Reform has been warned that defecting Tories will damage its brand – and the first evidence is in

Since Reform UK took in several high-profile Conservative defectors in the space of a few weeks, a debate has arisen about whether these new recruits benefit or harm Nigel Farage’s party.

Some suggest that the loss of Suella Braverman and Robert Jenrick, among others, hastens the demise of the Conservative party, to Reform’s benefit. But there’s also the risk that in embracing high-profile Conservatives, Reform is tying its image to the unpopular government they once represented. Apparently there is danger for Farage in becoming “Tory party 2.0” – a new version of the same party the electorate roundly rejected in 2024.

Polling since the defections should indeed give Farage some pause here. Recent figures from YouGov show that significantly fewer people now see Reform and the Conservatives as all that different from each other. The proportion who see the parties as different has fallen by ten percentage points since September.

Polling also shows that 63% of Labour voters 67% of Liberal Democrat voters and 64% of Green voters didn’t like Reform anyway and therefore haven’t changed their opinions about the party since the defections. No surprises there.

Conservatives are the only group for whom this is not a majority position. As a percentage, the group of Conservative voters whose negative opinion of Reform UK remains unchanged is about half that of other parties.

That’s partly because a bigger chunk of Conservative voters are positive about Reform UK in general. Almost a quarter say they were already, and remain, positive about Reform, compared to around 5% for supporters of other parties. But it’s also because the defections have had a much bigger effect on Conservative voters. While the proportion whose opinion has worsened is similar to other parties, over a fifth of Conservatives say they now have a more favourable view of Reform as a result of the defections. Negligible numbers of other parties’ supporters feel that way.

That the Conservatives stand out here matters. If Reform is going to push past its recent plateau in the polls, it will mostly likely be by winning over more Conservative voters. And if “Tory party 2.0” is likely to appeal to anyone, it’s Tory voters.

As political scientists have been arguing for a while, Reform is not going to win over many people who currently intend to vote Labour, Liberal Democrat, or Green. Those voters are in the so-called “left bloc”. Reform and the Conservatives form the “right bloc”. Voters rarely move between blocs; they move within them.

This bloc structure suggests that Reform needs two things to work in its favour. First, it needs to look more viable than the Conservatives. If voters can’t tell which of the two has a better chance of forming a government, it becomes harder to unite behind either. Second, Reform needs enough right-bloc voters’ preference for the Conservatives to be weak enough that they would consider switching to Reform in a pinch.

The defections help on both fronts. High-profile Conservatives moving to Reform make it look like those politicians see Reform as a viable route into government. On the preference side, the defections are improving more Conservatives’ opinions of Reform than they are worsening.

Conservatives are also coming to see the two parties as less different, and that is just as plausibly a good thing as a bad thing for Reform. If Reform looks closer to a party they already like, Conservative voters may have fewer qualms about switching.

But the risk here is that potential Reform voters will be turned off. And indeed, 17% of Reform supporters say the defections have made them more negative about the party – the highest figure for any party’s supporters.

Reform has done especially well at attracting people who did not vote at all in 2024. No surprise there: the arrival of a radical right-wing challenger party has been shown to boost turnout by mobilising voters who feel their views are not represented by the mainstream.

Another risk is that these voters may be more prone to disengaging again if Reform starts to look too much like part of the traditional party system. Both theory and evidence suggest that when parties are too similar, voters are less likely to turn out as the perceived difference made by their vote reduces. Populist parties are especially vulnerable here because their voters tend to share a common disillusionment about democracy with non-voters.

Coming to look ever more like Tory party 2.0 might not dent Reform’s chances of bringing Tory voters on board. But it does risk disenchanting people who were on board before, when they looked like something completely different from the status quo – or those yet to be convinced of voting at all in the next election.

Matthew Barnfield receives funding from The British Academy.