Reform UK heavyweights Nigel Farage and Richard Tice have issued a series of swipes at an ex-Labour leader after the party was dubbed a “threat to democracy”.
Baroness Harman, who led Labour over two four-month stints in 2010 and 2015 before being handed a peerage earlier this year, had warned that Reform UK offered “easy answers” which would increase distrust in politics.
She also said Nigel Farage’s party posed “not just a threat to individual parties, but a threat to democracy” – sparking accusations of “panic” and comparisons to the US Democrats’ failed 2024 presidential campaign as a result.
Deputy leader Richard Tice, reacting to Baroness Harman’s Sky News appearance this morning, said: “P for Panic by Harriet Harman… We at Reform UK are terrifying both Tories and Labour.”
Both Farage and Tice have taken swipes at Labour in the wake of Harriet Harman’s comments
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While Farage prodded: “The Labour Party are now using the same ‘threat to democracy’ line that the Democrats used about Trump. Look how that worked out for them!”
Reform had finished second to Labour in 89 seats at this summer’s General Election – with Baroness Harman admitting the surging party had left Labour “concerned”.
And just days after July 4, Lee Anderson told GB News: “We’re gunning for Labour now and they’ll not know what’s hit them.”
But Baroness Harman did praise Reform’s subsequent local by-election performances, pointing to several cases in which the party had taken in “40 per cent support… from a standing start” while Labour’s vote share slumped.
MORE ON REFORM UK:
Baroness Harman said Reform were a threat to democracy – but also said the party will ‘replace the Conservatives at the next election’
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She also claimed that Reform posed a greater threat to the Conservative Party than to Labour – and warned Kemi Badenoch of the consequences of not acknowledging the populist party’s challenge from the right.
Her remarks echoed those she made on Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast, in which she said Reform would replace the Tories at the next election altogether.
“I feel quite conflicted about this because I don’t want to talk up Reform,” she said.
“But I actually think that Reform are going to replace the Conservatives at the next election because they seem to have an argument and they seem to know what that argument is.”
Kemi Badenoch has quashed reports that the Tories are under threat from Reform’s surging popularity
GB NEWS
“At the moment [Reform] are talking a good talk and Kemi is not talking at all,” she said, later adding: “I actually think the Conservatives are going to be finished and Reform is going to take over.”
But Badenoch has quashed reports that the Tories are under threat from Reform’s surging popularity – this morning, she told GB News she was “here for the long haul”.
The Tory leader labelled Farage’s party a “fan club” rather than a “members organisation” – and claimed the Reform leader was an “individual personality” while the Tories were a “serious institution”.
“Farage is talking, but he does not have the experience – we do. So what I’m saying to your viewers is, there is only one party that has the experience, that knows what went wrong and knows how to solve this, and that’s the Conservatives,” she told The People’s Channel.
