#reform-uk

#reform-uk

Nathan Gill has had a political fall from grace not seen for more than 50 years. The former leader of Reform UK Wales is facing prison for accepting Russian bribes while a Member of the European Parliament. The downfall of Gill, 52, is almost without parallel save perhaps for that of Labour's John Stonehouse, who faked his own death in 1974 after his political career and business affairs unravelled.

Support for Labour and the Conservatives among British Jews had fallen to 58% by July 2025 from nearly 84% in 2020, according to a report from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR), which said it was the lowest level we've ever recorded by some distance. Labour is typically favoured by more secular Jews while the Conservative party is traditionally preferred by more observant Jews.

I looked out the window and thought, this could be the moment they actually killed me, and it's a really strange feeling.

The truth is that without securing higher, sustained economic growth, reconnecting people and politics, generating trust in the potential of democracy and importance of good government becomes almost impossible. And the appeal of the parties of the far right with their dogma of disruption, division and despair it becomes, too, alluring. Kyle added: We see it today with Reform, just as we did in previous times with the National Front and the British National party.

The last decade in British politics has been marked by instability and fragmentation, with six prime ministers in ten years, and Nigel Farage's Reform party now leading in the polls. A study this month from King's College London and Ipsos found that 84 percent of people now say the UK feels divided, up from 74 percent in 2020. Polling on voter intention shows a fracturing of the political landscape as people abandon two-party politics

But now the anti-racism charity Hope Not Hate has asked 11,000 people who said they were going to vote for Reform why that is and the answers may surprise you. The Guardian columnist Aditya Chakrabortty says the results suggest an unwieldy coalition of voters who could be won back by other parties. He tells Helen Pidd that a lot of Reform voters want quite fundamental things from the party in terms of workers' rights and the environment, for instance.

So were all of the 7/7 bombers. It takes more than a piece of paper to make somebody British.

inappropriate and offensive comments have no place in our Senedd or society more widely

Only six years ago, at the 2019 election, the Conservatives and Labour got 76% of the vote between them, coming first and second in both votes and seats, as they have at every general election since 1922. Yet in most opinion polls now, the two parties around which politics is usually arranged at Westminster, in the media, and in the minds of millions of voters, activists and party donors have a combined support of less than 40%.

Politics Labour says Reform UK won't save 500m by closing office buildings because government ending those contracts anyway John Major says many traditional Tory supporters now 'politically homeless' because of party's lurch to right Highland council complains about impact of plan to put asylum seekers in barracks in centre of Inverness Plans to house UK asylum seekers in barracks are costly and complicated, experts say

Reform UK would allow ministers to ignore international law and give them the ability to fire civil servants in a Donald Trump-style overhaul of government powers, the party's new efficiency tsar has said. Danny Kruger, who defected to Reform from the Conservatives last month, set out the party's plans to change the way the government and civil service operate, handing more power to the cabinet.

The former prime minister dismissed a pact with Nigel Farage's party as beyond stupid, saying that any Tories tempted to defect to Reform should go now because his own party would be better off without them. As the Tories struggle with the existential threat posed by Reform's surge in popularity, Major warned far more than the future of the party was at stake with autocracies on the march across the world.

At 193cm (6ft 4in), the one-time Reform UK leader in Wales towered over colleagues and opponents and he was taller still in his favourite cowboy boots. Other than that, the softly-spoken 52-year-old was a largely unremarkable presence among the more colourful characters in Nigel Farage's parties. Until recently, political profiles have dwelt on Gill's politically quirky status:

I had not experienced any racism in Reform, where there were a lot of good people.

Former Chancellor George Osborne has warned that Reform UK "cannot be trusted to run the economy", accusing Nigel Farage's party of lacking fiscal credibility at a time when economic stewardship is likely to define the next general election. Speaking amid growing scrutiny of Reform's costed plans, Mr Osborne dismissed the party as economically unreliable, pointing to its proposals to lift the two-child benefit cap and nationalise water companies - policies that have already been branded "socialist" by Conservative critics.