With one MP or one hundred, Farage and Reform UK will still terrify the Tories

With predictable speed, the media launched into a cross-examination of Reform UK's "numbers" when it came to the party's "contract" with the people.

There seems to be a lack of appreciation that the document is designed to show a direction of travel rather than a blueprint for government in 2024 (and, let's face it, whether their numbers "add up" or not, we all know the Conservative and Labour manifestos aren't worth the paper they're printed on).

Nonetheless, the direction of travel is clear. Polls have Reform UK ahead, neck and neck, or just behind the Tories. The former's contract with the people contained the kind of ideas which the Tories should have been championing all along. It was, in effect, the Tory manifesto that never was.

With Nigel Farage on course to win in Clacton - and with other seats in play - the Conservatives can only hope the Reform UK beachhead in Parliament will be a one-man-band, and the Conservatives can salvage something approaching a functioning opposition from this car crash of a campaign.

But whether Reform UK have one MP or one hundred, the party and its leader can still terrify the Conservatives and bounce them into action, if not split off many Tory MPs into Reform itself.

That is because, so long as Reform UK is there - and especially if it has even the tiniest presence in the House of Commons - it is in a position to take sufficient votes from the Conservatives to deprive them of any shot at ousting Labour.

Imagine an election five years from now, one in which Labour has lost support, and when - in the normal course of events - the Tories should have a chance at winning.

But, in this scenario, lingering suspicion of the Conservatives remains high, and with Farage in Parliament - fighting the good fight - the Tories still face the prospect of that "Centre-right vote" being split at election time.

That is before we get to Reform's capacity to take votes from Labour as well, with Farage and Reform having the platform to articulate a vision of working class patriotism, the type which won over Red Wall voters in 2019.

Put simply, with either one MP, a dozen, or even one hundred, the Reform UK threat is going nowhere for the Tories. Even if the party ended up with no MPs - which seems unlikely - the momentum has been established, and with perhaps as many as six million votes come election day, Reform UK is neither disappearing nor going to be ignorable.

Tories may curse the day they ousted Boris Johnson who, whatever faults he had, maintained the brand recognition and support which could have stemmed the party's current losses. It seems hard to believe the Tory who won over London - and who achieved a landslide in 2019 - would have led his party to this kind of electoral oblivion.

Whatever form any future "conservative" opposition takes, one thing is certain: Reform UK is going nowhere and, one way or another, the Conservatives (or what is left of its parliamentary party) needs to find some way to accommodate or outflank the Farage threat. Frankly, the "One Nation wets" in the party need to join the Lib Dems. Their moment is well and truly done.j