Major political consequences for Farage, Badenoch and the Tories coming in 2025 | Political news

British voters are expecting a relatively uneventful 2025, after the “election year” which saw a new government in the UK and major upheavals around the world, including the victory of Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated as President of the United States for the second time. on January 20.

Presumably, Sir Keir Starmer He won't need to go to the polls for four and a half years, thanks to the huge majority Labor won in the Commons last July.

August 2029 is the deadline for the next general election in the UK, by which time the second Trump administration will be gone.

The next elections to the Scottish Parliament and the Assemblies of Wales and Northern Ireland will not take place until May 27, 2026.

All this means few choices for those trying to understand the UK's political mood and a much greater focus than usual this year on the few votes that are due to take place: the English councils on May 1. Making detailed sense of this picture will be a difficult task for two key reasons.

“Strategic authorities”.

Second, in 2021, the situation of the competing parties was very different. There was no Reform party in the UK, nor any of its predecessors, Brexit or UKIP, to speak of. Boris Johnson's Conservatives were on the rise. The Conservatives have made big progress at council level, while Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens have stagnated.

Since then, the political map has been transformed. Today there are five UK Reform MPs in Westminster, four Greens and a record 72 Liberal Democrats.

The usual question in opinion polls is: “How would you vote if there were parliamentary elections tomorrow?”

We all know there won't be one for years.

Furthermore, as embattled politicians always like to point out when the news is bad, even when it was looming in 2024, the polls did not accurately reflect what happened with “real votes in real ballot boxes.” “.

Read more on Sky News:
Starmer pays tribute to his 'wonderful' brother who died on Boxing Day
Test your political knowledge in the Politics Hub 2024 quiz

The table does not encourage established parties

What the polls give is a broad indication of changing opinion, and the picture is not encouraging for the established parties.

Labor and the Conservatives are neck and neck at around 20%, a surprisingly low level of support for either.

Reform UK is only around five points behind, making it clearly the third largest force in British politics today and well ahead of its 14% in the general election.

The Liberal Democrats, with around 12%, and the Greens, with 6%, more or less maintain their share of the vote.

Can Reform and Farage maintain their momentum?

The big question in the 2025 local elections is whether Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage can maintain their momentum.

At first glance, the party seems well-positioned to make a splash. Because he's starting from zero: all the council seats he wins will count as gains.

Reform UK has reorganized itself since the general election and is now trying to establish a competitive grassroots operation.

Financing does not appear to be a problem. Zia Yusuf, a former multimillionaire Goldman Sachs banker, took over as party president.

Property tycoon Nick Candy, Reform UK's new treasurer, was part of the group who met Elon Musk at Mr Trump's Mar-e-Largo headquarters. Mr Farage subsequently played down reports that Mr Musk could be prepared to donate up to $100m (£79m) to his party.

Reform divides center-right vote

Reform UK said last week it had several thousand members more than the official Conservative Party figure of 131,680 – a ticker on their official website keeps count.

The party is currently splitting votes on the center right with the Conservative Party as its main target. The Conservatives' strong performance in these areas last time leaves them very vulnerable.

In 2021, the Conservatives took control of 19 of 21 county councils and seven of 13 unitary authorities. In subsequent local elections in other areas, the Conservatives suffered heavy losses, meaning they are now behind Labor overall in total number of councilors. This year, the Conservatives are defending their last electoral peak.

Conservatives don't know whether to fight or accommodate the Reformed

Mr Farage is an exceptional communicator active in British politics, having frequently exploited non-Westminster elections to exert pressure on the British government, notably in the 2014 and 2019 European elections, when strong performances took the Conservatives to the referendum on joining the EU and then a hard Brexit.

The Conservatives are unsure whether to fight or try to accommodate Reform UK.

If the Reform Party hammers them in this year's municipal elections, it could be the end for Badenoch Chemistry direction. In the long term, it is conceivable that the Reformers will supplant the Conservatives – or take over by merger – as the main political force on the right of British politics.

Reform also targets Labor voters

There is also a British reformist threat to Labor.

So far, Labor has dominated the new strategic town halls and combined authorities in England. They currently hold all four candidates for the May 2025 elections: the West of England, Cambridgeshire, Doncaster and North Tyneside. Two additional mayors will be elected this year in Greater Lincolnshire and in Hull and East Yorkshire.

Although socially right-wing, Reform UK tailors its economic message to the less well-off, including populations in the so-called “Red Wall,” deindustrialized areas of the country that were once safe Labor constituencies. For example, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative MP and minister, is now the Reform candidate for Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.

Unlike the two main parties, the Reform Party has a simple policy towards the threatened Scunthorpe steelworks: nationalize it. This has obvious appeal even if there is no chance that Dame Andrea will be able to pull it off.

A disappointment for Farage would not mean the end of the insurgency

Voters are more likely to vote with their hearts when the national government is not involved. One of Sir Keir's nightmares must be that the devolution that this Government is extending across England is starting to glow in colors other than red.

It is certainly possible that the results of this year's local elections will be a major disappointment for Mr Farage's party. If so, it will not be the end of the insurgency. Reform UK is also already planning to inflict damage on the Conservatives, Labor and the SNP in the next non-Westminster elections in 2027 in Scotland and Wales.

The relatively minor 2025 election is expected to have major political consequences, at least for Mr Farage, Ms Badenoch and the Conservative Party.