Reform UK is not imploding — and there’s one huge reason why

and his Reform UK party have endured a horrible week, amid tumultuous coverage of his feud with fellow MP Rupert Lowe – a firm favourite with the grassroots membership. Plenty of pundits have predicted the implosion of , given its inability to keep a group of just five MPs intact. Certainly, lots of members have gone on social media to express indignation at the withdrawal of the party whip from Lowe, who had given an interview questioning whether the “messianic” Farage could provide “sage leadership” for the nation.

And yet, no implosion has occurred. Opinion polls taken since the start of the infighting, just over a week ago, show levels of support for Reform holding steady in the mid-twenties percentage-wise. That puts the party level with and ahead of the . Reform’s projected vote share is currently running around 11 points higher than the 14% it achieved at last year’s general election. If that counts as an implosion, then all the other party leaders would give their eye teeth for one of their own.

Farage and his inner-circle nonetheless need to appreciate that while this spat has not yet knocked Reform out of the race to win the next general election, further such feuding might well do. There were two sources of tension with Lowe: personal and political. And both aspects raise serious questions that need to be addressed.

On the personal front, a direct sense of rivalry seems to have emerged since the world’s richest man, , declared that he doubted Farage has what it takes to rescue Britain from its various deep-seated crises and spoke warmly of Lowe instead. Lowe’s social media output on Musk’s X platform (formerly Twitter) became ever more hardline and eye-catching. And his posts started getting more engagement than Farage’s.

Can it just have been a coincidence that various allegations against Lowe emerged from the head office a day after his critical interview was published? You’d have to be born yesterday to think so. Farage himself has given interviews since then in which he said that seemed to want to become prime minister, as if that were an ignoble ambition. In fact, it is one shared by most MPs, obviously including Farage himself.

The most successful leaders do not take it personally that senior colleagues are always positioning themselves to benefit in case the boss falls in front of a bus. Only by recognising the rights of colleagues to build their own distinct followings can a leader hope to persuade voters that his party has “a capable team of leaders” – a crucial attribute come election-time.

So if he is to fulfil the potential of Reform, must learn to share the limelight. His track record as a vote-winner makes him impregnable as Reform leader. But he will not attract able lieutenants and deep-thinkers if he expects them merely to applaud his every move, like so many performing seals.

That’s the main personal lesson to be learned on this year’s Ides of March. Yet on the second aspect of the schism with Lowe – disagreements about political positioning – he is on stronger ground. As someone who has repeatedly exhibited an electoral Midas touch – winning the 2014 Euro elections with Ukip, the 2019 ones with the party and getting Reform MPs elected in 2024 – Farage is entitled to some basic support.

Lowe’s ever harder-line rhetoric on the issue of Pakistani-heritage grooming gangs – raising the prospect of “entire communities” being deported – found lots of support among the “online Right”. But Farage’s instinct tells him getting pigeon-holed as the “repatriation party” would destroy Reform’s prospects of reaching the 30% poll share it will need to have a chance of taking power.

Some clearer and stronger policy from Reform on the issue of is badly needed. The same is true on other touchstone issues, such as law and order and taxation. Farage must not become so intoxicated by his own success to date that he comes to believe “behold me” to be a sufficient offer to voters. The electorate tried that with and it didn’t work out too well.

There is one over-riding reason why Reform has not imploded: huge swathes of the electorate are so angry with and the that they will not easily kill-off any insurgent force that threatens the old duopoly.

In short, we need Reform to offer us a new set of choices. So Farage and co need to stop being so obsessed with and obsequious towards , build a collective leadership and focus on coming up with serious answers to the many acute problems afflicting Britain.

If they do all that then they really could go all the way.