Reform UK is about to tear the cosy Westminster clique to shreds

There was a moment soon after the release of the exit poll that predicted 13 seats for Reform UK when some of the party’s inner-circle must have given a collective gulp, realising that some of the candidates predicted to win were not, perhaps, among those they would consider the party’s best.

In the event, though the insurgent Right-wing party soon realised it was on course for fewer seats than that, it had cause to think fate had dealt it a pretty good hand.

Its media stars were the ones to make it to Westminster. Lee Anderson in Ashfield, former leader Richard Tice in Boston & Skegness, ex-MEP Rupert Lowe in Great Yarmouth and of course a certain Nigel Farage in Clacton.

The bridgehead that Farage spoke of establishing at this election has been constructed. To secure a vote share in the high teens, vast numbers of second places and a cluster of credible MPs after a single month of campaigning for a “start-up” brand must rank as the most breathtaking feat of Farage’s entire career.

The fact that Reform was so short-changed by first-past-the-post and still has a parliamentary party gives Farage the moral high ground too. Not only does he have democratic legitimacy and a media platform as an MP, but Reform now qualifies for a small fortune in Short Money with which to bankroll a professional party machine. And the broadcast rules for election coverage – based on prior performance – will guarantee it plenty of exposure in 2029.

All this for a party that struggled to record double-figure vote shares in by-elections and had almost no ground troops to deliver literature on its behalf.

So now Farage will be there at all the great occasions of state – including wreath-laying at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. And he will bring his rhetorical brilliance to bear in countless Commons debates. And most of the British establishment will hate all this.

After doing so much to dismantle the most successful electoral machine in the democratic world last night – the Conservative & Unionist Party – Farage announced in his acceptance speech that he is now gunning for the Labour Party.

With Reform in handy second places in so many red wall Labour seats and the modern propensity of governments to become unpopular very fast, there is every reason to believe that. “We’re coming for Labour... Believe me folks, this is just the first step of something that is going to stun all of you,” said Farage. The fox is in the henhouse now.