Farage challenges UK two-party system, threatens European-style fragmentation

At Britain’s general election in July, the populist Reform UK Party leader Nigel Farage finally won a seat in the House of Commons on his eighth attempt, entering Parliament with four colleagues. Now he is setting his sights on upturning the country’s traditional two-party duopoly.

“At the next election in 2029 or before, there will be hundreds of newcomers under the Reform UK label,” Farage promised rival politicians at a swanky London dinner earlier this month. “We are about to witness a political revolution.”

The Brexit campaigner and Donald Trump supporter is prone to grandiose statements, but as often in the past, he is impossible to ignore.

With the official Conservative opposition struggling for relevance, his right-wing party enjoys momentum off the back of faltering poll numbers for the new Labour government amid a rocky start by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Buttressed also by endorsements from billionaire Elon Musk, Reform is challenging both main parties in the polls, and Farage is now the bookmakers’ favourite to succeed Starmer as premier.

Politicians and strategists at the top of the two parties that have dominated British politics for a century told reporters they are increasingly alive to the threat posed by Reform. Speaking on condition of anonymity about internal party thinking, the Tory and Labour officials expressed concern at signs the UK could be shifting toward a less predictable multiparty politics more common on the European continent.