With just three weeks to go until the British general election, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party appears poised to overtake the British Conservative Party. According to a recent poll by The Times, Reform UK could become the second-largest party, trailing only the Labour Party. The poll shows Reform UK with 19% of the vote, surpassing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party, which remains at 18%. The Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, continues to lead despite a slight decline, with a predicted victory and potential new prime ministership. The Liberal Democrats trail behind with 14% of the vote.
The United Kingdom employs a majority system, where only the winning candidates in each constituency secure a seat in parliament. Although the Conservatives and Reform UK would have a similar number of votes as the Liberal Democrats, this poll result would mean that only Labour candidates would secure seats in the House of Commons.
Nigel Farage, a right-wing conservative politician, unexpectedly announced his candidacy in early June, stating,
“I changed my mind. That is not a sign of weakness, but can be a sign of strength.” This move has significantly impacted the political landscape, particularly for the Conservative Party.
In the 2019 general election, then Prime Minister Boris Johnson secured the best result for the Conservatives since the 1980s with 43.6% of the vote. Labour trailed behind at 32.6%, while the Liberal Democrats scored 11.9%. Under the majority system, the Conservatives won 365 of the 650 seats, achieving a clear absolute majority in parliament. Labour secured 202 seats, and the Liberal Democrats won 11. The Brexit Party, now known as Reform UK and led by Farage, only contested one-third of the constituencies and won only 2% of the vote nationwide, failing to secure any seats.
