Farage surges as ReformUK rattles major parties; hypothetical polls show Johnson could reclaim Tory voters and challenge Reform’s rise 2026 could be a dramatic showdown.
LONDON: Nigel Farage is riding on cloud 9 after his party’s success in last weks’ mayoral and council elections, Reform Uk is polling 7 points above Labour. Some predict that in the 2026 Holyrood elections, ReformUK might defeat both John Swinney First Minister / Leader of the Scottish National Party, a lifelong politician, and Anas Sarwar Leader of Scottish Labour, son of Chaudhury Sarwar the first Muslim MP in UK. UK political parties have now been shoehorned by ReformUK into confronting the illegal migration crisis and costs, Labour and Conservatives are pitting their policies against each other. The National Audit Office reported that accommodation for asylum seekers will cost £15.3billion over the next ten years, triple the Home Office’s expectations. However asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Bangladesh and Syria are but a small percentage of illegal immigration. There are thought to be 750,000 illegal immigrants in the UK, the government has returned 24,000 since July 2024, but small boat arrivals persist with nearly 12,000 since the start of 2025, many of whom are working in the gig economy. Folks all over the UK think this level of new arrivals is unsustainable and Labour’s’ support has fallen in all parts of the UK population, Reform’s supporters are attracted to the party primarily because of immigration, hence the political backlash that has favoured ReformUK. On 2 May Boris Johnson’s unruly head of hair entered the stage, writing in the Daily Mail “the Tories under Kemi Badenoch have a good and growing chance of winning the next election” and Johnson continues Starmer has “the wrong instincts for the time, and that means he is constantly marching us all – left, left, left, woke, woke, woke – in a direction most people just don’t want to go.” He refers to Labour’s concessions to the unions, the Chancellor’s tax rises, persecution of the rural economy and private education, millionaires leaving the UK in droves, and that people smuggling is regarded by labour as a “global injustice” not as criminal. Coincidentally just a couple of days after Johnson article the “more in Common” organisation released a comprehensive analysis about the local elections and how/why each party fared. In an hypothetical polling exercise with Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservatives, the Conservative vote increased by 5 points and reduced the Reform vote by 6 points. This converts the current 8 point lead for Reform over the Tories into a 3 point Conservative lead. In contrast in polling with Robert Jenrick, often seen as Kemi Badenoch’s likely successor, as leader the Conservative vote fell by 1 point and Reform by 2 points. Johnson’s success in this hypothetical polling is he attracted a fifth (19 per cent) of those currently planning on voting for Reform UK back to the Conservative Party, while keeping an even share of Labour and Liberal Democrat voters. Today it is not easy to imagine Johnson as leader of the Conservative party again but some folks said that about Donald Trump in 2023. It is true his record is not perfect, post-Brexit, post-Covid what has Johnson got to offer? Beyond charm, charisma, culture and comedy his ambition and self-determination are relentless, his sense of his own exceptionalism will be riling at his rival Farage’ s success. Johnson is a liberal from the centre right, occasionally pushed towards left-wokery by his young wife; where he can’t excel he plays the fool. His achievements as Mayor of London were celebrated and reflected in his 80 seat majority in 2019. Long before Trump populism Johnson proposed to “Buy British” and his “levelling up” policies still have great resonance in the Midlands, the UK’s equivalence to US’s rust belt. Johnson inherited from Theresa May a divided party which made it difficult for him to deliver, after a struggle he got Brexit done in January 2020, Covid was declared a pandemic in March 2020, Johnson’s premiership was undone by No10’s behaviour and lies during Covid. Johnson reportedly sunk an unpublished “peacedeal” in Ukraine in 2022, events have now proven a “peacedeal” might be where the war ends, but even Johnson’s support for Ukraine couldn’t rescue him then but today’s picture is rather different. Today British citizens have donated £400million to Charities supporting Ukraine, there are countless Ukrainian flags flying outside British homes and businesses, and thanks to the Homes for Ukraine Sponsorship Schemes 25,000 Ukrainian were welcomed into Britain; there is a strong political unity supporting Ukraine, none of the political parties have advocated withdrawing support in favour of spending resources at home despite the economic challenges UK faces. However Reform have been keen to keep in with Trump, their members are largely in favour of Trump; Farage has echoed Trump and even Putin regarding EU and NATO membership, but this wasn’t popular with Reform’s targeted wider vote base. It’s a tough call to Farage on foreign policy but should Reform stick with the Trump perspective, it might be an invitation for Boris Johnson to step in. Johnson is resourceful and easily bored, he sensed the nationalistic vibes before 2016; now that a growing percentage of Europe is right of centre and the Conservatives are in the doldrums what is his political intuition and versatile ideology signalling now, could it be the correct blend to unite disaffected members from all parties? For Johnson to return to Parliament a willing sitting MP would have to bequeath his “safe” seat by calling a by-election in 2026- 27, theoretically Johnson would stand as a Tory candidate most likely against Reform’s best. But first the pink and/or the One Nation Tories at CCHQ would have to accept Johnson as a candidate but also acknowledge what his endgame might be.