Peter Franklin: How the system could yet conspire to freeze Farage out of power

Peter Franklin is an Associate Editor of UnHerd.

Since the local elections we’ve had national opinion polls from More In Common, TechneUK, YouGov, BMG Research and Find Out Now. Respectively, they put the Reform UK vote share at 27, 28, 29, 32 and 33 per cent.

In every case, that’s a lead over Labour – and an even bigger one over the third-placed Conservatives. Like the bookies, one can only conclude that Nigel Farage is heading for Downing Street.

The question I want to ask today is: will the British establishment let him get there?

Just look at what’s happened to populist leaders in other democracies. In Romania, the presidential election was cancelled and the frontrunner, Călin Georgescu, barred from standing again. In France, the courts have convicted Marine Le Pen of misusing public funds and banned her from standing for public office for the next five years (a period that just happens to cover the 2027 presidential election).

In America, Donald Trump was able to regain the White House, but he was harried along the way with multiple legal actions, including a high profile arrest. In Germany, there have been calls to ban the AfD, with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution classifying the party as extremist (before suspending the claim).

I make no comment here as to the justification for any of these individual actions; I only point out that when the political elites can’t persuade the electorate not to vote populist, there are other ways of protecting the status quo.

So to expand my question, what methods might be used to keep Farage out of Downing Street? How likely are they to succeed? And what role should the Conservative Party play?

A campaign of lawfare against the populists is low down on the list of possibilities.

In this country, we don’t ban political parties (unless they’re also terrorist groups), and politicians are very rarely barred from office. As Boris Johnson found out, there’s a bigger threat from the Commons Privileges Committee and the Recall of MPs Act 2015 – but Farage wouldn’t open himself up to that line-of-attack, would he?

It’s more likely we’ll see legal conflict between Reform-led local authorities and the national government, for instance over the permitting of asylum hotels. However, that’s something that Reform will use to their advantage.

So, assuming that the populist challenge at the next general election isn’t stopped in the courts, what other tricks might be employed by the powers-that-be?

In many countries, an old favourite is changing the electoral system. In the UK, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Reform could win 300-plus seats on about 30 per cent of the vote. We can therefore expect a growing chorus of complaints that first-past-the-post doesn’t work in a five party system and that only proportional representation can deliver a “fair” result.

Consider an electoral scenario in which Reform UK gets 29 per cent of the vote, Labour 22 per cent, the Conservatives 17 per cent, the Lib Dems 16 per cent and the Greens 10 per cent (i.e. the latest YouGov vote shares). Under the current electoral system that would give an RUK/Con coalition a narrow majority (or a fat one, in the event of an electoral pact).

However, if seats were allocated proportionally, a Lab-LD-Green coalition (with 48 per cent of the vote as opposed to 46 per cent for the right-of-centre parties) would most likely form the next government. Even if the left-of-centre parties fell short on seat numbers, PR is certain to deny Farage the absolute majority that he might get under FPTP.

Of course, the government would have to be in full panic mode to pull the PR lever. Even if ministers could get such a big change through parliament before the next election, it would mean the end of Labour majorities forever.

That said, desperate measures can’t be ruled out. A number of Cabinet ministers including Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband are on track to lose their seats to Reform. The introduction of PR, for instance through a Scottish-style list system, could be their last resort.

Though Reform UK is in favour of a proportional system, the Conservative Party must be ready to resist. Not only is PR wrong in principle, a sudden government move in that direction would be for the most self-serving of reasons. Labour didn’t complain when first-past-the-post gave them a stonking majority last year; to use disproportionality as an excuse now would be hypocritical in the extreme.

If changing the electoral system proves too tall an order, then, how about changing the electorate instead?

The 2024 Labour manifesto contains a promise to lower the voting age to 16. The legislation for that hasn’t been introduced yet, but we should expect it in the next King’s Speech or the one after that.

When it does come, we should oppose it as the fix it obviously is. In the overwhelming majority of countries the minimum voting age is 18 for the very good reason that only adults should vote. Furthermore, if the government succeeds, it may be emboldened to attempt other fixes, such as extending the franchise to a wider range of non-citizens or to weaken protections against electoral fraud.

Messing around with who is and isn’t allowed to vote looks dodgy at the best of times, but in the current circumstances it risks a further collapse of public trust.

There is one way of curbing the populist advance that doesn’t require any change to the law: a progressive alliance of the left-of-centre parties. Anti-Tory tactical voting is nothing new, of course, and in terms of targeting seats the Greens and Lib Dems have been quietly cooperating for years. Could fear of Farage now lead to something more ambitious?

Strategically, it would make sense. But the main impediment is the Labour Party. While Labour candidates would benefit from a clear run in, say, the Red Wall, what would be offered in return to the smaller parties? Almost all of the seats where the Greens might make gains next time are in places like Bristol with sitting Labour MPs; I don’t see Starmer ordering his own colleagues to stand aside for the student left.

As for the Lib Dems, they mostly specialise in leafy southern seats where Labour aren’t relevant anyway. Withdrawing Labour candidates altogether might help the Lib Dems a bit, but they’ve got much more to gain from keeping the right-of-centre vote split between Reform and the Conservatives.

And that brings me to the biggest reason why a progressive alliance might not work: the more obvious the collaboration between the left-of-centre parties, the greater the incentive that Farage would have to stop messing about and seek an electoral pact with his Tory rivals. The Conservative leader (whoever she or he might be at the time) should be ready to negotiate.

Finally, let’s turn to what might happen immediately after the next election. In the event of a hung parliament, we can hardly cry foul if Labour and the Lib Dems muster a majority between them.

However, things would get steadily more contentious with every extra party required to make the numbers work. The Greens would drag the new government to the flaky left, the SNP would demand another crack at independence, and Plaid Cymru more devolution for Wales.

If it looks like we are heading for a hung parliament then the Conservative campaign must be merciless in pressing both Labour and Lib Dems for their red lines in any coalition negotiation. (We can certainly expect to be endlessly pressed on our own red lines for a post-election deal with Reform.

There’s a third configuration that ought be thought about too. I’m referring to the potential government that dare not speak its name: i.e. a grand coalition between the Conservatives and Labour.

Is such a strange beast even conceivable? Yes, because if the elites are sufficiently worried about the consequences of a Reform-led government, then the Labour and Tory leaderships will come under intense pressure to govern together, just as their sister parties do in Germany. Instead of becoming primemMinister, Farage would be the Leader of the Opposition (to what he’d no doubt call the “uniparty” government).

It should be said that when the public are asked about the possibility of a Con-Lab coalition, they really don’t like it: only 15 per cent are in favour and 70 per cent opposed. Nevertheless, Farage ought to know that we do still have some options.

There is however one option that we should seek to exercise at all times, and that is to place the national interest before self-interest. The political system may be in meltdown, but if there’s one party that puts democracy first, let it be our own.