Split Votes, Reactionary Alliances, and the Spectre of Farage: A Trotskyist View on the Tory-Reform Dilemma

The contemporary fragmentation of the British right, symbolised by the growing tensions—and possible convergence—between the Conservative Party and Reform UK, speaks to a deeper political crisis rooted in the contradictions of British capitalism. While framed by bourgeois commentators as a matter of electoral pragmatism or strategic coalition-building, a Marxist analysis, particularly through the lens of Leon Trotsky's writings on fascism, reveals a more fundamental process: the decomposition of traditional ruling-class instruments and the search for new means of class domination under conditions of deepening capitalist crisis.

The immediate concern within Conservative Party circles is that the rise of Reform UK will fatally fracture the right-wing vote, especially in marginal seats won on the back of Brexit populism in 2019. Under the first-past-the-post system, even modest gains by Reform—polling between 10% and 15% nationally—could hand Labour a supermajority, despite no major increase in its vote share. For instance, in a marginal northern constituency where the Tories won by a few thousand votes, a Reform surge could peel off just enough to allow Labour to win, even if a majority of the electorate still favours some variant of the right.

Thus emerges the strategic rationale for a pact: to preserve ruling-class influence through electoral consolidation. But the implications go far beyond parliamentary arithmetic.

Trotsky, writing in the interwar period, warned that when the traditional organs of bourgeois class rule (e.g., conservative parties, liberal institutions) can no longer maintain capitalist stability, the ruling class may turn to fascist movements. Fascism, in Trotsky's words, is "the most ferocious mobilization of the petty-bourgeoisie against the proletariat," a counter-revolutionary force aimed at destroying working-class organisation in defence of monopoly capital.

While Reform UK is not a fascist party in the classical sense—lacking both the paramilitary form and the totalitarian aspiration—it nonetheless plays a structurally similar role: channeling popular discontent along nationalist, racist, and anti-socialist lines. It blames immigration, environmental policy, and “woke” institutions for the crisis, rather than capitalism itself. In this regard, it functions as a reactionary safety valve, mobilising the ruined middle class and sections of the working class not around class struggle, but around a programme of revanchist nationalism and cultural backlash.

The Tory-Reform flirtation is thus more than an electoral tactic. It is a symptom of the declining ability of traditional bourgeois parties to mediate social contradictions. Just as German conservatism opened the door to Hitler in hopes of crushing the left and stabilising capital, British conservatism is increasingly tempted to ride the tiger of right-populism to hold power.

In their willingness to adopt anti-immigrant rhetoric, attack climate policy, and slash DEI initiatives, Conservatives are already conceding political ground to Reform’s agenda. A pact would only formalise what is already an ideological drift toward the far right. As Trotsky warned in What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat, every compromise with fascistic forces only emboldens them, while disorganising and demoralising the working class.

For Marxists, this moment underscores the limits of parliamentary democracy under capitalism. The electoral system—already distorted by class power—is now becoming a battleground between collapsing bourgeois parties and insurgent reactionaries. That the Tories feel compelled to "hop into bed" with Farage is not a sign of strategic ingenuity, but of terminal decline. The capitalist class, finding its old instruments inadequate, searches for new ones that can uphold order and suppress dissent.

Trotsky’s response to fascist advance was not to defend bourgeois democracy in the abstract, but to build united fronts of working-class organisations capable of resisting both reaction and reformism. For today’s socialist movement, the rise of Reform and the Tory-Reform dynamic signal the urgent need for political independence from all wings of the bourgeoisie. Only a mass workers' party, rooted in trade unions and class struggle, can offer a real alternative to both neoliberal decay and nationalist reaction.