Brittle Reform: How Can the New Kids Form a Government When They Cannot Keep Five MPs Together?

We’re not 12 months into the new Parliament yet and Reform - the party shaking the establishment - is already beginning to fracture. Farage’s latest venture has made no secret of their intentions; form the next government when Labour crashes and burns in 2029. This would be a remarkable rise. A party gaining its first five MPs, then in the next run, a majority, would be the political upset to end all upsets. But as anyone who has run a government will tell you, it’s a constant battle to keep a party together - and so far things ain't looking good for Reform.

There’s been a big row in the party leading to the suspension of Rupert Lowe MP for Great Yarmouth. It’s very much one word against another, but the whole thing has exposed a key weakness many have suspected about Reform - Farage. More specifically a particular aspect of Farage. There’s no denying that without him, they would have unlikely gained the five seats they did, if any. But in the same breath we are witnessing a growing messiah complex in the party - at least from Farage’s perspective. It appears that Lowe committed the grave sin of criticising his leader and suggested that he stand aside. 

True, this wasn’t something Farage could simply ignore, but by suspending Lowe, he has opened up an up until recently hidden crack in the party. For the first time, Reform’s membership has dropped as the Lowe camp abandon Farage who they believe has softened his stance on many of their key priorities such as deportations.

The reasons why and how are actually not important. What’s truly revealing is that this is happening with a mere five MPs. What about the more than 326 required to form a majority? Larger parties, even the Lib Dems, can easily survive the loss of one or two MPs. But should 20% of any of these parties jump ship like what’s happened with Reform, turmoil would ensue. Even the formation of the SDP in the 1980s didn’t involve such a large chunk of the parties involved.

Reform may very well recover from this early blip and the remaining Gang of Four carry on merrily, but it doesn’t bode well when they’re eyeing up hundreds more seats. Reform might like to highlight Tory divisions, but people in glass houses and all that…