We all know that Reform lost both the Caerphilly and Gorton & Denton by-elections because of tactical voting by left-wing voters. And we all know that this tactical voting by their opponents is going to be a serious threat to Reform at the next general election and possibly prevent them from winning. We all know that, right?
Of course we do. We all know this because all the papers have told us so.
Except, except … it isn’t true. It is, in fact, complete nonsense. It’s a fable, a myth. Or in good-old Anglo-Saxon plain-speak, it’s bollocks.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that there was absolutely no tactical voting of any kind, whatsoever, in any shape or form, by anyone at all. No. That would be a ridiculous claim to make. But what I am saying is that what tactical voting did take place was trivial and inconsequential and made no difference to the final result.
For the sort of large-scale tactical voting that changes election results you need to have a large number of voters who (i) do not think their preferred party has a chance of winning, (ii) really hate Reform, (iii) believe Reform has a chance of winning, and (iv) all believe that another party they hate less could beat Reform if they voted for it.
Is this what happened in both Caerphilly and Gorton & Denton? I think not.
I suggest you remember the wise advice of the brilliant 14th Century English religious philosopher William of Ockham, who told us that the simplest solution – that is, the one that makes the fewest unnecessary and over-complicated assumptions - is usually the correct one. This is known as Ockham’s Razor.
So what happens if we apply this principle to these two by-election results? It tells us that Plaid Cymru and the Greens won these two elections simply because their candidates were the genuinely preferred first-choice of a plurality of the voters. Is this a reasonable assumption? Let’s see.
We’ll look first at Caerphilly (since this election occurred first) and just do some basic maths.
At the previous Senedd election in 2021 the result was:
Labour: 13,289 votes (46%)
Plaid Cymru: 8,211 votes (28%)
Tories: 5,013 votes (17%)
Reform: 495 votes (1.7%)
While at last October’s by-election the result was:
Plaid Cymru: 15,961 (47%)
Reform: 12,113 (36%)
Labour: 3,713 (11%)
Tories: 690 (2%)
The other parties (LibDems, Greens, etc, were too insignificant to bother with).
How can the changes in votes be explained? Well, we know that both Labour and the Conservatives are much less popular than they were in 2021. And their popularity is continuing to sink. An analysis by Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre found that:
(i) 41% of people who voted Labour in 2024 would now vote Plaid Cymru in a Senedd election;
(ii) 10% of 2024 Labour voters would now vote Reform UK;
(iii) 10% of 2024 Labour voters would now vote Green;
(iv) 41% of 2024 Conservative voters would now vote Reform UK.
Applying these voter movements (and yes, I know they relate to the 2024 election and I am looking at the 2021 election, but they are a good indication) we could have predicted that Plaid’s vote would increase to 13,660 and Reform’s to 3,879. So Plaid were the nailed-on favourites to win. Reform never stood a chance and actually wildly over-performed. How did they manage that? Firstly, look at the Tory vote. It was absolutely crushed: down over 86%. It’s pretty obvious that almost all went to Reform. And secondly, look at the turnout. Usually turnouts fall in by-elections, but in this case it shot UP – from 44.3% to 50.4%.
Most of the increased turnout clearly went to Reform, but some also went to Plaid because (and this has been criminally overlooked by all other political commentators) they put up a really good candidate (from their perspective). Their man, Lindsay Whittle, is really well known locally, with a long track record in Caerphilly politics. He has been the leader of the local borough council, a member of the Welsh Assembly and a member of the County borough council. He has also stood TEN TIMES (!) for Caerphilly in the Westminster parliamentary elections. Plaid chose the best-known local politician, by far. He was a shoo-in. Reform didn’t fail – they were astonishingly successful. If they are able to crush the Tory vote and attract a huge number of previous stay-at-homers in the elections in May then they stand a chance of being the largest single party – though realistically, Plaid must still be the firm favourites, as most disgruntled Labour voters will switch to them.
So where did the anti-Reform tactical voting narrative come from? It stems from a rogue poll by Survation, published before the by-election, which put Reform on 42%, with Plaid second on 38%. This was clearly nonsense. Prior to this one, no other poll in Wales had put Reform on over 30%. How could Survation have got this so wrong? Cretinous and unprecedented incompetence or a deliberate attempt to create unrealistic expectations in order to harm the party? I’ve no idea and no proof either way, so will just leave it to you to decide.
Whatever the reason, it allowed a Reform-hating media both to gloat and, more importantly, since they couldn’t possibly admit that they had been really, really stupid in writing about a likely Reform win (which was never actually possible), it forced them to create an explanation for the party’s ‘failure’. And thus the ridiculous ‘stop-Reform tactical voting’ story was born.
Now let’s fast forward to last month’s Gorton & Denton by-election. This was yet another no-hope seat for Reform. Don’t believe me? Do the maths. (I’m not trying to make this my catchphrase, but I’m a scientist and this is what we do). This was Reform’s 440th target seat – way outside the list of probable or even possible wins. In the 2024 general election over 78% of the vote went to left-wing candidates: Labour 50.8%, Greens 13.2%, Galloway’s Workers Party 10.3% and the LibDems 3.8%. Reform won 14.1% and the Tories 7.9%.
When I say Reform stood no chance, you don’t need to take my word for it (although of course you should!). Professor Rob Ford is a highly respected political analyst and happens to live right next door to the constituency. He has studied it closely and written about it extensively. If anyone knows about it, he does! The constituency is called Gorton & Denton because it is made up of these two separate areas, and what you need to understand is quite how different they are. As Ford explained when the election was called: “These two chunks of the seat are not equally matched - the Manchester wards [Gorton] had 55,000 registered electors in them in the 2024 locals, while the Tameside wards [Denton] had just 26,000. So the balance of electoral power splits about 2:1 in favour of the more diverse [ie. Muslim invaders!], graduate and urban liberal heavy Manchester wards.“
Even in Denton, the more white, working class area, Reform were not very strong. In Rob Ford’s words: “Labour have dominated the Denton wards for decades. Although the demographics look somewhat Farage friendly, UKIP never won any of them, coming closest with a couple of second place finishes between 2014 and 2016. UKIP never appeared on the ballot in Denton after 2016, and neither the Brexit Party nor Reform have ever fielded local elections candidates there.”
So what were Reform’s prospects? “Though Reform have gained a lot of ground in the national polls, they may find Gorton and Denton, where they start 36 points behind Labour, a tough nut to crack. Reform poll poorly among young voters, university graduates, and ethnic minorities - all groups found in large numbers in this seat’s Manchester wards. The three Denton wards have a more Reform-friendly profile but Denton makes up just a third of the seat’s total electorate.”
His conclusion was clear. Reform “really have no business even being in the running in this seat, which is not at all favourable to them demographically or politically, so a strong second place ought to be a triumph”.
And that, of course, is exactly what happened. The by-election result was:
Greens: 40.6%
Reform: 28.7%
Labour: 25.4%
Tories: 1.9%
LibDems: 1.8%
Although I would hesitate to call second place a “triumph”, it was certainly a stunningly-good result for Reform. And chew on this: although the seat boundaries have been changed since the 2019 general election, professors Rallings and Thrasher – who are the undisputed experts – have calculated that had Gorton & Denton existed then, the Tories would have won 18.9% of the vote. The significance of this is that, in that election, the Tories went on to win an overall majority of 80 seats in parliament. So Reform winning 28.7% sets them up for a massive overall majority in the 2029 election – if they can replicate this result nationwide, obviously.
So, as for ‘anti-Reform tactical voting’, I say: “what anti-Reform tactical voting”? There was none. Reform achieved a vote-share equivalent to what they are getting in the national opinion polls, even though the demographics of Gorton & Denton are far worse than in most other seats, and Labour’s vote did not collapse as much as we have seen elsewhere.
If there was any tactical voting it was by Conservatives, for Reform. Just look how, once again, the Tory vote collapsed. Down to under 2% - their lowest ever vote share in a by-election! The Tory media have recently written a lot about the supposed ‘Kemi Badenoch bounce’. I say: “what Kemi Badenoch bounce?!” The Tories are polling at under 20% in the polls – that’s less than they got in 2024 general election, which was their disastrous, worst-ever, result. The Tories are bouncing down the gutter!
There is NO evidence of any anti-Reform tactical voting in Gorton & Denton. What there was was a massive anti-Labour and pro-Green vote by the huge Pakistani immigrant population. A recent YouGov survey has found that the Greens have become popular with Pakistani and Bangladeshi voters, with 58% of these feeling positive about the Greens, compared with 31% who say they feel positive about Labour. The Greens capitalised on this and went all-out for the vote of these foreign invaders, publishing leaflets in Urdu, and claiming that they were the only party that would stop ‘Islamophobia’ and offer a ‘strong voice’ for Muslims.
The Greens were supported in Gorton & Denton by the organisation ‘Muslim Vote’, who endorsed them before the election and took Muslims from the local Mosque to the polling stations, ensuring a high turnout of their voters. Incidentally, it was the endorsement of the Greens by Muslim Vote that led George Galloway to decide not to stand a candidate, even though his Workers Party of Britain had come 3rd in the constituency at the general election and had a councillor there who would have made a good candidate for them. Had Galloway stood a candidate (as he had declared he would do) this would have split the immigrant vote and probably let Reform win. Reform might have been counting on him to put up a candidate, I don’t know, but his decision gave the seat to the Greens.
Prof Sir John Curtice, the well-known polling guru, put the Greens’ victory down to a combination of Muslims and young voters: “Now in part it’s a constituency that has large numbers of Muslim voters. We know from what happened in the 2024 election that the Greens tended to do well in such constituencies ... but we’re also talking about a party that according to most opinion polls is the most popular among young people and there are a fair chunk of younger people in the constituency.” No mention of tactical voting at all.
Recent polling also shows that tactical voting is not always as likely as the feverishly excited left-wing media believe. It’s the only straw they have to grasp at in their desperate desire to see Reform lose the next election, but it’s an illusion – so don’t be deceived. The media want voters to block Reform’s path to power and are trying to encourage the idea of tactical voting. But will this work?
Although left-wing voters are desperate to keep Reform out of government (as are, incredibly, 7% of Tories, who would even oppose a Tory-Reform coalition!), quite a few are rather picky about who they would, and would not, support to ‘Keep Reform Out’. Here are the figures: 19% of Labour voters would never vote Green, and 13% would never vote LibDem. 26% of LibDems would never vote Labour and 20% would never vote Green. 30% of Green voters would never vote Labour and 20% would never vote LibDem. In Wales, Plaid voters are equally picky, with 25% never voting Labour and 28% never voting LibDem, but SNP voters in Scotland are the most tribal, with 56% never willing to vote Labour, 44% never voting LibDem and 29% never voting Green.
As you see, while it is true a majority of the Left would indeed be willing to vote tactically against Reform (and also the Conservatives), this by no means applies to all of them. And there is a second, even bigger problem for the tactical voting fanatics: which party is best placed to defeat Reform? In Gorton & Denton Labour had an aggressive leafleting campaign declaring that they were best placed to beat Reform (even quoting a non-existent tactical voting organisation!). Given that they were the defending party, this was not so unbelievable, and if you are a Labour supporter you are likely to believe what the party tells you. I reckon this is the reason their vote actually held up as well as it did, and why there was no sign of any tactical voting in favour of the Greens.
And if the strongest alternative to Reform was not obvious in a by-election, when all the attention and analysis is focused on it, imagine how hard it will be to know who the ‘stop-Reform’ candidate is in any given constituency at the next general election. This is the main reason I am dismissive of the notion that there will be large-scale tactical voting against Reform at the general election. Yes, there are a few dedicated websites that try to offer advice, but these are as likely to be wrong as right, and in any case I doubt that more than 2-3% of the public is sufficiently politically-engaged to go to these lengths. You need to always remember that most people are NOT like you – they are just not that interested in politics.
The truth is that the Greens winning in Gorton & Denton will actually work in Reform’s favour in the long term. Why? Because voting Greens no longer seems a wasted vote and this therefore increases the party’s credibility and therefore the likelihood that hacked-off left-wing voters will vote for them rather than Labour – and the truth is that in the seats that Reform want, need, and can realistically win, it is Labour (or the Conservatives) that is their main opponent. So the Greens creaming off Labour votes will help Reform!
Not only that, now that the Greens have earned themselves more media attention it means their real face has been exposed. They are now more and more being recognised for what they are: the party that wants to legalise all drugs - including heroin, crack cocaine and the date rape drug ‘GHB’ - and that wants to allow an unlimited number of immigrants and other foreign criminals to flood into Britain and take over the country. That’s the Greens: the pro-mass immigration and date rape party; (that is the message that Reform should have put on every leaflet in Gorton & Denton!). Disgruntled working class voters with traditional conservative values are now much less likely to vote for them, and more likely to vote Reform.
No, the Greens are NOT a threat to Reform. They are, however, a major threat to Labour, and will definitely take seats off them, especially those with large numbers of foreign invaders and university students - exactly the voters that Labour have relied on most in recent years. What a laugh! The two far-left traitor parties knifing each other in the back. What a beautiful sight to behold!
So if the Greens are not a threat to Reform who, or what, is? There is a lot of talk online about Restore Britain, the party founded by Rupert Lowe, which claims to have over 113,000 members – more than the Conservative Party. Many Reform supporters will no doubt deride Restore as a noisy but insignificant online faction that has little support in the real world, and will point to the performance of Advance UK in Gorton & Denton as evidence that Reform is the only game in town.
It’s certainly true that Nick Buckley, Advance UK’s candidate, got a risible 154 votes – 5 fewer even than Sir Oink A-Lot of the Monster Raving Loony Party! On a personal level this was very unfair on Buckley himself as he is actually a really good guy who has done a huge amount of charity work (recognised by an MBE), is very sound politically and deserved better. But voters clearly looked at Reform’s candidate, the excellent Matt Goodwin, and decided that was what they wanted.
Restore supporters, on the other hand, will claim that their party is a very different – and more fearsome – beast than Ben Habib’s Advance UK. It’s certainly true that Lowe, being an MP, has a much higher media profile and greater credibility – burnished by the support he regularly gets on X from Elon Musk. Perhaps if Musk bunged him a few million pounds this might boost Restore’s election-fighting capabilities! The online Right should not be arrogantly dismissed, in the way that Alex Ferguson dismissed Manchester United’s local rivals, Manchester City, as “noisy neighbours” - that didn’t age well, did it?!
Online activity is important and influential – or else why would Nigel Farage always boast about how much more popular he is online than Labour and Conservative MPs? But neither is it the be-all-and-end-all. Online debate influences and leads real-life debate and can shift the agenda, but on its own it doesn’t win elections. And patriots who want to get rid of Labour will be afraid of splitting the vote. If Reform are more likely to be able to form a government, then even if they’re not perfect, voters will think that they are better than another Labour term of office. As the proverb says: ‘do not make the perfect the enemy of the good‘.
But there are still another three years until the next general election, so let’s see how the Reform-Restore battle develops. If Reform continues to be seen as the best chance of ousting Labour – and the local elections in May will be a crucial test here – then I suspect they will remain the Right’s main standard-bearers. But if Restore keep growing and become credible as a party that can genuinely win elections, then it’s a whole new ball game.
For the moment, the main threat to Reform is likely to be that Farage is going to be portrayed by his opponents as too close to both Trump and Putin. Farage isn’t stupid and understands this, so let’s see how he positions himself. He needs to make it clear that he opposes any Trump policy which damages Britain – such as the increased tariffs – and that, when it comes to foreign military action, Trump should consult more closely with Britain. But he can turn these issues into weapons against Starmer by saying that the reason Trump isn’t more closely engaged with Britain is because Starmer has made us insignificant as a global power. As for Putin and Ukraine, Farage should say that he supports Ukraine’s battle for freedom, but that the UK simply cannot afford to GIVE billions of pounds’ worth of weapons to them (especially when we need them to re-arm our own military!), but we should be willing to SELL them anything they want.
Reform definitely also needs some eye-catching and popular new policies that engage the public’s imagination. I have suggested a few which they should adopt here:
REFORM: ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL OR DO THEY SIMPLY NOT CARE?
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Mar 7
Imagine if a party could adopt a policy that was politically popular and cost nothing. You’d think it would be a no-brainer and they would immediately propose it. But they don’t. These policies exist but political parties ignore them because they are in the pockets of special interest groups and prioritise these rather than ordinary citizens.
Do make sure you have read this! Indeed, read all my previous articles, they are dynamite!
Prof Sir John Curtice has said that the traditional two main parties have “never looked weaker” and that the future of British politics “is now even more uncertain than it was already”.
It is often claimed that “May you live in interesting times” is an ancient Chinese curse, with ‘interesting’ used as a euphemism for ‘unstable’. But this is just a myth – just like the ‘anti-Reform tactical voting’ narrative! What is true however is that we are living in a very interesting political time. We now have genuine multi-party politics, and the chance to kick out the traitors and scum who have ruined a once-great-and-beautiful country.
Britain was once the envy of the world. A country of history and modernity, beauty and peace, civilisation and adventure, culture and excitement, and most of all decency and friendliness. We were a great people living in a great country. And now we are an island of wary and hostile strangers, living in a dangerous and oppressive country, invaded and colonised by a foreign enemy of primitive, violent, criminal and parasitic scum. And it’s all the fault of the Conservative and Labour parties.
But now we have a chance to win our country back. I find that encouraging. I have hope for the future. Yes, these are interesting times indeed, but in a good way!
Let me know what YOU think!
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