Reform UK’s Curious Courtship

Only months ago, Reform UK and Britain’s trade unions stood on opposite ends—ideologically and strategically. One championed deregulation and individualism; the other, collective bargaining and worker protections. But now, something weird is happening. ‘The centre cannot hold,’ wrote Yeats, and through leader Nigel Farage’s relentless defiance of criticism, Reform is making overt, if clunky, overtures to Britain’s disillusioned unionised workforce.

This is no random shift. It’s calculated. In an age where economic insecurity trumps—forgive the pun—ideology, Farage sees an opening: voters abandoned by Labour and ignored by the Tories. He’s long mastered grievance politics and now bets that worker dissatisfaction could further fuel his irrefutable rise. As Marx put it, ‘Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please.’

This swivel by Reform UK is evident not just in tone, but in policy. Reform now supports nationalising the steel industry and putting half of utilities under public control—the other half reserved for UK pension funds. They oppose the two-child benefit cap and back tax breaks for married couples. The platform aims squarely at ‘working-class families’—once Labour’s stronghold.

But Reform isn’t wooing union leadership. It’s bypassing it, appealing directly to the rank and file—the politically homeless, those betrayed by economic neglect. Farage talks of a ‘sensible relationship’ with unions, but it’s transactional. MP Lee Anderson, a former miner, denounces union bosses as obsolete. Reform wants it both ways: appealing to workers while preserving its libertarian DNA. Even the recent party chairman’s brief resignation, then swift return as head of ‘Reform DOGE,’ played like a clumsy meme—but signalled opportunism.

Ideological coherence isn’t the point. Emotional resonance is. Reform markets itself as the party that listens. All things to all men and women. You have a problem? We’ll solve it. How? Don’t ask. It taps into economic pain, national pride, cultural anxiety. Ironically, for a party promising unity, it thrives on division. As Voltaire warned, ‘Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.’

Union leaders aren’t convinced. The National Education Union plans targeted campaigns. The Social Workers Union cites Reform’s past support for zero-hour contracts and opposition to day-one sick pay—hallmarks of the Thatcher era. But in deindustrialised towns and austerity-scarred communities, Reform’s message resonates. There, Farage doesn’t offer utopia. He offers control—of borders, budgets, direction. That’s more persuasive than Labour’s technocratic caution or Tory drift.

Farage sells not solutions, but identification. Long branded controversial—he was labelled ‘fascist’ and ‘racist’ by his English teacher at Dulwich College—he thrives on cultural grievance. His success lies not in consensus, but in tapping discontent and dressing it up as common sense. ‘The truth is like poetry—and most people fucking hate poetry,’ as Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short, once overheard in a Washington D.C. bar.

Reform’s anti-diversity stance—banning rainbow flags in councils, electing teen councillors—signals its cultural priorities. They call it anti-woke governance; in truth, it’s cultural conservatism in democratic costume. It’s straight from the Trump playbook—Putin admiration awkwardly forgotten.

This isn’t a leftward shift. It’s populist triangulation: economic statism paired with nationalism. The goal isn’t to become a workers’ party—it’s to become the protest party of the post-Brexit era. Reform’s interest in unions isn’t supportive. It’s strategic—fracturing them, not strengthening them. They seem to be thinking: Everyone else has wrecked the joint, so why not us as well?

And it’s working. Union memberships are already thinning. Reform now threatens to make them irrelevant by speaking more directly to the base than the unions do. Once, a miners’ strike could topple governments. Today, union power is fragmented. Reform thrives in a landscape of digital personalities, not collectives.

Farage’s formula is clear: sow division, stoke discontent, claim to speak for the ‘ordinary person.’ Immigration, a genuine concern for some, remains a core rallying cry—and it always works. As a turbulent Dominic Cummings now calling for Westminster to fall once said of Brexit, ‘Immigration was a baseball bat that just needed picking up at the right time and in the right way.’ Today, Labour echo Reform’s rhetoric on crime and borders, but without Farage’s flair. Even tweaks to Treasury rules suggest Labour are nervously eyeing Reform’s appeal.

The Tories, meanwhile, are adrift. ‘Levelling Up’ fizzled out. Reform feeds on that vacuum. While ministers scramble for relevance, Farage builds his narrative. He just needs to draw enough support from Labour’s base to fracture the political map. Every defection weakens Labour and boosts Reform. Like Trump, Farage thrives on resentment, not unity.

This moment matters. It’s not just about the next vote—it’s about narrative control. Orwell wrote, ‘He who controls the past controls the future.’ If Farage, a privately educated ex-trader, can reinvent himself as a working-class champion, he’s already halfway to victory. He’s not just a protest vote—he’s a political force.

For unions, the dilemma is existential. Align too closely with Labour, and they look like partisan relics. Ignore Reform, and they risk losing touch with a base Reform understands better. ‘Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,’ said Hamlet.

Farage has done what few thought possible: made a hard-right populist party attractive to parts of the working class. In doing so, he’s exposed Labour and the unions’ fatal assumption—that the working class would always return.

But nostalgia is no strategy. Power doesn’t belong to those who remember—it belongs to those who adapt. Farage is betting on disruption over order. None of this is a sideshow. It may be the next realignment. A cultural capture. A swing to the right that doesn’t just carry a baton—but may soon swing like a club.

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