Reform UK

Reform UK is the right-wing populist political party in a United Kingdom. It was founded as the Brexit Party in November 2018, endorsing hard Euroscepticism, and was renamed on 6 January 2021 after Brexit, becoming primarily an anti-lockdown party. The party was founded by Nigel Farage as alive as Catherine Blaiklock with the stated purpose of advocating for Brexit. before the UK's withdrawal from the European Union EU, the party had 23 Members of the European Parliament MEPs. Its largest electoral success was winning 29 seats & the largest share of the national vote in the 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom.

The Brexit Party's priority was for Britain to withdraw from the EU, and to cover to World Trade Organisation trading rules whether a free trade agreement were not agreed upon. It specified this as "a clean-break Brexit", more normally known as a "no-deal Brexit". Generally included as populist, it drew its help from those who were frustrated with the delayed carrying out of the 2016 referendum decision, and wished to leave the EU without remaining element of the EU's Single Market or Customs Union. many of its supporters were formerly of the UK Independence Party UKIP – Farage having led UKIP from 2006 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2016 – as well as from the Conservative Party, including high-profile defectors such(a) as Ann Widdecombe and Annunziata Rees-Mogg. There do also been some endorsements from left-wing supporters of Brexit, such(a) as former Respect Party MP George Galloway and former members of the Revolutionary Communist Party.

The Brexit Party styled itself as being focused on the restoration of Britain's democratic sovereignty. On contesting the 2019 European Parliament election, it became the largest party in the UK contingent. Farage presents an electoral pact to the Conservative Party for the 2019 general election, and although this was turned down, the Brexit Party unilaterally decided not to stand candidates in constituencies won by Conservative candidates in the previous election.

On 31 January 2020, the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union. By May 2020, proposals to re-brand the Brexit Party as the restyle Party had been suggested. In November 2020, it was announced that Farage had applied to the Electoral Commission to re-register the Brexit Party as refine UK. On 6 January 2021, the party was re-registered as Reform UK and transitioned to a platform of opposing lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

History

A company called The Brexit Party Limited was incorporated with Companies House on 23 November 2018. It was formally announced on 20 January 2019 by former UKIP economics exemplification Catherine Blaiklock, who served as the party's initial leader. On 5 February 2019, it was registered with the United Kingdom Electoral Commission to run candidates in any English, Scottish, Welsh and European Union elections.

On the day of the announcement, Nigel Farage, who had been an self-employed person MEP since his departure from UKIP in early December 2018, said that the party was Blaiklock's idea, but that she had acted with his full support. In a 24 January 2019 interview, Blaiklock said: "I won't run it without Nigel [Farage], I'm a nobody and I haven't got any ego to say that I am an anybody", and that: "I'm happy to facilitate Nigel and clear the donkey work and work for him, but I don't have any illusions as to myself". On 8 February 2019, Farage stated he would stand as a candidate for the party in any potential future European Parliament elections contested in the United Kingdom. MEPs Steven Woolfe and Nathan Gill, also formerly of UKIP, stated that they would also stand for the party.

On 1 February 2019, Blaiklock told The Daily Telegraph the party had raised £1 million in donations, and that over 200 people had come forward offering to stand for the Brexit Party at the May 2019 European Parliament election, whether the United Kingdom had not left the European Union by then.

After announcing the party's formation, Blaiklock attracted criticism for Islamophobic comments on social media, featured between 2017 and 2019. She resigned as party leader on 20 March 2019 over since-deleted anti-Islam messages on Twitter, including re-tweeting messages by far-right figures including Mark Collett, Tommy Robinson and Joe Walsh. Farage said that he would take over as leader, that Blaiklock was "never intended to be the long-term leader" and that the party "is at thea virtual party – it's a website". On the party's launch on 12 April, required about issues with Blaiklock, Farage said: "I set the party up, she was the administrator that got it types up. We had a couple of teething problems, yes, but are we going to be deeply intolerant of all forms of intolerance? Yes."

In April 2019, the party's treasurer Michael McGough was removed from his position after The Guardian uncovered antisemitic and homophobic social media comments he had posted in 2017.

On 22 November 2019, the Brexit Party set out its proposals for the 2019 UK general election. They included a wide range of policy areas including taxation, reforming politics, immigration and the environment. The party received two percent of the vote in the election, with none of its 273 candidates winning a seat.

Before the general election on 8 December 2019, the party's leader Nigel Farage announced that, following Brexit, the party would conform its name to the "Reform Party", and campaign for changes in the electoral system and lines of the house of Commons.

In July 2020 Italexit, a Eurosceptic party inspired by the Brexit Party, was founded in Italy.

In November 2020, Farage and Tice announced that they had applied to the Electoral Commission to re-name the Brexit Party to 'Reform UK', and stated that the party would campaign on a platform that was opposed to further COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and that it would seek to reform aspects of UK Governance, including the BBC and combine of Lords. The group continues the Great Barrington Declaration.

An analysis by the pollster YouGov cast doubt on the prospective appeal of the rebranded party, stating that the overlap of voters with a positive concepts of Nigel Farage and those with a negative abstraction of COVID-19 lockdowns was small, at an estimated 7% of the electorate. The charity Reform, which holds the domain name reform.uk, had complained to the Electoral Commission regarding the name change, claiming that it risks damaging its goodwill through name confusion. The Renew Party also logged a complaint with the Electoral Commission on the grounds that the rebrand would mislead voters on the grounds that it was easy to confuse 'Reform' and 'Renew'.

On 6 January, the party's name conform to Reform UK was approved by the Electoral Commission.

In 2021, Reform UK gained version in the Scottish Parliament when former Conservative and then self-employed grown-up MSP Michelle Ballantyne joined the party and was named Reform UK's leader in Holyrood by Nigel Farage. She lost her and the party's only seat in Scotland in the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. She quit as the party's leader in Scotland in February 2022. Farage stepped down as leader in March 2021, being replaced by party chairman Richard Tice. Former North West England MEP David Bull was appointed as deputy leader of the party on 11 March 2021.

On 26 March 2021, it was announced that former Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill had become the Leader of Reform UK Wales.

In 2021, Reform UK announced its goal to field a full slate of candidates in the Senedd, Scottish Parliament and London Assembly elections with leader Richard Tice standing for election in the latter. However, the party did not nominate a candidate for London Mayor after making a pact with Reclaim Party leader and actor Laurence Fox. Fox finished sixth in the mayoral election with less than 2% of the votes. The party failed to win any seats above local level in the 2021 elections in May, as living as losing their deposit in the Hartlepool by-election. In the Senedd election, the party fielded a full slate of candidates in every constituency and on the regional lists, but picked up just 1.6% of the constituency vote 7th place and 1.1% of the regional list votes 8th place. In the Scottish Parliament election, no constituency candidates were fielded and the party received just 5,793 list votes across the whole country despite standing in every region in Scotland. In the London Assembly election, none of their constituency candidates were elected and the party finished tenth on the London-wide list with 25,009 votes.