Farage Reform UK Targets “Reverse Takeover” Conservative Party

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is pur­su­ing a reverse takeover strat­e­gy of the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty. On 3 Decem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that Farage stat­ed there would be no deals, just a reverse takeover, with a deal cost­ing votes, as Reform has accept­ed more than 21 cur­rent and for­mer Tory MPs. The arti­cle begins:

Nigel Farage has said Reform UK is aim­ing for a “reverse takeover” of the Con­ser­v­a­tives, after some donors claimed he would be open to a for­mal pact if Kemi Bade­noch was not the Tory leader. Farage denied a report that he had told donors an elec­toral deal was “inevitable” but he acknowl­edged he would like to in effect absorb the par­ty by win­ning over defec­tors and replac­ing it. “No deals, just a reverse takeover,” Farage said. “A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/dec/03/reform-uk-aiming-for-reverse-takeover-of-tories-nigel-farage

Key Points

• Reform has accept­ed more than 21 cur­rent and for­mer Tory MPs, with no MPs from oth­er par­ties defect­ing, high­light­ing over­lap between the two par­ties, while Richard Tice stat­ed that donors were con­fused if they thought Farage want­ed a pact, as he instead want­ed to replace Tories.
• Reform donor con­firmed Farage dis­cussed what a deal with the Con­ser­v­a­tives could look like, stat­ing he did not think this was fea­si­ble with Bade­noch, with the donor believ­ing it will hap­pen and should hap­pen, adding that even sym­pa­thet­ic Con­ser­v­a­tives believe it is too ear­ly, giv­en the flu­id­i­ty of Refor­m’s position.
• Senior Reform fig­ures are much keen­er on Robert Jen­rick, shad­ow jus­tice sec­re­tary, as a poten­tial part­ner, with a leaked record­ing in April cap­tur­ing Jen­rick vow­ing to unite the right before the next elec­tion, and an ally stat­ing Rob and Nigel agree on most things, with Rob to the right of him on some issues.
• Tory strate­gists say about a quar­ter of the vot­er base would be will­ing to back Labour to keep Farage out of Num­ber 10, while three-quar­ters would vote for Reform with a quar­ter enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, as Reform leads in polls, mak­ing senior Tory rightwingers believe the par­ty needs a deal to survive.

Reform UK and the Global National Conservative Alliance: Britain’s Role in the Transnational Right

Reform UK exem­pli­fies Britain’s con­tri­bu­tion to the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance (GNCA), an ide­o­log­i­cal coali­tion unit­ing right-wing move­ments world­wide under shared prin­ci­ples of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, and oppo­si­tion to glob­al insti­tu­tions. Found­ed in late 2018 as the Brex­it Par­ty by Nigel Farage and Cather­ine Blaik­lock, the par­ty was rebrand­ed in Jan­u­ary 2021 after the UK for­mal­ly left the Euro­pean Union, broad­en­ing its agen­da to empha­size stricter immi­gra­tion, oppo­si­tion to net-zero emis­sions poli­cies, and tax cuts.

Under Farage’s renewed lead­er­ship since June 2024, the par­ty secured its first sig­nif­i­cant par­lia­men­tary pres­ence, win­ning five seats in the 2024 gen­er­al elec­tion. Accord­ing to NPR, Reform UK is now surg­ing in nation­al polls and “peo­ple are gen­uine­ly talk­ing about Nigel Farage as a poten­tial prime min­is­ter.” The Hein­rich Böll Stiftung notes that Reform shares com­mon traits with Euro­pean pop­ulist par­ties, includ­ing oppo­si­tion to immi­gra­tion, scorn for net-zero tar­gets, and deep Euroscep­ti­cism, though it remains less author­i­tar­i­an than some counterparts.

Farage’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the 2024 Nation­al Con­ser­vatism Con­fer­ence in Brus­sels, where Euro­pean far-right lead­ers and Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives gath­er under Hun­gary’s coor­di­na­tion, demon­strates Refor­m’s align­ment with the broad­er transna­tion­al move­ment. The conference—which fea­tured Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán, French politi­cian Eric Zem­mour, and for­mer British Home Sec­re­tary Suel­la Braverman—was con­tro­ver­sial­ly shut down by Bel­gian police, though orga­niz­ers ulti­mate­ly pre­vailed in court. France24 report­ed that Farage blamed the attempt­ed shut­down on EU ideology.

Exter­nal References:

• Hein­rich Böll Stiftung: Friends or just fel­low travellers?
• France24: Polit­i­cal storm erupts after police told to shut down Nat­Con event
• NPR: Nigel Farage’s right-wing par­ty is fast gain­ing ground in the U.K.

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