Reform UK cost the Tories victory in BOTH seats

Posted on : October 21, 2023
Reform UK cost the Tories victory in BOTH seats

Reform UK cost the Tories victory in BOTH seats – and will stand candidates in every seat at the next election

  • The Reform UK party won 1,373 votes in Tamworth and 1,487 in Mid Bedfordshire
  • Rishi Sunak is facing another threat to the Conservatives’ precarious majority 

The leader of Reform UK declared his party will stand candidates ‘everywhere’ and have a ‘significant effect’ at next year’s general election after it effectively denied the Conservatives two by-election victories.

The number of votes cast for Reform, previously called the Brexit Party, was higher than the Labour majority in both Tamworth and Mid-Bedfordshire.

It means Rishi Sunak is now facing another threat to the Conservatives’ increasingly precarious Commons majority at the next election – this time from the Right. 

In 2019 the Brexit Party agreed not to field any candidates against the Conservatives to help Boris Johnson achieve a majority.

Richard Tice (pictured) has backed a referendum on PR, which the Lib Dems have reportedly put to Labour as the price for propping up any minority government led by Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Tice is the Reform Party leader

Founding member and former Reform Party leader, Nigel Farage, speaks at the Reform Party annual conference on October 7, 2023

But Reform leader Richard Tice, an ex-MEP, yesterday said the two major parties both stood for ‘high tax and high regulation’ and confirmed that his party will stand candidates in every seat at the next election.

He has backed a shift in voting method to proportional representation instead of the current first-past-the-post system used for Westminster elections. 

Mr Tice said yesterday: ‘Common sense Reform Party policies are gaining traction. We stand everywhere and will have a significant effect at the general election. Tories and Labour are two forms of socialism: high tax and high regulation, which means low growth.’

Reform won 1,373 votes – 5.4 per cent of the total – in Tamworth and 1,487 – 3.7 per cent – in Mid Bedfordshire. The Labour majorities in the two seats were 1,316 and 1,192 respectively.

Rishi Sunak is now facing another threat to the Conservatives’ increasingly precarious Commons majority at the next election

In 2019 the Brexit Party agreed not to field any candidates against the Conservatives to help Boris Johnson achieve a majority

Mr Tice has backed a referendum on PR, which the Lib Dems have reportedly put to Labour as the price for propping up any minority government led by Sir Keir Starmer. 

‘I’m very happy to have a referendum on PR, we would win it hands down,’ Mr Tice declared back in May. ‘I think we’d win it two thirds to one third.

‘First-past-the-post is outdated. It’s much more divisive. It’s completely discredited. PR is used across the whole of Europe.’

Reform modelling suggests that if PR were used in the forthcoming general election, it could end up with 60 to 90 MPs.

Mr Tice said it would be a seismic change, adding: ‘Be under no illusion, our ambition is that the Tories could never govern again without us. And that basically means we have significant leverage.’

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