Reform UK

Reform UK is a right-populist political party founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party by Nigel Farage, rebranded as Reform UK in 2021. It holds 5 Westminster seats from the 2024 general election and is funded overwhelmingly by a single donor: businessman Christopher Harborne, who gave approximately £12 million in the second half of 2025. The party campaigns on immigration restriction, NHS reform, and opposition to net-zero climate policy, representing the most significant challenge to the two-party system from the right since the SDP in the 1980s.

On 7 July 2026 Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced he will resign his Clacton seat to force a by-election he will personally recontest, with the party covering the estimated £200,000 cost. Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party and Restore Britain all declined to contest the seat, several saying they were reserving themselves for an anticipated second by-election once the parliamentary standards inquiry into Farage concludes.

On 7 May 2026 Reform UK returned 1,448 councillors across 14 English councils, finishing 894 seats below the PollCheck/YouGov MRP projection of 2,342, but gained outright control of Sunderland and Wakefield and entered the Scottish Parliament with 17 Holyrood seats. An initial post-election exodus of 22 councillors in the first fortnight has since slowed to roughly 40 cumulative departures by 2 July, well down on the earlier 27% annualised rate. Seven of the nine 2025 Reform led councils that scrapped climate targets set the likely policy tone for the new intake.

A Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards investigation opened on 13 May into a reported £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne to Farage remains open with no finding, and has been joined by newer, separate funding questions referred to the Electoral Commission. Despite the unresolved scrutiny, Reform's national polling held steady at 25% in YouGov's 5 to 6 July tracker, unchanged across five weeks.