Once laughed at as a provocateur who should not be taken seriously, reform leader Nigel Farage could one day become Britain’s new prime minister.image: Leon Neal/Getty Images
Shortly before the British local elections on Thursday, the leader of the Reform Party is causing a scandal. Because Welsh and Scottish nationalists are also gaining ground, the unity of the kingdom is threatened.
May 6, 2026, 9:39 p.mMay 6, 2026, 9:39 p.m
Simon Maurer / ch media
England’s governing party is facing a difficult election day this Thursday: Labor Prime Minister Keir Starmer is more unpopular in the polls than any British head of government before, and at the same time the appointment of an Epstein confidant as US ambassador has been weighing on the government for months.
Nervousness is therefore growing in his Labor Party. Quite a few left-wing MPs are already toying with Starmer’s overthrow, while three potential successors are fighting in the background to succeed him. The polls for the local elections predict a historic defeat for the Labor Party. Three quarters of all mandates could be lost. Meanwhile, the right-wing populist Reform Party will probably become the strongest force.
Agitator Farage is even more polarizing than Alice Weidel
In this heated situation, reform leader Nigel Farage is now provoking with a radical idea: If his party forms the new local governments, he only wants to place asylum centers in places where his party was not elected. “We will instead place rejected asylum seekers where the Greens were elected,” said Farage during an appearance in Essex.
His goal is not just to prevent new asylum seekers from entering the country. He also wants to expel “a lot of people who are already here.” Illegals who arrived on ferries should no longer be allowed to move freely on the streets.
All other major parties in Great Britain reacted with outrage to the reform announcement. “Threatening to punish places that don’t vote for you is a betrayal of basic democratic principles,” criticized Labor leader Anna Turley. “An attempt to distract from the Reform Party’s poor health policy,” said the co-leader of the Green Party, criticizing Farage’s proposal. And even the leader of the conservative Tories, Kemi Badenoch, who is extremely critical of migration, called the project “abhorrent” and “an enormous waste of public money because the proposed locations would possibly be completely unsuitable.”
That doesn’t seem to stop many British voters from voting for reform on Thursday. According to the latest forecasts, Nigel Farage’s party will reach around 26 percent, while the traditional Conservatives will fight with Labor for second place with around 18 percent each. The British Greens could also be among the big winners, as they lure away many voters from Labor with a decidedly left-wing campaign.
The King’s Nightmare: Britain could become the new Spain
The predicted success of reform in particular is causing great nervousness in Great Britain. Because unlike previous right-wing parties, Nigel Farage’s movement now appears to be much more professionally organized. Once ridiculed as an outsider, Farage is now leading a party for the first time that is well positioned and relies on a data-driven election campaign with targeted mobilization. To achieve this, the party is investing heavily in advertising on social media. Farage is taking his cue from the pro-European Liberal Democrats, who have been known for years for their precise local election campaign strategy.
But the British state is facing a test not only because of the likely success of the right-wing populists from Reform UK. Because of the weakness of the Labor Party, the separatist party Plaid Cymru could become the strongest force in Wales for the first time. In Scotland and Northern Ireland, two parties that want to achieve secession from the United Kingdom or are at least flirting with it have long been the strongest force. In three out of four states, parties with separatist tendencies could become the strongest force.
Even if it’s just about the local elections on Thursday, the gloomy outlook is likely to set alarm bells ringing in London. A look at Spain shows how difficult governing can become when important parts of the country openly flirt with secession from the central state. This is not good news for the already deeply divided political landscape in Great Britain: forming a government will become even more complicated, and political stability will be an even rarer commodity. (aargauerzeitung.ch)
You might also be interested in: