Category World News

The far-right, nationalist Reform UK party would be Britain’s largest political party if a general election were held now, a major new poll shows, putting its founder, Nigel Farage, on a potential course to become the country’s next prime minister.

Reform would win 271 of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, with the ruling Labour Party second at 178 seats, polling firm YouGov said on June 26. That would leave a hung parliament, with one party only able to form a government in coalition with another.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s popularity has tanked since last year’s landslide general election victory, owing to a challenging global backdrop, slow economic growth and a series of embarrassing policy U-turns on welfare reform.

Last week’s census was YouGov’s first “mega-poll” since Labour came to power. As well as showing the rapid rise in popularity of Reform and the reversal of favour for Labour, it also shows a collapse in support for the formerly ruling Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party, which suffered its worst ever general election loss last July, would win just 46 seats in an election, down from 120, leaving the party in fourth place behind the Liberal Democrats, YouGov said.

The Greens, meanwhile, would win 11 percent of the vote, picking up several new seats to hold seven altogether. In Scotland, the SNP would return to dominance, gaining 29 seats to win 38 overall.

The next election is not expected until 2029.

Why has Reform surged in popularity?

Founded as the Brexit Party in 2018 to advocate for a hard “no-deal Brexit” – the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union – and written off in its early years as a one-issue party solely concerned with immigration, Reform UK has emerged as a group that could seriously challenge the century-long dominance of Britain’s main political parties.

For his part, Farage has said that Reform’s political transformation is now complete. The party has offices in Westminster, close to the Houses of Parliament, and has attracted interest from new voters and wealthy donors alike.

To broaden its appeal, Reform dismissed members accused of racism and bullying and tried to distance the party from far-right movements in other European nations, such as France’s National Rally and Germany’s Alternative for Germany.

According to its latest party manifesto, Reform warned that net zero environmental policies were “crippling the [British] economy”. It promised to “scrap” green energy subsidies and start fast-tracking North Sea oil and gas licences.

Its main pledges remain centred around immigration, however. Reform has promised to stop small boats carrying undocumented migrants and refugees from crossing the English Channel and to freeze “non-essential” immigration. Most Brits now overwhelmingly believe that immigration is too high, according to research by YouGov.

At by-elections – votes held to fill vacancies in the House of Commons which arise between general elections – in May, Reform narrowly beat Labour in the seat of Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England, and secured a string of victories over the Conservatives in rural English counties.

Why has the Conservative Party fallen in popularity?

In part, because many of its members have defected to Reform.

Since last year’s punishing general election defeat for the Conservatives after 14 years in power, Reform has successfully poached at least 80 former candidates, donors and staff members from the traditional right-wing party, according to Reuters research.

One was Anne Marie Morris, who was reprimanded by then-Prime Minister Theresa May in 2017 for using a derogatory, racist term during a debate about Brexit. She is now set to head up Reform’s social care policy. Other high-profile Conservatives who have defected to Reform include Ann Widdecombe, Lee Anderson, Ross Thomson, Andrea Jenkyns and Marco Longhi.

Tory loyalists are taking note. The Conservative mayor of Tees Valley, Lord Houchen, recently told the BBC that his party would need to form a coalition with Reform at the next general election if it hopes to keep Labour out of government.

However, Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservatives, has ruled out a coalition with Farage’s party at the national level, arguing that Reform is seeking to destroy the Tories. A YouGov poll conducted in April showed that just 38 percent of Conservatives would be in favour of merging with Reform.

Why are people disaffected with Labour so soon after its election victory?

In addition to Reform’s recent wins, Farage has been buoyed by a challenging political and economic landscape inherited by Labour from the Conservatives. Starmer is grappling with a low-growth economy accompanied by pronounced fiscal constraints – a deficit of nearly 5 percent of gross domestic product and a debt ratio close to 100 percent. It is also charged with rescuing a failing National Health Service (NHS).

Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump upended decades of global trade policy on April 2 – a date he refers to as “liberation day” – when he announced sweeping tariffs on the US’s trading partners, including the UK. Trump later paused those duties for 90 days, however, that deadline is due to run out next week.

Though the UK has since secured the first trade agreement with the US, it maintains a 10 percent tariff on most UK exports – something Starmer was forced to swallow to get a trade deal done. Other countries have until next week to strike similar deals. Trump’s stop-start tariff war, in turn, has slowed global growth.

Labour had already straitjacketed its investment plans before Trump assumed office, however. As a result of Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s self-imposed fiscal rules, the Treasury had been considering spending cuts prior to its latest budget announcement in March.

Starmer unveiled sweeping welfare reforms, including tightening the eligibility for personal independence payments (PIP) – a type of disability and illness benefit – to get people back to work and save the government 5 billion to 6 billion pounds ($6.8bn to $8.2bn) per year.

On July 1, however, he drastically watered down the UK’s controversial welfare reform bill in an attempt to fend off a full-scale Labour rebellion in the House of Commons, leaving him with a multibillion-pound hole in the UK’s public finances and a bruised public image.

That came on top of another policy U-turn on June 9, when the government announced it had reversed a motion to scrap a winter fuel benefit for millions of pensioners following widespread criticism, including from its own MPs.

Weeks of ructions recently led John McDonnell, the former shadow treasury secretary, to write in The Guardian newspaper that “a party this dysfunctional and divided cannot escape the wrath of voters at the next election”.

Would Reform really come to power in the UK in a general election?

Reform UK’s surge in the polls stems from a deep disillusionment with Britain’s mainstream political parties, which have shared power for more than a century, experts say.

However, question marks remain over Reform’s ability to govern as its policies are lacking in detail, observers say. For instance, the party’s manifesto claims it would “pick up illegal migrants out of boats and take them back to France”. But it doesn’t explain how it would persuade France to accept them back.

Tony Travers, professor in the government department at the London School of Economics, said the efficacy of these policies is, therefore, “unknowable”.

“On the one hand, these ideas would rely on the consent of French authorities. On the other, they’re also conceding that some immigration is necessary,” Travers told Al Jazeera, referring to Reform’s proposal to make concessions for healthcare workers in its proposed ban on “non-essential” immigration.

“Until recently [May], Reform had the enormous advantage of not being tested in office. Looking ahead, they will be judged on how they’ve done in government,” he said.

“It’s much easier to be in opposition than in government,” as the “nightmare challenges facing Keir Starmer won’t go away”, he added.

“If Reform win the next general election, they will have to try and fix an ailing NHS, railways, prison and education systems, all with less money than they’d like.”

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Hindus have embarked on a monthlong pilgrimage in Muslim-majority Indian-administered Kashmir, with many of the faithful on Thursday starting from near the site where a deadly attack in April triggered a four-day conflict between India and Pakistan, which propelled the region to the cusp of their fifth all-out war.

Last year, half a million devotees took part in the Amarnath pilgrimage to a sacred ice pillar, located in a cave in the forested Himalayan hills above the town of Pahalgam, where gunmen on April 22 killed 26 mostly Hindu tourists.

New Delhi said the gunmen were backed by Pakistan, claims Islamabad vehemently rejected, setting off a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic measures that then erupted into a four-day conflict on May 7.

It was the worst standoff by the nuclear-armed nations since 1999, with more than 70 people killed in missile, drone and artillery fire on both sides, before a ceasefire was declared on May 10.

“Pilgrims I spoke to earlier said they were worried about the security at first, but now feel safe after seeing the strong security arrangements,” said Al Jazeera’s Umar Mehraj, reporting from Pahalgam.

“The April attack has made this year’s pilgrimage more cautious and technology-based, with the highest level of security ever, with around 600 additional paramilitary units having been deployed, making it the most heavily guarded pilgrimage so far,” he added.

Pilgrim Muneshwar Das Shashtri, who travelled from Uttar Pradesh state, told the AFP news agency that “there is no fear of any kind.

“Our army is standing guard everywhere. No one can raise a finger towards us,” he said.

India has ramped up security for the event, deploying 45,000 soldiers with high-tech surveillance tools to oversee the gruelling trek to the high-altitude cave, dedicated to the Hindu deity of destruction, Shiva.

“We have multi-layered and in-depth security arrangements so that we can make the pilgrimage safe and smooth for the devotees,” said VK Birdi, police chief for the territory.

Surveillance systems like security cameras and facial recognition have been set up, as well as checkpoints, added Mehraj, with paramilitary posts every 100 metres (330ft).

‘Public confidence is returning’

All pilgrims must be registered and travel in guarded vehicle convoys until they start on the walk.

Camouflaged bunkers have been erected in the forests along the route, where dozens of makeshift kitchens provide free food, and electronic radio cards pinpoint their location.

Pilgrims can take several days to reach the cave, perched at 3,900 metres (12,800ft) high, about 30km (20 miles) uphill from the last easily motorable track.

“Whatever the attack that was carried out here, I am not afraid. I have come to get a glimpse of baba (the ice formation),” said Ujwal Yadav, 29, from India’s Uttar Pradesh state, undertaking his first pilgrimage to the shrine.

“Such are the security arrangements here that no one can be hurt.”

Manoj Sinha, the Indian-appointed top administrator for Jammu and Kashmir, said “public confidence is returning”, but admits that pilgrim registration had dipped by 10 percent this year.

Once a modest, little-known ritual attended by only a few thousand mainly local devotees, the pilgrimage has grown since an armed rebellion erupted in 1989.

India’s government has since heavily promoted the annual event, which runs until August 9.

Rebels fighting against India’s military presence in Kashmir have said the pilgrimage is not a target, but have warned they would act if it is used to assert Hindu dominance.

The gunmen who carried out the April 22 killings remain at large, despite the manhunt by security forces in Kashmir, where India has half a million soldiers permanently deployed.

On June 22, India’s National Investigation Agency said two men had been arrested from the Pahalgam area, who they said had “provided food, shelter and logistical support” to the gunmen.

Indian police have issued wanted notices for three of the gunmen, two of whom they said were Pakistani citizens.

In 2017, suspected rebels attacked a pilgrim bus, killing 11 people.