Reform UK's rise in London 'a threat to main parties'

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, reportedly has more than 15,000 members in London

Is Reform UK on the rise in London?

The party, led by Nigel Farage, says it has quadrupled its membership in the year since the general election, where they won five seats, including one for Farage in Clacton.

Reform UK had the third-highest vote share in the country at the 2024 election - just over 14% - with half a million more votes than the Liberal Democrats.

According to polling, London has a smaller share of Reform voters, but it has a higher share of people who say they would consider voting Reform in the future.

Not far from the capital, Reform has control of Kent County Council, which had long been Conservative.

Reform UK also has its first London Assembly member, Alex Wilson, who was elected in May 2024.

Prof Tony Travers says Reform UK could do well in some outer London borough elections

London politics expert Prof Tony Travers told the Politics London programme that the party "could do very well indeed in some of the outer London boroughs, particularly I would say those that voted Leave in the Brexit referendum, so Barking and Dagenham, Havering, Bexley, Hillingdon, even Sutton".

He added: "Those are the places I think they could well do a lot of damage to the incumbent parties."

Laila Cunningham, a Westminster city councillor who last week defected from the Conservatives to Reform UK, told Politics London that her residents "would always point to how they were let down by the previous Conservative administration and how they wouldn't vote for them".

She added: "Honesty, I think, is really lacking in politics now and I just couldn't defend their record."

Laila Cunningham was a Conservative councillor on Westminster Council but switched to Reform UK

Cunningham said Reform UK were "serious about getting this country back on track, they're serious about cutting immigration, cutting crime, cutting waste, cutting tax and people say that's right wing but that used to be mainstream a few years ago".

Deirdre Costigan, Labour MP for Ealing Southall, told Politics London that Reform UK's "key policy seems to be a massive tax cut for the rich".

She added: "How are they going to pay for that tax cut? The only way of paying for that is to cut public services. So, we'll have less police on the streets of London and we won't have an NHS."

Conservative London Assembly member Alessandro Georgiou told the programme that Farage "is a tax-and-spend socialist, if you take what he says".

Watch the full Politics London programme on BBC iPlayer.