I mean, Reform are doing well in the polls at the moment, but by the standards of a main opposition party their polled vote share isn't *that* high, and their vote is too evenly spread for tactical voting on the right to be effective
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It's feeling less and less likely as time goes on but I think there's still a half decent chance and if it happens Reform falling back to "objectively a strong third" will do so extremely quickly
sep 2, 2025, 11:34 am ā¢ 2 0 ā¢ view
There's still a chance for that, and talking to Reform supporters recently has allowed me to put my finger on why What unites them all is anger, but a general sense of anger at society, the world, just everything. It's less ideology, and more just raw populism. Anger can inflate and deflate quickly
sep 2, 2025, 12:19 pm ā¢ 1 0 ā¢ view
It's easy to see the RW vote swinging behind Reform in Labour-held seats where they're currently 2nd, but Tory-held seats and traditional LabourāTory marginals will be more of a challenge for them
sep 2, 2025, 10:57 am ā¢ 4 0 ā¢ view
There's probably another 20-30 Tory seats in the SE & SW the Libs can grab fairly easily next time. Which leaves about 100 Tory seats where either Lab or Ref are the main challenger. How Ref decides to play that will matter hugely for their success. Farage bottled it in 2019, will he do so again?
sep 2, 2025, 11:19 am ā¢ 2 0 ā¢ view
I can see a situation where he stands down his troops in those seats, and lets the Tories unify the right wing vote. But the issue is that if he does that, he might find it hard to make up the numbers elsewhere in the teeth of a determined centre-left opposition.
sep 2, 2025, 11:32 am ā¢ 2 0 ā¢ view
If the Tories keep 90 seats, and Reform only gets 120, then he's throwing the Tories a lifeline and splitting the right wing haul of seats. Whereas if he doesn't do a pact, he could gain all of those 210 seats for Reform, at the expense of splitting the right vote elsewhere.
sep 2, 2025, 11:32 am ā¢ 1 0 ā¢ view
I'm betting that right now Reform is hoping they can totally absorb the Tory vote, but that isn't going to happen (trust me, I come from a deeply Tory rural village in the SE. Many old school Tories I know would much rather vote Davey than Farage) They will need to deal with 10-15% of Tory holdouts
sep 2, 2025, 11:32 am ā¢ 1 0 ā¢ view
Yeah, I grew up in Middlesbrough in a strongly Labour area, but just south of there is rural North Yorkshire which is just about the most steadfastly Tory bit of the country ā so I know the type
sep 2, 2025, 12:37 pm ā¢ 1 0 ā¢ view
I do think an underdiscussed aspect of the Tory collapse is that it could potentially make the Lib Dems viable in more Tory parts of England outside of the South. Not to the level of actually taking many seats in 2029, but giving them a foothold in middle class areas they could later exploit.
sep 2, 2025, 12:47 pm ā¢ 0 0 ā¢ view
Possibly, yes, but it would require a fair bit of North Shropshire style leapfrogging. Don't know if that's doable outside of a by-election or not.
sep 2, 2025, 12:48 pm ā¢ 1 0 ā¢ view
Fair, and if it was viable I'd expect to see some sign of it at the locals over the next few years. Shropshire is the model I was thinking of, but there are a few constituencies in the North West (Cheadle, Hazel Grove) that they've already got that fit that mold.
sep 2, 2025, 1:04 pm ā¢ 0 0 ā¢ view