Memo to Nigel: how you can become PM

The bookies favour Nigel Farage. Rich Tories are switching sides. Reform is climbing in the polls. Could it actually win the next general election?

Ladbrokes make Nigel Farage the 5/2 favourite to succeed Keir Starmer, ahead of Kemi Badenoch at 3/1. Suppose he asked one of his team at Reform to set out a strategy for victory. This is my stab at the advice they could give him.

CONFIDENTIAL

My leader:

You asked for a route map to take you from Clacton to Downing Street. We should be under no illusions. It is possible but it won’t be easy.

The hard truth is that Britain’s voting system is biased against new parties trying to break through. The first Labour MPs were elected in 1900. It took 24 years for Labour to have its first Prime Minister. Ramsay MacDonald’s minority government lasted just nine months. A further 21 years elapsed before voters elected Labour’s first majority government.

You turned 60 this year. If Reform follows Labour’s timetable, you would be 84 when you have your first brief spell as PM, and 105 before you enjoy the fruits of outright victory. I take it that you wish to progress rather more rapidly – 2029 or bust.

To win an overall majority, Reform needs at least 326 MPs. In practice the target for governing alone is slightly less, not least because Sinn Fein MPs have never taken their seats at Westminster. But remember the fate of the Tories in 2010 (307 seats) and 2017 (318). David Cameron needed a deal with the Liberal Democrats, and Theresa May with the DUP.

In a hung parliament, the critical issue will be whether there are more pro-Reform or anti-Reform MPs. We know you will be opposed by Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Greens, SNP and Plaid Cymru. What about the Tories? Will they swallow their pride and accept their status as your junior partner?

History offers them a clear message. In 2010, Nick Clegg led his 57 MPs into his coalition with David Cameron. His party held only eight of those seats at the following election. The Tories would not want to suffer the same fate, playing second fiddle to Reform and risk being destroyed at the following election.

Much the same thing happened in 1924, when Labour won 191 seats and the Liberals 158. Together they outnumbered the 258 Tories. They voted down Stanley Baldwin’s King’s Speech, and MacDonald moved from number nine to number ten (Howitt Road NW3 to Downing Street SW1). Herbert Asquith, the Liberal leader and former Prime Minister, backed him because he believed that Labour would govern so badly that it would be destroyed at the following election, and the Liberals would revert to being Britain’s main anti-Tory party.

He failed spectacularly. Nine months later, the government fell; but instead of recovering, the Liberals were reduced to a rump of 40. They have never climbed back above double digits.

The lesson is clear: the Tory leader will try to block you at every turn. Their party will be fighting for its survival. Maybe they will do so badly that some of their surviving MPs will surrender and defect to us. This might add, say, 20-30 MPs to our total. Otherwise, if you are to become Prime Minister in 2029, you must get there without help from anyone else.

Given that we currently have only five MPs, is this remotely feasible? A recent analysis by the Financial Times estimates that Reform needs a uniform national swing of 16 points to win 100 seats, and a 26 point swing to win a majority. This is technically correct but politically misleading. First Past The Post (FPTP) makes a mockery of traditional uniform-swing projections when loyalties are as weak and fragmented as they are today.

If Reform succeeds, the electorate will have swept aside everything political scientists think they know about the way voters behave. Afterwards it will be possible to work out precisely what happened: which groups moved, where, why and by how much. Calibrating the task in advance is a mug’s game. Better to consider the broad dynamics that might lead to victory in 2029.

Here is a possible scenario, and a strategy to help it along.

a) Reform starts winning by-elections. We came second this year in 98 seats: 89 won by Labour, nine by the Conservatives. One of them was Runcorn & Helsby. Its MP, Mike Amesbury won 54 per cent of the vote, followed by Reform with 18 per cent and the Conservatives with 16 per cent. Amesbury has been charged with common assault. Should he stand down as an MP, our candidate is very likely to win the by-election , with Labour’s vote sharply down and the Tory vote equally sharply squeezed.

b) More by-election victories, together with buoyant poll ratings and gains in each May’s local elections, would enhance Reform’s credibility. We would start to be taken seriously as a future party of government, not just by pundits but by millions of voters. This matters. Reform needs to overcome the “wasted vote” syndrome. Just look at the Lib Dems this year: they did astonishingly well where voters thought they could win – and astonishingly badly where voters thought they couldn’t. That’s why they won 67 more seats than us in July, despite harvesting half a million fewer votes. Hence the importance of opinion polls, by-elections and local elections creating a narrative of success for Reform. We won’t win unless enough voters think we can.

c) However, one reason why the Lib Dems were so successful in July was that they knew well in advance where they had the best chance of winning. They targeted their resources at just 80 seats – and won almost all of them. Our problem is that we need to win more than 300 seats, and will therefore have to spread our effort more thinly. Plainly we must go after the 98 seats where we came second this year (89 won by Labour, nine by the Tories). But even if we win all of them, we end up with just 103 MPs. More than 200 still to go.

d) The reality is that to become PM, you will need to rely on your national campaigning more than the impact of our local efforts. One obvious target will be people who still hate the Tories but become disillusioned with Labour. To do this, you need Labour to fail – or, at least, for enough voters to believe it has failed. Point out the missions and milestones where Keir Starmer falls short. Don’t just recite the numbers: develop a story about WHY five years of Labour have been no better than 14 years of the Tories.

e) This in turn will help you fight the bigger battle: to destroy the Tories as Britain’s dominant right-of-centre party. With luck, they will continue to self-destruct without your help; but you can’t be sure of this. The danger for Reform is that the Conservatives will start to revive, possibly after a further change of leader. They may try to present themselves as practical, safe and experienced, and paint us as weird extremists who should be kept away from the levers of power. You must persuade voters not only that you are the on their side on such things as taxes and immigration, but that you will provide Britain with competent, practical leadership.

f) To do this, we need to shed our image of a party obsessed with turning the clock back to a mythical past and enjoying nothing more than bashing foreigners. To achieve this we must be bold. What could be bolder than rethinking our policy on Europe? Without veering too far from the truth, you can accuse both Labour and the Tories of screwing up Brexit. This was meant to lead to political liberation, not economic punishment. Since 2016 successive prime ministers have allowed barriers to be erected that have made the UK’s economy 4-5 per cent smaller than it would have been with frictionless trade.

So: surprise your enemies. Outflank both Labour and the Tories. Become the champion of an ambitious new deal with the EU that restores completely free trade across the Channel, but avoids all forms of political integration. In its own way, Farage goes to Brussels could be as momentous as Nixon goes to China.

There’s the plan. I give it an outside chance of working: no more. There is, though, an alternative. Maybe we shall gain seats at the next election, but not enough to sweep the Tories aside. We might need longer before we govern Britain. Perhaps you are destined to play Moses and lead your people towards the promised land without yourself entering it. Would that satisfy you after all?