When pollsters ask us to place ourselves on a political scale from “left” to “right”, the average British person will usually say they are in the centre, with Europeans to the left and Americans proudly to the right (Tom Calver writes). Despite a chaotic year in politics, the political makeup of the electorate looks, in some ways, to be quite static.
At the start of 2025, the parties of the left — Labour, Lib Dems and Greens — were polling on a combined average of 48 per cent, while the parties of the right — the Tories and Reform — shared 49 per cent between them. Today, those figures are largely unchanged. In other words, the chaos in British politics can be explained more by movement within these “blocs” than between them.
• Read in full: Britain is not as left-wing as you might think
‘Tory defectors failed Britain and will do again’
The Labour Party chairwoman said Nigel Farage’s frontbench appointments had “failed Britain before” and would do so again.
Anna Turley said: “Farage’s top team of failed Tories spent over 3,000 days inflicting untold damage on our country in government, trashing our economy, hammering families’ mortgages and leaving our borders open.
“They failed Britain before — they’d do the same again under Reform.
“Today’s appointments clearly reveal that neither keeping our nation safe nor tackling NHS waiting lists are priorities for Farage or Reform UK. Only Keir Starmer’s Labour government is delivering on the people’s priorities by tackling the cost of living and cutting NHS waiting lists.”
Tax breaks for having children possible under Reform
Reform’s new ‘shadow’ cabinet
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
Reform “might give people tax breaks for having quite a few children”, Nigel Farage said.
The Reform UK leader was responding to comments made by Matt Goodwin, the party’s candidate in the Gorton & Denton by-election, who said people who did not have children should be taxed more to tackle Britain’s fertility crisis.
Farage said: “I don’t think we want to tax people more. We might give people tax breaks for having quite a few children, given that the cost of living is appallingly high as it is.
“There are millions of people working who might be better off on benefits. So if part of our strategy going forwards is to find some way that we can help young working people have kids if Reform are in power, then I think that’s going to be a very decent solution.”
Farage dismisses threat from Lowe’s new party
Farage dismissed a poll suggesting 10 per cent of people would vote for an ex-Reform member’s new party that was announced this week.
Asked whether he felt threatened by Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain movement, the Reform leader said: “There is only one proper brand of centre-right politics in this country. It’s called Reform.
“When he stood up and said that we’ve got to consider the mass deportations of entire communities, including those born in the United Kingdom, that just moves beyond a point of reasonableness, of decency, of morality.
“That was the moment at which I realised we just had to get rid of him and get rid of him as quickly as we could.”
Starmer’s veiled jab at Reform
Sir Keir Starmer attempted to paint Reform UK as vaccine-sceptic amid a rise in measles cases among children.
He wrote on X: “Our country expects its leaders to stand firmly behind science to protect our children, not to give oxygen to conspiracy theories. Public health isn’t a culture war. It’s about keeping our communities safe.”
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The prime minister did not name Reform, but ministers have previously accused the party of entertaining “anti-vax lies” after Dr Aseem Malhotra, who linked the Covid vaccine with cancer in the royal family, spoke at Reform’s conference.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, previously said: “These anti-vax lies have consequences: they’ve led to the return of diseases we thought we defeated — measles, whooping cough, children dying from preventable illness in this, the 21st century.”
Braverman: Trade will rebuild Britain’s self-belief
Suella Braverman called for 50 per cent of young people to work in trades, saying that they would “rebuild our country’s self-belief”.
Reform’s education spokeswoman blamed universities for “conning” students into getting Mickey Mouse degrees and criticised New Labour’s target of getting more young people to university.
Reform inundated with candidate applications
Farage, Richard Tice and Suella Braverman
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
Farage has claimed that 600 people applied to be a parliamentary Reform candidate in the first two days of applications being opened.
The party leader said it was a “gargantuan” task to pick hundreds of candidates for seats in the May 7 council elections.
Farage said he would not do a deal with the Tories because they were “utterly dishonourable”.
He said he had made a deal with Boris Johnson in 2019 and felt “betrayed” by the party. He distanced himself from comments made by Zia Yusuf that the party might be open to an agreement with the Conservatives to prevent a “progressive alliance” of the Labour, Lib Dems and Greens.
Farage: Reform won’t repeat Tory ‘psychodrama’
Farage warned against disloyalty in his party, threatening that any perpetrators “won’t be around very long”.
He said his party did not have time for the “psychodrama” that the Tories engaged in.
“If people mess about, behave badly and are disloyal, they won’t be here very long,” he said. “We’re not going to put up with it. We’ll have our disagreements, of course we will, but we’ll have those disagreements in private, behind closed doors, resolve our issues, resolve our disputes that naturally happen when any group of human beings come together, but I won’t tolerate it publicly.
“We haven’t got time, we’re not going to aim for government to put it through the same psychodrama that the Conservatives did for over four years where they spent more time fighting each other than they did fighting for the country, so I think we’re pretty clear on that.”
Tory defectors provide strategic safety
Appointing Tory defectors to top party positions aims to address criticism Farage has faced over his party lacking experience in government.
Robert Jenrick was an immigration minister under Rishi Sunak and also exchequer secretary to the Treasury in 2018 to 19 under Theresa May. Suella Braverman served as home secretary from 2022 to 2023.
One party source said its internal polling showed that one of the biggest obstacles for people voting Reform was its perceived lack of experience in government.
They said that after elections in May, the focus would shift towards working up a detailed manifesto and appointing more people to the equivalent of shadow roles.
‘Britain ripped apart by DEI’
CHRIS J. RATCLIFFE/REUTERS
Britain has been “ripped apart” by diversity, equality and inclusion, Braverman said, accusing the initiative of being “prejudice against white people”.
She said Reform UK would get rid of the equalities department on “day one”, scrap the equalities minister — the role she is responsible for — and repeal the Equalities Act.
Braverman becomes fourth appointment
Suella Braverman will be Reform UK’s shadow secretary of state for education and skills, Nigel Farage has confirmed in the final appointment to his “shadow cabinet”.
She will also be responsible for equalities, meaning she will “take on the world of DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion]” for the party.
Braverman said “too many teachers now face the fear of intimidation and assault in the classroom”, adding that the curriculum under her control would be reformed to be “patriotic”.
She added that gender ideology and transitioning would be banned for students.
“In some classrooms, children are taught to view Britain with shame rather than pride,” she said. “To focus on grievance, rather than gratitude. To focus on gender ideology, rather than ideological fact.
“A Reform government will restore freedom to our schools.”
Reform claims victory over Labour U-turn
Nigel Farage at the conference in Church House, Westminster, with Jenrick in the background
STEFAN ROUSSEAU/PA
Nigel Farage has said his party were feeling “happy with themselves” after the government dropped plans to delay some council elections. Farage called the U-turn a victory for democracy and said Reform was now the real opposition in the country.
Yusuf responsible for immigration
CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/REUTERS
Zia Yusuf will be Reform UK’s shadow home secretary, responsible for tackling “both legal and illegal immigration”, Nigel Farage has confirmed.
Rising immigration was the “most profound betrayal in British electoral history”, Yusuf said, adding that Britons had “voted expressly in the opposite way” to the immigration policies implemented by the Conservative and Labour governments of recent years.
He added: “If you are in this country illegally right now and you are watching this, then I want to be clear that [as] Reform’s home secretary you will be deported from these lands.”
Jenrick becomes ‘shadow’ chancellor
CHRIS J. RATCLIFFE/REUTERS
Robert Jenrick will be Reform UK’s shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Nigel Farage has confirmed.
Jenrick said Sir Keir Starmer’s economic policies were “tantamount to vandalism” as he said Reform would build an economy “that serves alarm clock Britain”.
He added that “decades of mismanagement” had “broken” Britain’s economy.
“People are suffering,” he said. “Everyone in the country feels hard up right now. People are working all hours, and then they get to the weekend and they have nothing left. … We are going to put together the most comprehensive plan of any political party in this country to fix Britain’s broken economy.”
He called Rachel Reeves a “wrecking ball” for the economy, and said he would work to reduce waste in the benefits bills, reduce bills and brings back good jobs to the country.
Tice confirmed as ‘shadow’ business secretary
Richard Tice will be deputy prime minister and secretary for business, trade and energy if Reform UK win the next general election, Nigel Farage has confirmed.
His new brief will be to run a “super department”, which will also have responsibility for housing.
The deputy leader said he would be announcing plans to set up a sovereign wealth fun, which would invest in steel, hi-tech and defence tech industries.
Yusuf: Number of illegal immigrants larger than British Army
Zia Yusuf, who is tipped to be Reform’s home affairs spokesman, supported Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s view in an interview last week that Britain had been “colonised” by illegal immigrants.
Yusuf previously told GB News the number of illegal immigrants that had entered the UK since 2018 was “larger than the British Army”, and that successive governments had failed to listen to voters’ concerns on mass migration to the UK.
Fourth appointment remains a mystery
Four podiums with the positions embossed on the front have been set out on the stage at Reform’s press conference.
While the positions of Jenrick, Yusuf and Tice have been well documented, the person who will get the role of the education and skills spokesman remains a mystery.
Real shades of Fifteen to One with William G Stewart here at Reform UK’s “shadow cabinet” launch (Tom Peck writes).
The podiums before Reform’s announcements
CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/ REUTERS
At Farage’s right-hand side will be his shadow chancellor, widely understood to be Robert Jenrick.
The podium to his left-hand side says “shadow business, trade and energy secretary”. This is not, technically, one of the big jobs, so its central position is surely confirmation that it’ll be Richard Tice.
‘We will roll out red carpet for disillusioned voters’
Zia Yusuf has suggested that a Reform cabinet would not be wholly composed of MPs or peers.
He told Times Radio: “We have said that we would expect a decent portion of the cabinet to be smaller under Nigel Farage, make it a higher performance, higher-functioning decision-making body.
“A decent portion, not the majority, but a decent portion probably would not necessarily be parliamentarians. We’ve got to bring and we’ve got to entice and do everything we can to roll out the red carpet for exceptional people in this country, of which there are many very disillusioned.”
Why Treasury role for Jenrick could cause conflict
Robert Jenrick announced his defection to Reform last month
HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Robert Jenrick has faced opposition from Farage’s long-term lieutenants Richard Tice and Zia Yusuf to get the role as Treasury spokesman.
Jenrick defected to Reform UK last month after being ousted from the Conservative Party by its leader, Kemi Badenoch. At the time, Jenrick denied that he had been promised a senior role in Reform to secure his defection.
The decision by Farage to hand the Treasury role to Jenrick is likely to cause internal conflict for the party. Both Yusuf and Tice had previously expressed an interest in the job.
Farage: We’re not a one-man band
Farage is setting out the four spokesmen before the local elections in May to try to win voters who may feel that he leads Reform as a “one-man band”.
At a rally in Romford on Monday he said he was “relieved” that other senior figures would be responsible for areas of policy.
“I think the moment to properly move away from the potential criticism that we’re a one-man band has been there now for a few weeks, and that’s why I’m doing [these appointments],” he said.
“Am I concerned? No, I’m relieved actually. I’m relieved that other people are taking up these big areas, and from [a journalist’s] perspective, on a given issue, you will know who to call.”
Key roles for Jenrick, Yusuf and Tice
Nigel Farage is set to unveil a series of senior appointments designed to demonstrate that Reform UK is preparing for power.
Robert Jenrick, the former Tory minister, is expected to be announced as the party’s chancellor-in-waiting, while Zia Yusuf, Reform’s policy chief, is expected to be put in charge of home affairs.
Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, is expected to be given a combined business and energy brief.