Reform UK

Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. Nigel Farage has been Leader of Reform UK and Richard Tice deputy leader since 2024. It has five members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons and one member of the London Assembly. It also controls twelve local councils. Farage's resumption of the leadership before the 2024 general election led to a sharp increase in support for it and it won the third-largest share of the popular vote, with 14.3 per cent. It is one of the two major right wing parties in the UK, alongside the Conservative Party.

Founded in 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating a no-deal Brexit, it won the most seats at the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK, but did not win any seats at the 2019 general election. The UK withdrew from the European Union (EU) in January 2020. In January 2021, the party was renamed Reform UK. During the COVID-19 pandemic it advocated against further lockdowns. Since 2022 it has campaigned on a broader platform, pledging to limit immigration, reduce taxation and opposing net-zero emissions.

Farage had been the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP), a right-wing populist and Eurosceptic party, in the first half of the 2010s, and returned to frontline politics as the leader of the Brexit Party after the 2016 EU membership referendum, which had been called partly in response to UKIP's influence. The party won 29 seats at the May 2019 European Parliament election, the best result for any single party in the ninth European Parliament. The Brexit Party campaigned for a no-deal Brexit, and there were high-profile defections to it from the Conservative Party, including Ann Widdecombe and Annunziata Rees-Mogg. Following Boris Johnson's election as Leader of the Conservative Party, Farage offered him an electoral pact at the 2019 general election, which Johnson rejected. The Brexit Party decided unilaterally not to stand candidates against sitting Conservative MPs.

By May 2020, with Brexit having taken place, the party focused on the reformation of British democracy. A name change from "Brexit Party" to "Reform Party" was proposed. The COVID-19 pandemic began in the UK in 2020, and the Conservative government imposed a series of national lockdowns. Farage rebranded it as Reform UK around the end of the year and focused on anti-lockdown campaigning. Farage stepped down as leader in 2021 and was succeeded by Tice. In 2024, Lee Anderson, who was elected in 2019 as a Conservative MP, defected to Reform UK, becoming its first MP. On 3 June 2024 Tice announced that Farage would become leader once more, with Tice continuing as chairman. It won five seats at the 2024 general election – the first time that Reform UK had MPs elected to the House of Commons.