Reform UK Is Driving the Tory Party Out of Business

Just as Donald Trump’s MAGA movement carried out a hostile takeover of the US Republican Party a decade ago, the UK’s Conservatives are watching as the new firm next door pitches policies to voters that are shinier and claim to cost half as much. Nigel Farage’s upstart populist Reform UK party is driving the Tories out of business.

The Conservative party’s growing irrelevance was writ large at this week’s annual conference, held this year in the northern city of Manchester — where not a single Tory MP won a seat at last year’s general election. Attendance was sparse, with gaping spaces among the audience for speeches by some of its most senior figures including Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride. Following the party’s drubbing at last year’s vote, some 3,700 activists were loyal enough to turn up to conference; this week, there were only 3,300, and it felt like genuine delegates were outnumbered by the journalists and corporate lobbyists paid to be there.