Reform will snatch away Labour's red wall – and this time, for good

Yahoo

04-02-2025

The Tories are dying. Labour is utterly out of touch with the British people. And Nigel Farage and Reform are about to emerge as the big beneficiary of what the Tories completely fumbled: the post-Brexit realignment of our politics.
That's what I told more than 1,000 Reform party members at a major rally last weekend in the historic Labour stronghold of County Durham. I'm not yet a member of Reform, but I agreed to speak at Reform events because like millions of other people I am utterly frustrated with the dire state of our once great country.
The location of my speech, a traditional Labour heartland, was also highly symbolic. There's certainly no doubt that Reform is benefitting from the ongoing collapse of the Tories. In the polls last week, Kemi Badenoch and her party averaged just 22.8 per cent. That not only puts the Tories behind Nigel Farage and Reform, who for the first time last week finished ahead of the Conservatives in every major poll, but also puts Badenoch on less than what they polled at the election last year.
With Kemi Badenoch's approval ratings now also sliding – to minus 15 with one pollster, or what I call Prince Harry territory – there is simply zero evidence that the party is managing to get itself off life support.
As pollster James Frayne pointed out a few days ago, we might well be witnessing 'the last days' of the Conservative Party, a party which he says has become an 'irrelevance' in the eyes of many voters.
Look closely at the polls and you'll see that the party is now also drawing just as many disillusioned Labour voters and Liberal Democrats as former Conservative voters. And this is an absolutely critical point. Why? Because a Tory tribute act that depends only on ex-Tories will simply never be able to overcome our first-past-the-post, two-party system, which is a nightmare for disruptors. Only a political alternative that's poaching votes from left, right, and the 'none of the above' masses would be able to develop the escape velocity needed to exit the system.
As Reform insiders know, while they have ample space on the right, they are now also opening up a second major flank across historic Labour heartlands, like County Durham. In fact, if you look at the 100 most favourable seats for Reform at the next general election in 2029, seats that are 'demographically favourable' in terms of potential success for party candidates, then no less than two-thirds of them are held by Labour.
Of Reform's top 50 prospects in 2029, 33 of them currently have Labour MPs. The emerging front lines in this new revolt on the right, in other words, will not just be in the few traditional Tory areas that remain in play, but also big clusters of Labour seats scattered across the North East, Yorkshire, the North West, and Wales.
If this revolt continues to gather pace then it will be in seats like Ed Miliband's Doncaster North, Jon Trickett's Normanton and Hemsworth, Yvette Cooper's Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Dan Jarvis' Barnsley North, and Chris Bryant's Rhondda and Ogmore that will provide one 'Portillo Moment' after another at the next election.
Nigel Farage and Reform, in other words, are now quickly becoming the big beneficiary of the post-Brexit realignment, poised to inherit many areas that will never vote Tory again after their post-2019 betrayal.
And you know what? The Tories have only themselves to blame.
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