Reform UK is the first party in more than 100 years to field more candidates than Conservatives and Labour in the upcoming May elections, a new analysis has found.
It comes after Reform UK's former head of communications told GB News that unleashing more than a thousand candidates upon the electorate is risky as they are all "untried and untested".
The analysis by ElectionMapsUK listed each party plus independent candidates by the number of people standing - and Reform came out on top.
One party insider tells GB News that it marks the first time since 1902 that any party has stood more candidates than both the Tories and Labour - with 1,630 compared to 1,594 and 1,540 respectively, out of 1,641 seats.
Reform UK is the first party in more than 100 years to field more candidates than Conservatives and Labour
GB News
Farage's ex-advisor Gawain Towler tells GB News that Reform is acutely aware of the challenge ahead.
"The council elections are hard bloody graft. We are talking about more than a thousand untried, untested candidates," he said.
To separate the wheat from the chaff, the party subjects its aspiring councillors to a "hardcore" vetting process, Reform's former head of communications says, adding that they are "failing 50 per cent of people who apply for candidacy".
It's not just the challenge of scale that Reform has to overcome - it has a history of letting in "dodgy" candidates, says Tim Montgomerie, a long-standing Tory who defected to the party last year.
He told GB News: "They [Reform] have had a problem in the past with certain dodgy candidates getting through. So the party must vet candidates so that they don't have one good May [election] with lots of candidates being elected only to find out those same candidates cause trouble over the following months."
Reform will contest almost all of the 1,641 council seats up for re-election on 1 May, followed by the Conservatives and Labour fielding 1,594 and 1,540 candidates, respectively (see chart above).
In the 2024 local elections, the party fielded candidates in just 12 per cent of available council seats. However, this year, Farage announced that Reform would be running "a full list of candidates across the entire country".
"I don't think we'll have had a council election that is so keenly anticipated by the people who give a toss about our politics," Towler told GB News, adding: "It's really high stakes."
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To separate the wheat from the chaff, the party subjects its aspiring councillors to a "hardcore" vetting process
Nigel FarageThe party will be buoyed by recent polling, which has improved since the Rupert Lowe saga. A mega-poll released today suggests that Reform would emerge as the leading party if a general election was held now, potentially positioning Farage as the next Prime Minister.
Based on a survey of 5,180 individuals, the analysis forecasts that the rising Right-wing party would capture 25 per cent of the vote, edging out both Labour and the Conservatives, who are projected to tie at 23 per cent each.
The poll predicts Reform would claim 227 seats in the House of Commons—a significant increase from the five it won in last year’s election— while Labour’s tally would drop from 412 to 180, and the Conservatives would see a modest rise from 121 to 130 seats.
However, Towler urges his party to not get distracted by the noise, adding: "You don't have to win the ratings war every single week."