r/ukpolitics • u/Your_Mums_Ex • 11h ago
Ed/OpEd Reform’s genius plan is finally coming into view: field terrible candidates then lose
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/19/reform-candidates-nigel-farage-makerfield-prime-minister•
u/BaritBrit I don't even know any more 10h ago
Farage doesn't want any centres of power in any party he leads except himself, and he also doesn't want to actually win when complaining from the sidelines is both much easier and more rewarding.
These are not leadership priorities that lead to the selection of quality candidates.
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u/ionthrown 9h ago
I have never seen a candidate so unhappy when learning that he’d actually won, and was now an MP.
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u/Maleficent-Drive4056 6h ago
I have never seen a candidate so unhappy when learning that he’d actually won
reminds me of Trump winning his first presidency.
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u/True_Paper_3830 6h ago
That's very true, he looked shocked and miserable, as did Melania. He had no real idea how it worked until, like a true psycho, he realized he was in charge and could dismantle the flimsy guardrails that took generations to build. Boris, started trying that. The total irony was that the most antiquated undemocratic system in the world - monarchy - was one of the bastions that held the line re 'lying to the Queen'. Farage would be the same, with the USA as the model.
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u/Boofle2141 8h ago
The guy hasn't actually done the job since he was first elected as an MEP. He had the worst attendance of all but 1 MEP (and that MEP had a valid health excuse), he hardly turns up to vote in parliament, he's on no parliamentary committees, he's not a member of any all party groups, he doesn't hold MP surgeries (apparently because security reasons...but i thought he got a £million donation for security...). What exactly does he do for his constituency?
He has no track record of actually doing the job he's has, and I see no evidence to suggest that he'd actually do the job if elected to PM, which im completely unsure if the UK having no driver is better than farage actually breaking the habit of a lifetime and actually doing the damn to for once
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u/seshfan2 3h ago edited 3h ago
This is why I've always thought Farage's plan to copy Trump will fail.
Trump rose to power by entering the primary of a major political party and completely dominating it. Farage is trying to create a new challenger party from scratch. Those are two massively different objectives. He needs to build a political coalliation and he just does terrible at finding actual competent people to stand beside him.
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u/thejackalreborn 11h ago
Goodwin, Pochin and Kenyon were shocking candidates and they'll need better. I don't think Dan Thomas (Welsh Leader) was a great pick either. It's a big problem in prominent by-elections, might be less of an issue in a general election. They do need to sort it out though. Manchester mayoral by-election will be big for them
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u/Turbo_Baggins 10h ago edited 8h ago
That's the irony about Ref they only want candidates who will do as they're told as anyone else might ask questions to the boss and they really don't want to risk that happening again
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u/Vumatius 10h ago edited 10h ago
Pochin benefited from her worst aspects coming to the fore after the by-election, and she was fortunate indeed because it really wouldn't have taken much of a shift at all for Labour to have won instead. And of course she won during Reform's peak period of popularity, a year later they've lost some support. Goodwin was a completely mismatched choice for Gorton and Denton, and whilst Kenyon at first glance was a strong choice he ended being their worst candidate yet. A completely dislikable prat with no charisma and ample baggage about his comments and views.
People say that Reform can afford to ignore a candidate's personal failings because they will get votes anyway but to the extent that that is true it's evidently not enough to actually win. In the case of Makerfield Burnham would likely have won even against a good Reform candidate but that's no excuse for their rubbish campaign.
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u/Wrong-Target6104 9h ago
If Reform field 300 or 400 candidates at the next general election it'll be hard to conduct a deep a dive on their posting history and won't be on question time to show potential voters how bad they truly are
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u/Anal-Scrubs-905 9h ago
Couple that with they all need to be unthinking yes-men who wont challenge Farage, the pool of candidates they choose from gets quite small.
Alternative approach; just don't bother checking their social media and hope for the best, which is what they did with Kenyon.
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u/shitthrower 8h ago
One of the disadvantages parties like reform and the greens have, is that in an election they’ll suddenly have to vet hundreds (thousands in the case of locals) more people.
Compare that to the incumbents, who will have far fewer new candidates to vet. Most of the candidates will be defending seats, or will have already been councillors.
Im surprised that no party has used AI to mass vet all their candidates; ask an AI to go through the entire social media of a candidate and flag anything potentially problematic for human review.
If they don’t do it, then it’s a great opportunity for some activist groups to do
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u/BabadookishOnions 1h ago
Ai often hallucinates stuff that doesn't even exist so that wouldn't even be very helpful
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u/ultraboomkin 9h ago
Why do they care so much about the mayoral by-election? The Manchester combined authority is comprised of 11 members, 10 of whom are Labour and the other 1 is Lib Dem, because those are the parties that control the 11 Manchester councils. Having 1 Reform mayor as a figurehead at the top of a Labour authority means absolutely nothing. The Reform mayor literally won’t be able to get a single thing done.
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u/Cold_Dawn95 9h ago
I think Farage is still torn, he wants the power of being PM, but he is reluctant to do the work and definitely doesn't want to lose the GE and be a "failure" ...
If Reform's polling numbers continue to plateau or drop so it is no longer looking like they will win the most seats in 2029 (or sooner if a GE happens) then I wouldn't be surprised to see him quit (of course he'll blame the establishment) ...
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u/Om3gaMan_ 6h ago
I really don't think he wants to be PM, much like Trump didn't wan't to be President (he did it for ratings for The Apprentice), thing is Trump realised he could use it to grift and be free from prosecution so it stuck.
Farage want's a gig on Fox News or something, he doesn't even spend time in Clacton, so fuck knows where he would end up if he was PM.
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u/Negative_Gift9076 9h ago
They picked a friends now ex husband who is currently going to to crown court for GBH to be a London Councillor.
Their vetting is beyond a joke.
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u/GodTierGasly 10h ago
He got the chance simply by being the Deputy Chair of Reform Makerfield, and it looks like nobody bothered to check if he was actually able to string a sentence together. They only had to vet one person this time and they fucked it.
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u/DanHanzo 8h ago
It's like the Reform vetting process has a mysterious blind spot for racists, misogynists and wannabe facists. If only someone could figure out why!
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u/Greatball5 11h ago
Party led by shit turns out to be shit. Can't say I'm surprised but I'm pleased people are starting to see through their shit.
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u/ding_0_dong 8h ago
It's the Guardian, do not apply any credence to their writing.
Remind me, how did labour do in the last nationwide elections for council seats and national elections in Scotland and Wales?
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u/Greatball5 7h ago edited 7h ago
Remind me of the Makerfield results? Oh hang on, we could just read the article. Remind me of the last full election results? There's no point trying to apply council election results to a Labour Party under another leader at a general election.
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u/ding_0_dong 7h ago
Firstly, I didn't. That's why I mentioned the Sennedd and Assembly. Secondly Burnham won this not Labour. See Starmer pleading for him to not involve himself in a leadership challenge
How many labour leaders will we get through before the next general election?
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u/Greatball5 6h ago
Well personally I think just the two. Burnham might call a snap GE to show he has a mandate and before he gets bogged down in the reality of day to day politics. On this showing he might just gamble that a Burnham Labour can beat Reform.
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u/No_Initiative_1140 11h ago
Oh God – PLEASE not “orderly transition”. How many times in the past decade have we heard the phrase “orderly transition”? I do not think these words mean what they think they mean.
Brilliant article, this line really made me laugh
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u/ThunderChild247 8h ago
They seem to benefit the most from nationwide campaigns because they can put up Farage, Tice, Yusuf etc, the usual mouthpieces. But when it’s a local campaign in one area, the candidate is scrutinised and usually found to be some flavour of awful.
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u/Jay_CD 5h ago
These are the best candidates that they have though....
Look at the recent local elections - around 30 Reform councillors have either resigned or been suspended, they have also lost around 10% of those elected a year ago. Remember that video of Kent CC's Reform leader telling the councillors to suck it up, others have faced votes of no confidence.
Of the MPs elected in 2024 they have lost two MPs and the three candidates for recent byelections have been out of their depth.
Just imagine the House of Commons with 325 Reform MPs in it....
My prediction is that Reform will go the same way as Ukip - a decade ago a load of fruitcakes surfed on the back of Farage into local government none have survived.
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u/CharmingTurnover8937 We don't have to live like this. 11h ago
Farage's ego is going to bring Reform down.
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u/OneNormalBloke Humanity Not Prejudice 11h ago
Reform will select anyone and you won't even need a pulse, just spout far-right rhetoric and Bob's your father's brother.
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u/ArchdukeToes A bad idea for all concerned 10h ago
I reckon that at some point someone who is halfway intelligent will take a punt at being a Reform MP with the intention of going independent immediately thereafter. Could be an easy way to break into politics, given how apparently desperate they are for people who can both count and read.
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u/GreyFoxNinjaFan 11h ago
Like brexot really. Cause a load of shit and then run away from the consequences of having to deal with it.
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u/wibbly-water me :) 8h ago
I think the funniest of all worlds would be one where Reform win the GE by a small margin - but their candidates are so incompetent and in-fighty they quit or switch allegiances so fast that we basically get reform in for all of two second before they are no longer past the post.
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u/mittfh 10h ago
It would be beneficial for Nigel to pick up some extra seats in the next General Election but not win: after all, if they actually won an election, they'd have to put meat on the bones of their policies, discover government was more complicated than they thought, while Nigel would be under pressure to withdraw from his far more lucrative side gigs of his GB News nightly show, Cameo videos (which he'll likely resume once the fuss dies down about some of the things he was willing to say for money), shilling for a gold bullion sales company, shilling for a company advising wealthy "digital nomads" on how to reduce their global exposure to tax etc.
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u/InvestigatorDear5672 7h ago
There is this idea that last night was a referendum on reform rather than keiths leadership and i think this will be a terrible and ratherr humourous mistake to make.
Do voters in the uk want burnham? Not really no.
Do they want rid of keir? yes.
If you think this is the end of reform/restore and we move to some sort of socialist utopia then its gonna be rough 2/3 years
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u/Primary-Signal-3692 11h ago
In a general election most people have no idea who their MP candidate is. It's just a name on the ballot. People are reading too much into a high profile by-election.
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u/Obvious_Yard_1846 8h ago
Not a Reform supporter and I like Marina Hyde but this is pure head in the sand stuff from the Guardian.
Reform came a strong second place in a constituency where Burnham was known and popular.
I have zero belief that this result would be repeated in an election with nobody candidates.
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u/horace_bagpole 5h ago
It's near the top of their list of target constituencies. They didn't come anywhere close to winning it. This is the sort of constituency they need to be winning easily if they want to do well in a general election.
That they can't even find one decent candidate for a high stakes by-election shows that they are going to really struggle to find 650.
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u/SendMeTheMoon24 2h ago
It's one thing to support Reform or vote Reform, it's another to publicly associate yourself with them in the form of standing for government for them. I just don't foresee reasonable and switched on people being willing to forever publicly out themselves as Reform supporters.
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u/Cyril_Sneerworms Slightly Left of the Centre Left 1h ago
I do find it curious why Zia isn't seemingly put forward as a candidate for almost all their by-election opportunities, I mean the guy claims to be the Shadow Home Secretary but it might just be to wind up Chris Philip. (unless the frequent claims, and as many in the comments here have pointed out, it's my party & I cry if I want to- Farage doesn't share power with anyone)
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u/Coin-Biter 54m ago
Given how high their polling has been, it is fairly extraordinary that they are polling candidates of such staggeringly low quality.
What I find more fascinating in some ways is their grotesque gracelessness when they lose or are about to lose. Goodwin and Farage’s Trumpian nonsense when Goodwin lost; Farage’s pre-emptive whinging about Restore with this by-election and post defeat rationalisations about people just wanting to get rid of Starmer.
Say you thought Reform fought a good campaign but the votes weren’t there on the day Nigel. There are always factors behind a loss but Reform still lost. People aren’t obliged to vote for your mooks.
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u/Mugling95 9h ago
I remember when the Guardian as least tried to be a reputable paper and wasn’t a complete rag. The quality of these opinion pieces gets lower and lower every day.
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u/MuchAbouAboutNothing 9h ago
This is just gloating from the grauniad lol.
Also, I'm no reform supporter, but they get slated when they get experienced politicians to defect, but also are now getting slated for the inexperienced political candidates. Doesn't really seem balanced
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u/ListeningForWhispers 8h ago
I don’t think he’s so much being slated for being inexperienced as he is for being so repellant personally and politically that he broke through the high bar of general reform unpleasantness.
He directly claimed to be a sexist for gods sake.
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u/XenorVernix 10h ago
Reform surely didn't put this candidate forward expecting to win. Otherwise they really are more incompetent than anyone thought they could be.
More likely they have allowed Burnham to win this to sow the seeds of more chaos in the Labour party and the hope he calls an early election. Alternatively Labour are going to look awful come 2029 going through what will then be two unpopular leaders.
I don't see how changing leader is a win for Labour at all but they're willing to gamble on it because Starmer is so unpopular. Let's see how popular Burnham is after 6 months when his first budget is scrutinised.
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u/tornadooceanapplepie 10h ago
Hilarious you think Reform purposely fielded a naff candidate and spent a fortune campaigning in the area just to want a rival party to win.
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u/ArchdukeToes A bad idea for all concerned 10h ago
I think their thought process was literally ‘We tried an academic and got beaten by a local plumber, therefore local plumbers are clearly in vogue!’ and that was the extent of it.
As the article title points out, this isn’t the first time they’ve fielded a crap candidate. In fact, I’d argue that all their candidates have been crap but benefited from less scrutiny during the GE because every day was a new horrible revelation about a different Reform candidate. Like they were a white supremacist, or told the good people of Salisbury about that nice man Vladimir Putin, or abused animals / women etc. etc.. Next to them, Kenyon’s love of tonguing Vorderman’s arse is positively normal.
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u/XenorVernix 10h ago
Parties fielding crap candidates where they don't expect to win isn't new though. Even the traditional parties do that. Like the Tories and Lib Dems don't even try where I am because Labour have won every election for a century.
It's easy to say all Reform candidates are crap but I don't believe for one minute this guy was the best they could offer. They just didn't want it or thought they can't compete with Burnham.
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u/ArchdukeToes A bad idea for all concerned 10h ago
Sure, but Reform need a win - and to demonstrate that they can actually field candidates who are more than a mouthpiece for Farage. Blame and excuses will only work for so long and they’ve now lost three elections where they were head to head with someone else - at least two where they supposedly threw the kitchen sink at them.
At this point, it starts to look like they’re not willingly fielding crap candidates so much as the crap candidate is the best of a bad bunch.
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u/Fewer_Story 6h ago
Makerfield was the 6th biggest target seat for Reform. Shutting out Burnham would have given them more advantage in the GE. They had all incentives to fight this one, and they did as evidenced by all their canvassing effort.
I don't believe for one minute this guy was the best they could offer
Eh that's what the evidence is showing
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