role as head of the party’s ‘preparing for government’ department – a telling sign that the party is professionalising itself and is determined to be ready to step into government.

Dorries, Caulfield and Kruger join a growing list of former Tories including ex-MPs Sir Jake Berry, David Jones, and Adam Holloway, who have defected to Reform. Two questions arise from this – first, whether more MPs from the Conservative right – or indeed other parties – will follow. And second, whether a stream of Conservatives joining Reform makes it increasingly hard for Nigel Farage to bat off accusations his party is just the Tories under another name.

Looking ahead

There are still four years until the next general election – a lifetime in politics (as the last few weeks have demonstrated!). Despite Labour’s enormous majority, Farage himself believes the country could go to the polls sooner, with 2027 optimistically marked as his target for entering No. 10. But in the meantime, Reform’s immediate focus will be on May’s local elections, where every London borough is up for grabs alongside many more local authorities and mayors across the country, plus Scottish and Welsh parliaments. If current momentum holds, we could see another wave of councils turning turquoise, with Reform eyeing big gains in Wales (building on its campaign to reindustrialise parts of the country and reopen the Port Talbot steelworks).

With commentators warning that the Conservatives risk sliding into irrelevance and Labour vulnerable to losing support across the board, might the path to a Reform government no longer look so far-fetched?