Reform UK Thought Caerphilly Was The Breakthrough – It Became The Breakdown

Right, so Reform UK like to present themselves as the party that will “take back control.” But wherever they’ve actually had to exercise any, things have fallen apart almost immediately. In Cornwall, the party won the most seats on the council in 2025 — twenty-eight out of eighty-seven — and still couldn’t form an administration. Within months, both the group leader and deputy leader had resigned, and the whole project remained stuck in stalemate. In Kent, a leaked internal meeting recorded the group leader telling councillors to “suck it up,” which was followed by suspensions and a visibly fractured grouping. And now in Caerphilly — where Reform were believed to be the odds on favourites — Plaid Cymru ended up winning decisively to block them from getting their second Senedd seat. So the only place where Reform UK are unstoppable is in the headlines and media appearances. Everywhere responsibility appears, they collapse. They could run a proverbial in a brewery no matter how many pints Nigel Farage waves at the camera. The gap between the reality and the record is the story. They aren’t competent and they are beatable.
Right so Reform UK present themselves and certainly national polling does as well, as a party on the verge of national power. They point to rising support in opinion polling, dissatisfaction with the Conservative Party, the collapse of trust in Labour under its current direction, which is basically copying them and providing Farage with free advertising to vote for him instead and a belief that the political establishment no longer reflects the interests of large parts of the population. What Farage has been very good at and has been given ample opportunity to do, is to tap into the public mood of disillusionment, that it is real, that it is justified and he’s been reaping the rewards of that, despite the reality beneath those headlines and his rhetoric often very easily being exposed as a sham, though that rarely makes the front pages. Reform position themselves as the expression of that disillusionment, when they offer nothing but more of the same, likely far worse in fact. This has created a narrative that their ascent is inevitable, or at least natural, as though it follows directly from the political conditions of the present moment. But electoral polling does not measure governing capacity. It only measures sentiment supposedly, many would argue it influences opinion rather than reflects it and that’s a fair argument to make when you consider who might be paying for a given poll and the pollster wanting repeat business, might be inclined to deliver a desirable outcome. So when a party claims readiness to govern, the only reliable test is what happens when responsibility is actually placed in their hands.
Local government provides that test. Councils do not deal in slogans. They deal in budgets, service delivery, regulatory compliance, contract oversight, public accountability and negotiation between differing social needs. A party that is ready to govern nationally should be able to demonstrate competence in the place where governance is most direct. If a party cannot run a council group without breakdown, it cannot run a government. There is nothing ideological about that statement, it applies equally to ever politician of every party. It’s obvious isn’t it?
So lets take a couple of case studies. Reform UK’s performance in Cornwall Council and Kent County Council provide clear, documented evidence of a party that can win votes but cannot maintain stable governance once power is acquired. This exposes a contradiction at the centre of their national claim. They argue that they are the party capable of restoring control, stability and direction. Yet when placed in positions where stability and direction must be exercised, the party has failed to maintain organisational coherence.
In the Cornwall Council election back in May of this year, Reform UK became the largest party on the council. They won twenty-eight out of the eighty-seven seats. This was a significant result. It marked a major change in the political composition of the council, which was formerly Conservative led. However, being the largest party did not lead to forming the administration. Cornwall Council remained under no overall control, as is typical for it in fact. A governing arrangement was instead formed by Liberal Democrat and Independent councillors, because nobody would form one with Reform, the Tories and Labour unable to, even if they wanted to, the Tories going from 43 seats down to just 7 and labour from an already miserable 5 seats to 4. The largest party in seat count did not govern.
The failure to form an administration is not insignificant. It is an indicator of governing capacity. Forming an administration requires negotiation, compromise, local credibility, and the ability to build working political trust. Reform UK were unable to accomplish this. That might not reflect a national vote picture, it certainly doesn’t by polling, but that is the first stage of the collapse.
The second stage, which is arguably more important and very much does reflect on a potential national government followed quickly. Within six months of the election, the deputy leader of the Reform UK group on Cornwall Council, Councillor Rowland O’Connor, resigned from the group to sit as an independent, stating publicly that his departure was due to a difference in views. Days later, the group leader himself, Councillor Rob Parsonage, also stepped down, with reporting at the time describing internal disputes and grievances within the group. The largest party on the council had now not only failed to form an administration, but had entered a visible leadership collapse under the pressure of responsibility. Then there is the matter of Rob Parsonage’s wife Christine, who, despite living in Torpoint, represents a seat near Newquay and as a result barely ever shows up for meetings there. Reform UK achieved electoral success in Cornwall. Reform UK then proved unable to translate that success into authority. Reform UK then experienced internal breakdown under the pressure of responsibility.
The same pattern appeared in Kent County Council. A recording of an internal meeting of Reform UK councillors was leaked to the press. In the recording, the group leader told colleagues who disagreed with internal decisions that they were “going to have to [effing] suck it up.” The recording was verified and widely reported. Following the leak, Reform UK suspended several of its own councillors on grounds that the situation had brought the party into disrepute. The result was a visible breakdown in group cohesion.
Again, the structure of the collapse is the same. Internal disagreement emerged. There was no stable mechanism to resolve it. Leadership responded through coercion rather than negotiation. The situation escalated into public disciplinary crisis. The group emerged weaker and more fragmented.
These are not isolated incidents. They occurred in different regions, under different leaders, within the same timeframe, under the same party banner. The recurrence indicates systemic cause. The cause is found in the structure of the party.
Reform UK is organised around highly centralised leadership authority. Nigel Farage is the dominant public figure and internal reference point. The party’s councillor base, those who stood for election this time around under a Reform banner has grown largely through defection from other parties, particularly the Tories, rather than through long-term organisational development. This means many councillors do not share a political culture, do not have a shared history of local campaigning, and do not have networks of mutual accountability. And so when pressure is applied, there is no institutional cohesion to withstand it.
This is where the structural explanation becomes clear. Reform UK has built a party designed to mobilise anger, not to administer institutions. Mobilisation and administration require fundamentally different internal conditions. Mobilisation requires message discipline, emotional resonance and the capacity to convert dissatisfaction into votes. They’ve cracked the latter part, they certainly tap into anger and emotion, but lack everything else. Administration requires negotiation, shared internal authority, procedural discipline and the ability to make compromises that do not destroy trust. Instead everything is pretty much top down diktat from Farage.
Reform UK’s organisational culture reflects mobilisation, but not administration. The events in Cornwall and Kent are the result.
If a party cannot operate a council group without imploding, it is not prepared to operate a government. If a party cannot negotiate coalitions at local level, it cannot negotiate Cabinet government, interdepartmental policy coordination or international diplomacy. If a party cannot maintain discipline without suspending its own councillors, it cannot maintain continuity across budget cycles, national crises or multi-year policy plans. These are structural realities. They do not change because messaging is effective or polling is strong.
This leads to the national stakes. If a party cannot govern a unitary authority, it cannot govern the United Kingdom. Local office is a smaller version of national office, not a lower form of it. It requires the same skills: administration, negotiation, coalition management, accountability. Reform UK has shown that it does not possess these skills.
Yet the narrative of inevitability persists because of the polling. Polling shows that Reform UK have gained significant support among voters who previously supported other parties. But polling does not measure trust. Polling does not measure governing readiness. Polling does not ask whether a party can run social care budgets, housing allocation systems, or procurement frameworks. Polling basically only measures discontent.
This is where the Caerphilly by-election from last night demonstrates something essential. Reform UK entered the contest as a party perceived to be gaining momentum. Plaid Cymru, however, won decisively. Plaid did not mimic Reform UK. They did not adopt the language of resentment or collapse. They ran a campaign based on local representation, community-rooted governance, and continuity of presence. Reform UK lost because voters were given a credible, accountable alternative that offered them hope and change after 26 years of Labour representation in the Senedd and the first time Labour has lost there in 115 years. It is notable that the Labour Party was basically born in the Welsh valleys and it might well have just died there too.
This shows that Reform UK is not inevitable. Reform UK is avoidance made political. Where alternatives exist, Reform can and does lose. Where alternatives do not exist, Reform rises.
This is why Labour under its current leadership has struggled to dislodge Reform UK and has if anything enabled them all the more. Labour has repeatedly mirrored Reform UK’s rhetorical frames rather than providing a clear, different rationale for governance. When Labour imitates Reform UK, the electorate concludes that Reform UK sets the political direction. A party that follows does not reclaim trust. It acknowledges its loss. Starmer has been campaigning like a loser.
In contrast, Plaid Cymru and the Green Party under Zack Polanski have offered different political foundations. They do not attempt to outdo Reform UK on confrontation. They articulate stable commitments to community representation, democratic accountability and material improvement. They do not define themselves in relation to Reform UK. They define themselves in relation to the people they represent. This is how Reform UK gets beaten.
The protagonists in this political landscape are therefore not the parties that chase Reform UK’s message. The protagonists are the movements committed to rebuilding local democratic practice, public service capacity, and community voice. These are the forces capable of displacing protest politics with responsible governance.
The final question is the most important though. Recognition of the pattern exists today. Reform UK have already collapsed under governing pressure in Cornwall when they couldn’t even form the administration at that. They have already fractured under leadership strain in Kent. They have already been defeated by a stable alternative in Caerphilly. The evidence is public.
The question is whether this evidence is recognised before or after national responsibility is handed to them.
If it is recognised now, Reform UK’s rise will be understood as a symptom of political abandonment — and will be reversed, can be stunted, by restoring real representation. If it is recognised later, the lesson will be learned at the level of national government, where the consequences will be immeasurably more severe.
The outcome depends on whether the electorate are offered real alternatives — and whether those alternatives are allowed to speak not in the language of protest or imitation, but in the language of governance, responsibility and repair.
The choice, in other words, is already present. The collapse has already happened where the party has been tested. The warning is already visible. The only remaining question is whether enough of us are going to hear it.
Certainly Reform UK’s fears are well known as they try on a tabloid smear against new Green leader Polanski and he instead handed them their backsides on a plate. Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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