IN JULY, Nick Wright and I wrote a pamphlet on Reform UK. It was the first analysis of this party to emerge from within the labour movement. In the process of writing, some of what we discovered surprised us.

There were the obvious surface symptoms of a party with its roots in Ukip and the Brexit Party, not least the racism and a two-faced approach to its core beliefs and public statements.
 
In my last feature, I was able to demonstrate that Reform UK is very much a class-based political force. It was rooted in a division within the capitalist class that emerged after 1945, with those who looked to the EU to reinforce its ranks weakened in the struggles of the 1960s and ’70s with the unions.

Reform UK champions that section which looked to neoliberalism, the leadership of the capitalist world by the US, but which also included a sizeable economically landlocked grouping of small and medium-sized businesses. There was, too, the residual stench of Thatcherism with its suspicion of foreigners, hatred of unions and belief that the profit system solved all problems.
 
Reform UK enjoyed a breakthrough in the last general election in a way that Ukip and the Brexit Party could barely dream of. Indeed, the undemocratic first-past-the-post system hid a much bigger layer of support, still regionally concentrated but extending to working-class voters and Britain’s smaller market towns.
 
Reform UK generally draws its strongest geographical support from areas in northern England, the Midlands, and certain coastal and rural regions. These areas often have populations that feel economically and politically marginalised.

They are areas where the Thatcher government did its greatest damage and where the labour movements have been severely weakened. In some areas, the labour movement has been entirely dislodged.

In my next and final feature, I will describe ways in which Reform UK can be defeated, which syncs closely with our ability to rebuild those labour movements. For now, remember that in the 1880s, these areas had weak labour movements that, over the coming century, were built into a powerful challenge to capitalism, uniting populations and communities. So, rebuilding has been done once and can be done again.
 
Reform UK is strongest in five areas: former industrial towns, especially in northern England (like parts of Yorkshire and the Humber); the Midlands, where people have felt left behind by economic decline; struggling coastal towns, such as those in East Anglia or along the south coast, which have experienced economic hardship and low investment, and have been receptive to Reform UK’s messages on immigration, sovereignty, and economic reform; areas that voted heavily in favour of leaving the EU in 2016;  and in some rural areas especially in the east of England.

Reform UK has targeted disillusioned, traditionally working-class voters — often in areas stuck in poverty, who feel alienated from both the Conservative and Labour parties. Reform UK’s strategy is to focus on degrading support for Labour so that it can present itself as the alternative — in or without an alliance with the Conservatives at the next general election.
 
In the working-class areas, it presents itself as “tough” and “radical,” and here, it gives vent to its hatred of foreigners in order to divide local communities. In the coastal areas, it campaigns on migration but not on essential issues such as coastal erosion. In rural areas, it supports the big farmers against the smaller ones and is more like the Conservative Party in exile.
 
In our pamphlet, Nick and I went to some lengths to point to the racism of Reform UK but asked readers not to focus solely on this issue. The Reform UK political plan was broader and beginning to emerge.

We wanted to unmask the party and its policies and to show that, on the more hidden ones to do with the NHS, education, funding of public services and climate change, it was vulnerable. We also wrote that on the above issues, it could be mortally wounded if the labour movement educated itself about the full range of Reform UK policies and took these on in workplaces and communities.

We explained that Reform UK spoke with a forked tongue on nationalism. Its patriotism was shallow — and its economic policies were wide open to campaigning against.
 
As the old joke goes, not a lot of people know the following. Reform UK supports free-market policies, advocating for Thatcher-style “less government,” which ironically usually means more centralisation and deregulation. It promotes corporate tax cuts, privatisation of local services and the Civil Service, advocating a US-style voucher system to accelerate privatisation of the NHS and education — all in the guise of “democratic choice.”
 
The party will reduce welfare services and greatly tighten access to an already impossibly restrictive system. It promotes massive cuts to government public spending, which would reinforce austerity. In a rush to “cut red tape” (any reader over 50 years will remember that old canard), it will reduce employment rights, making it easier for its friends in the small and medium-sized business sector to hire and fire employees.

It argues for deregulation in banking, housing and finance. Corruption will grow, quality will decline, and all this will weaken democratic oversight of key sectors.
 
On climate change and energy, it opposes net zero targets and offers no solution to the runaway greed of the monopoly companies or how to end fuel poverty. Its cuts to local public finance would impact social care and welfare services and gut much of the cultural life in small towns and rural areas. Its answer to unemployment is Edwardian, involving work programmes and the punitive reduction of benefits.
 
Incidentally, while it shouts loudest about “stopping the boats,” it does support immigration, especially in the NHS and in food production and processing and agriculture, where it serves to keep wages low. Reform UK: don’t believe what it says on the tin.

If people don’t like these policies, Reform UK offers a “two strikes and you’re out” approach to crime and punishment and a programme of building new private jails.
 
In May 2025, Reform UK plans to explode onto the local government scene, standing for council seats. Given its plans for social and welfare services, cultural and jobs programmes in local communities, this should concern us all.

But it also plays to our strengths because these are areas where unions retain strength and are listened to and trusted by workers. Public-sector unions have time to research this party and the danger it represents, enter the arena of political discussion and join the struggle to block Reform UK’s path to becoming a new front of political power.