Has Britain Shifted to the Right?
Since the 2024 election and the dramatic rise of Reform, numerous commentators have argued that Britain is ‘shifting to the Right’. And you can see where they are coming from.
Reform is the most right-wing party Britain has had since the BNP contested the 2010 election, and it has led in every single poll since April of 2025. Over the last six months or so, 30% of prospective voters have said they would back Reform — about 10 points more than have said they would back Labour, the next most popular party.
However, closer scrutiny suggests that the Rightward shift is overstated. The chart below plots the combined poll share for Reform and the Conservatives in every poll since the last election. While the Right-wing share did rise in the months after the election, it has remained basically constant at around 48% since January of 2025.
The initial rise following the election could be taken as evidence for a Rightward shift. However, this turns out to be very common in both the UK and Europe: incumbent parties typically see their poll share fall in the months after winning an election, a phenomenon dubbed ‘thermostatic electorates’. It is less indicative of a major shift in opinion than of disappointment with the party of government.
What is more, the average Right-wing poll share that has prevailed for the past year (48%) is almost exactly equal to the combined vote share of UKIP and the Conservatives at the 2015 election (49%). Which seems to suggest that the British electorate isn’t substantially more right-wing than it was in 2015 — over a decade ago. In fact, YouGov’s Left–Right placement tracker shows little change since 2019.
On the other hand, Reform is further Right than the Conservatives, so one could argue the electorate has shifted Right given that a greater fraction of the Right-leaning half of the electorate now supports the more Right-wing of the two Right-wing parties. Plus, the share of Britons who identify as “very” or “fairly” right-wing has increased by 3 points, which isn’t nothing.
The problem with this argument is that the same thing is true on the Left. The Greens are further to the Left than Labour, so a greater fraction of the Left-leaning half of the electorate now supports the most Left-wing of the three Left-wing parties. (The Greens are currently polling in the mid teens, higher than the Lib Dems.) And the share of Britons who identify as “very” or “fairly” left-wing has also increased by 3 points.
Rather than Britain having shifted decisively to the Right, there has simply been a collapse in support for the two establishment parties, coinciding with rise of Reform on the Right and the Greens on the Left.
Of course, Britain’s first-past-the-post system still gives the edge to Reform, as the single largest party in terms of poll share (though this could be reduced through progressive tactical voting). Going from 5 seats at the last election to leading in the polls is an impressive feat from Nigel Farage’s Party, but the Left in Britain hasn’t gone away.
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I wouldn’t classify the Fake Conservative Party as “right wing”. Perhaps some of their deluded or deceitful MPs, members and supporters think or say they are, but they just look like Big Government Nanny State Globalist Woke Socialists to me.
I’m not even sure Reform are that “right wing” TBH, other than being a bit more overtly nationalistic.
Whatever they say about Jenrick betraying the party is nothing in comparison with the way the party has betrayed the country in the pretence of conservatism. But I suppose they could be classed as conservative on the basis that they are in fact conserving the existing political consensus of the day. I think this derives from the general adherence to EU policies which all parties supported. I would go as far as to say that the Tories removed the power of its members to influence party policy simply because it could not support the instructions of members which were incompatible with EU policy. The same goes in perhaps different ways to all established parties. So the existing party are effectively the rump of the old party. In many ways this is similar in other countries of the EU. It will resolve itself when one of the countries gets rid of their establishment parties and the UK being sort of outside will have a big influence on the outcome if we are the first to break the establishment consensus. That will probably show the electorate in other countries that their leaders are equally rotten. What worries me is the longer this… Read more »
I agree
Advance UK are now slowly catching the eye of the voters?
I’d not heard of them.
Wikipedia says they are “far right” Lol.
This is what it says about their “ideology and policy”.
“In April 2025, Habib announced that the Integrity Party would abolish quangos created under Tony Blair and enact “Liz Truss style” tax-cuts.[17]
Advance professes principles such as sovereignty, freedom of speech, democracy, and equality before the law. It also stands for “Christian constitutional values” and rejects the influence of institutions such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum.”
I don’t think the far left twats who edit Wikipedia do irony.
Conservative Party are not even Conservative. They don’t know who they are.
I ignore the polls.
I’d prefer to think that people are just waking up a bit and want change. Apparently, “Reform” represents that 😂
BNP was not right wing. It was socialist racist. Authoritarian.
Yes. The brainwashing about Fascism and National Socialism being “Far Right” rather than a development of Socialism, is deep seated.
They were right about immigration, though.
You mean like the BLM?
You may be confusing the BNP with the Labour Party
No. The “working class” always was socially conservative and still is.
What shifted to the Left was the Conservative Party to join Labour and Lib Dems. Up to the 1970s Labour was largely socially conservative, a reflection of its working class support.
The reality is the Establishment has gone off in a different direction to serve its own interests, and has left the population behind.
BNP was not Right wing, it was Leftist/Fascist.
Reform UK is the most Right wing Party since the Tories of the 19th Century.
As I see it the entire left/right dichotomy, while potentially useful, obscures more than it reveals. Surely the most important difference is between the nativist-patriot political standpoint (by that I DO NOT mean anything directly to do with race or skin colour but just Britons who identify themselves as British) and the internationalist-globalist faction, that has it that a UK government’s primary responsibility is to the ‘world community’ and which, among other things, demands adherence to supra-national bodies and laws, regardless of any national cost/benefit assessment?
That is indeed an important difference but equally important IMO is the tension between the individual and the collective. Rights, freedoms, property rights, what the state is allowed to do to the individual for what reasons.
May I disagree, important though your point is.
The critical issue is whether the Country (UK, Britain even England, Scotland) is the focus of your loyalty. The place from which you seek inspiration and protection.
Or is it your religion or some woke ideology. Do you see yourself loyal to Islam above country. Loyal to LBGT etc above country. ECHR above country. David above country
Thus is the key.
May I disagree, important though your point is.
The critical issue is whether the Country (UK, Britain even England, Scotland) is the focus of your loyalty. The place from which you seek inspiration and protection.
Or is it your religion or some woke ideology. Do you see yourself loyal to Islam above country. Loyal to LBGT etc above country. ECHR above country. Davos above country
ThIs is the key.
Perhaps the ‘drift’ has been leftwards by the main ‘establishment’ parties (and the ‘blob’)?
Meanwhile the general electorate has stayed more or less in the centre until it has become impossible to ignore the drift of politicians (both Labour and Conservative) off into La La land.
Farage perhaps is not so much ‘right wing’ as the main parties believe, but a corrective to bring things back to the centre. Which the main parties dread.
To say that Reform is the most right wing party since the BNP is a devious way of smearing by association. Reform is no more right wing than the Conservatives were forty to fifty years ago. The population has drifted towards the left possibly as a result of too much peace and too much plenty, a thought pinched from Rod Liddle.
Less than that I’d say – late 1990’s style tories
No.
The political class and civil servants have shifted to the left.
The nightmare scenario at the next election is a coalition of lefties, with Greens in charge of energy, the SNP in charge of devolution, and the Lib Dems in charge of defense … until the EU resumes control of everything.
You could argue that Conservatives since Cameron have been barely right of the Greens, maybe a slight shift under Kemi.
Reform are only what traditional Conservatives wish the party actually was, its not really a shift to the right, its just the disenfranchised moving to where the right should be.
You would think people might be coming to their senses after decades of left wing governments started with Major, and the huge decline in the country bar the occassional good spell of growth.
The prevailing narrative is that of the left, such that traditional British values are now labelled as “right” or “far right”. These labels are then used as magnets to attract terms of opprobrium such as “racist”.
Have you noticed the Tories are saying hurty things about Robert Jenrick who was their member and deputy leader until yesterday. Seems only the Uniparty is allowed to use hurty words.
That picture of Farage sums him up perfectly: a tacky showman.
I’m still waiting for a right-wing policy from Reform.
Is Robert Jenrick the first member of the Privy Council in Reform. I hope Reform does NOT accept Privy Councillor briefings as that way they are silenced.
Britain is pretty much split. The communists (Labour, Lib Dumbs, Green Islamo-left)
There is no political solution to our major problems: immigration and the Muslamics.
Exactly so. My biggest fear is a Green /LibDem coalition which would easily win in many parts of the country.
I would argue that the whole system has shifted to the left. What is now considered right or far right would have been in the middle a few decades ago.
I fail to understand why so many commentators place such emphasis on polls.
“Has Britain Shifted to the Right?” Yes, but don’t worry, Nige is working on it and is busy stuffing Reform with as many failed ex fake conservatives as he can, even adding Nadhim Zahawi to the ranks last week. I expect the results to begin appearing in Reform membership and polling shortly.
Left v Right no longer applies.
The correct definition now is National Preference (or Putting GB First if you prefer) v Globalist Preference (International Socialism and levelling down the world).
We have mostly always been to the right. —–It is just that “right” has been attacked relentlessly by the consolidated media in an attempt to convince us all that Left of Centre thinking is compassionate, is caring, is fair, and all of politie society should think this way. Right of Centre thought on the other hand is cruel, and selfish. But when you ask people about individual issues and remove the terms “left” and “right” you see that most do not want this mass immigration nightmare, this pretend to save the planet eco socialist crap that sees us impoverished for nothing. They don’t want men in thehir daughters toilet and we are SICK of these Cultural Marxists.
I suspect part of the lack of apparent shift is that the native population is hidden by mass immigration of the last decade. This average hides a far more divided society.