Reform Poses a Clear and Present Danger. Muslims Must Organise and Fight Back

In May, Brits will go to the polls to vote in council and mayoral elections. These elections will be of great significance to the Muslim community because Reform, the far-right party led by Nigel Farage and that is home to many MPs who have histories of Islamophobia, is predicted to make big gains.

According to some of the latest research, in the roughly 200 by-elections held since last year’s July general election, Reforms’s vote share has increased by more than 9% – more than any other party. As some previously predicted, Reform’s attempt to appeal to disaffected Conservative Party voters may translate into success, as highlighted by research predicting that the Tories will lose “a large amount” of councils to Reform. Currently, Reform holds 113 council seats, largely made up of defectors from other parties. Around 15 of its council seats were secured in elections, seven of which were taken from Labour and four from the Tories. The remainder of the 115 includes 66 defections to Reform from the Tories, three from Labour, one from the Liberal Democrats with the remainder being independent councillors.

When it comes to the May elections, Reform have announced their intention to run in all of the 23 councils that are up for grabs. The party’s confidence will no doubt be buoyed by the fact they appear to perform better in majority Tory-held areas than Labour-held zones. This is good news for Farage because Labour maintains majority control over only 1 of the councils holding elections, while the Tories hold majority control over 16. Before then however, there are three council by-elections to be held this month that are being seen as important litmus tests for how well Reform might perform in the later May elections: Maldon North in Essex, Penllergaer in Swansea and Illford South in London. While the available polling data does not necessarily show Reform winning in these areas, it does show steadily increasing levels of support.

Another bellwether by-election that many will be watching as an indicator of how strongly support for Reform is growing over the traditional mainstream parties is to be held on May 1 in the Cheshire constituency of Runcorn and Helsby. In the July general election, Labour won Runcorn by an impressive 54% of the vote, with Reform’s candidate coming in second with just 18%. However, now ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury resigned this month after being convicted on assault charges for punching one of his constituents. Since then, pollsters show Reform eking out a narrow victory, which would undoubtedly send shockwaves throughout Labour’s ranks and the political establishment more broadly. Generally, Reform is hoping that it will be able to snatch councils that were won by the Tories during the height of Boris Johnson’s popularity, but which have started showing dissolutionment with them over what Farage has characterised as their “betrayal” of voters over issues such as immigration.

Reform: An Islamophobic Menace

As a political leader, Farage has long been a spectre on the right of British politics who largely gained his notoriety challenging Britain’s membership in the European Union and questioning the merits of multiculturalism. However, he, like many of his fellow Reform leaders, has taken particular aim at one minority group in particular: Muslims. As leader of the pro-Brexit United Kingdom Independent Party (UKIP) between 2006-2009 and again from 2010-2016, Farage made scores of bigoted remarks about Muslim communities. For example, in 2013 he reportedly said that Muslims are “coming here to take us over.” In 2015 he allegedly claimed that alleged public anxiety over immigration was justified because some Muslims want to be “a fifth column and kill us.” During his campaign for Brexit, Farage infamously posed under a poser with the words “breaking point” emblazoned above a crowd of dark-skinned refugees. More recently, he was condemned for saying on live television that Muslims “loathe” British values.

Unfortunately, Farage is not alone among Reform MPs in making such shocking remarks. Former Conservative Party Chairman, Lee Anderson, was welcomed into Reform after being suspended from the Tory Party for arguing that London’s Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan was being “control[led]” by “Islamists.” Anderson has also made a series of inflammatory comments about refugees fleeing war and poverty, on one occasion saying they should “f*** off back to France.” In June 2024 Channel 4 News broadcast an investigation which revealed the level of grotesque racism among some Reform members campaigning for Farage in his bid to become MP for Clacton-on-Sea. The footage shows one individual calling Islam “the most disgusting cult” and saying that the army should use small boats of refugees crossing the English Channel for “target practice.” This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to examples of the Islamophobia and racism at the heart of Reform.

Yet, alarmingly, as noted above the party of Farage has only seen an increase in popularity since the general election in July 2024, where Reform secured four Parliamentary seats and came in second in 98 constituencies. Additionally, they secured 14.3% of the popular vote, making it the third largest party after Labour and the Conservatives. Since then, public opinion polling has shown that Reform is on track to become the most popular political party in the UK. Indeed, one such poll carried out by YouGov in early February 2025 found that if a snap election were held, 25% voters would choose Reform, with 24% picking Labour and 21% opting for the Conservatives.

There is, very concerningly, an international dimension to the Reform story. According to reports, Farage has sought to cultivate the backing of very powerful political forces, namely in the form of the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who now also holds a prominent place in the Trump Administration. In late 2024, reports emerged claiming that Musk was going to donate several millions of dollars to Reform after he had met with Farage in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Logo estate. However, a rift emerged between the two men after Musk tried to pressure Farage into allowing jailed Islamophobe Tommy Robinson into Reform when he is released from prison, which Farage refused to do. Musk later retaliated with the claim that Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead Reform, causing an enduring divide between them. It remains to be seen if relations between the two will be rectified, but for now, what is deeply concerning is that Farage was willing to entertain support from a man as divisive as Elon Musk in the first place, who has repeatedly amplified Islamophobic tropes to his over 200 million X followers.

In fact, Reform are arguably the British node in a far bigger transatlantic network of far-right parties being cultivated and promoted by Musk and the Trump Administration. Early this year, Musk endorsed the neo-fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD) which has previously called for the mass deportation of refugees and Muslims from Germany. Both Musk and Trump are also allies of Hungary’s far-right President, Victor Orban, who is known for spewing Islamophobic rhetoric in his speeches. In February this year, US Vice President JD Vance gave a speech at the Munich Security Conference, usually reserved for matters of foreign and defence policy, to chastise European leaders for what he framed as their weak policies on immigration. Clearly, we are seeing a pattern wherein the Trump Administration, and senior advisor to the president Elon Musk in particular, are attempting to coalesce European governments around a similar brand of conservative nationalism which emphasises closing borders to refugees and the promotion of so-called ‘Judeo-Christian values’ while at the same time demonising Islam and Muslims. It appears that Reform are the British chapter in this bigger picture. Indeed, Musk has already attempted to use his X platform to pressure Prime Minister Keir Starmer into carrying out an investigation into grooming gangs, which the far-right try to present as being uniquely made up of South Asian Muslim men. Even though research has shown that most grooming gangs are made up of white men under the age of 30, the facts were not enough to prevent Musk from endorsing the Muslim grooming gangs narrative. There is good reason to believe that, if Reform were to increase its number of councillors in the local elections, then the kind of divisive agenda promoted by Musk and the Trump Administration would find its way into our council halls and centres of local social policy-making.

Muslims Need to Organise

It should be clear that an ongoing increase in public support for Reform can only be bad news for minority groups across the UK – in particular Muslims and refugees. These groups are likely to be increasingly vilified and scapegoated for Britain’s problems as Reform seeks to undermine the Conservatives from the right, while simultaneously portraying Labour as too weak to confront the alleged creeping ‘Islamisation of Britain.’ In order to forestall a terrible scenario in the May elections in which Reform makes further gains, Muslim communities and their allies must organise themselves effectively. This does not only mean that Muslims should ensure that they turn out to vote – although they must do this – but it also includes making sure that people understand the bigotry that Reform stands for, and the dangers that it poses to British democracy and the various ethno-religious groups that make up the multicultural melting pot of modern Britain.

Awareness-raising campaigns on social media and across our cities will be necessary to push back against the Reform agenda. At the same time, directly engaging with our MPs by writing to them and calling upon them to condemn Reform and its toxic ideas in Parliament is also an important step that anyone can take (click here to contact your local MP). Specifically, pressure must be kept on Conservative MPs not to allow their party to shift even further to the right out of fear that Reform could chip away at their support among the white working classes. Racism and Islamophobia must never be allowed to become mainstream political devices, any more than they already are, used by our politicians to whip up support among the electorate. The May elections will mark a significant litmus test showing how far to the right swathes of British society are drifting. Muslims and their allies must be prepared to politically mobilise as that month approaches by showcasing the positive contributions that Muslims have made to Britain, while preparing to tactically vote to keep Reform out of our local councils. The prospect of widespread success for Reform at the ballot box in May would be a grim prospect, which would almost certainly embolden Islamophobes across the country and perhaps even throughout the Western world more broadly.