{"id":442472,"date":"2026-02-24T05:51:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T05:51:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/442472\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T05:51:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T05:51:11","slug":"the-upstart-hard-right-party-on-the-march-in-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/442472\/","title":{"rendered":"The upstart hard-right party on the march in Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cThe Conservative Party is facing an existential crisis,\u201d Curtice said. \u201cFarage\u2019s aim is to replace them.\u201d<\/p>\n

This fear was palpable in Fareham.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had repeated assurances from her that she wouldn\u2019t defect, so it\u2019s a big surprise and a big disappointment,\u201d said Harry Kewish, the local Conservative treasurer who answered the door at her former office. \u201cShe is convinced that she has made the right decision and will probably try to recruit some of us,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are a lot of angry people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The question now is how high Reform\u2019s ceiling is.<\/p>\n

Having peaked at 35% in October, the party\u2019s polling has settled back to 28%, according to several polls this month, still higher than any other party but not enough to rule without entering into a coalition.<\/p>\n

Most of its new support<\/a> since 2024 has been drawn from ex-Conservatives.<\/p>\n

Another obstacle may be Farage\u2019s longtime friendship and allyship with Trump. The president caused outrage in Britain \u2014 and particularly in military towns like Fareham, home to the HMS Collingwood naval training base \u2014 when he suggested British troops had not been near the front lines in Afghanistan. Farage said the comments were \u201cwrong\u201d but some voters are still wary.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of their policies are a bit radical for my liking: the immigration stuff,\u201d said Kevin Murphy, 70, a retired electrical engineer from nearby Porchester.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just afraid that with all these far-right policies that we\u2019re going to end up like Donald Trump,\u201d said Murphy, who cites the immigration enforcement raids in Minnesota as his chief concern. \u201cIf you look at what he\u2019s doing in America\u2026 my god.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe Conservative Party is facing an existential crisis,\u201d Curtice said. \u201cFarage\u2019s aim is to replace them.\u201d This fear…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-442472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}