Reform should outperform their by election vote share. They have almost no on the ground campaign team so struggle to get their vote out in by elections. In a general election it’s much easier to get people out to vote.
Any one labour was going to lose to reform went years ago, so the threat is really only to the tories.
The big big risk for them is if farrage comes back. He really could destroy them.
What a sad state of affairs when this bunch of bigots is polling so highly …. But again, most of their vote is in the over 60s.
I don't pretend to understand the dynamics of polling or political preference (plenty of other things I DO pretend to understand, but this isn't one of them
)
The best comparison I can think of is from the early 80s. The SDP-Liberal Alliance
forced Labour back to the centre ground, as they had no hope of regaining power as long as their vote was so badly splintered. That meant the hard left either walking away from Labour altogether, or remaining in the "broad church" so they could still at least have some kind of voice.
The Tories seem to be in a similar position right now, but they're doing the opposite - marching towards the hard right. Centrist Tories are likely going to switch to the Lib Dems if the trend continues into the long term.
The Tories' short term, reactionary mindset is their own worst enemy right now. They don't seem to realise that returning to the centre ground will be short term pain for long term gain. They won't regain power anytime soon; but once their hard right voters get bored of kicking their heels on the sidelines, watching Labour win elections, and being unable to influence the political agenda, they will abandon Reform.
As I see it, Reform aren't currently a threat to Labour, but I think they will try to make a play for the Labour vote at some point. We can see it with the defection of the Tories' Manchester mayoral candidate. I don't think they want to be in power, but they do want to influence the major parties by pulling the strings in the background. That way they don't have to worry about the consequences.
They're a hard right party who will try to dress themselves up in centrist clothing. We'll have to see how it plays out.