Would Keighley and Ilkley turn turquoise for Reform UK in 2025?

A strange question, we agree, but we still asked it ...

Credit: More in Common

There are, at this point in time, better questions to ask, about the environment, for instance. It’s mid July 2025 and the latest heatwave, the third this year, is over. Gardens are parched and horsepipes have been banned. Spring, which felt more like an early summer, was the warmest and sunniest on record. June, too, was a scorcher, especially in England. Weather extremes like this and extreme rainfall, the Met Office says, are becoming the norm.

Yet, arguably, even though we are four long years away from an actual general election and a couple of months beyond a set of dramatic local elections that gave the sofa-comfy political establishment a good ole thwacking with Reform UK enjoying big, big wins, it’s still worth thinking about and responding to.

The party’s success in Keighley and Ilkley, if it were to happen, would say a lot about the state of the constituency, the wider West Yorkshire region and the country from Land's End to John o' Groats.

And it would serve up even more questions. How did we get here? Who are we? What went wrong? What do we want? What are we trying to do? In trying to answer them, we’d find ourselves looking back to the recent past for clues about how we got here and, when not satisfied, heading even further back in human history for portentous signs and answers. We’d find ourselves talking about technology and culture and identity – and how fragmented 21st century life has become.

Reform’s centre stage sharing place in contemporary British political life, often overblown and disproportionately spotlighted (the Green Party has four MPs but rarely gets the same level of media attention and this article is a case in point) is both a symptom of and a response to the permacrisis we find ourselves in.

What good, it’s fair to ask, has sensible politics done since the 2008 financial crisis? Can you even call it sensible politics? Austerity. Brexit. The mini-budget. Covid-19. Stagnation. It has been dismal. So fuck it, roll the dice. It can’t get any worse … can it?

Reform also feels very much of the time – it’s personality-driven politainment with its big promises and alternative narratives is made for a superficial, quick fire, digital age of fleeting abundance. And it’s cutting through to people. Its simple politics, catchy slogans and cartoonish characters like 30p Lee have struck a chord with the pseudomemories of a receptive if not vulnerable audience that feels like it has been hung out to dry (let’s not forget that there has only ever been one baby boomer generation and that without America’s intervention in world war two, the story might have been very different). The lack of details, the sketchiness of its policies – none of it matters.

Take climate change. Reform would scrap the UK’s commitment to getting to net zero by 2050, fast track licences of North Sea oil and gas, and grant shale gas licences on test sites for two years. In some respects, the party doesn’t even think it should be tackled and there are even members of the party who question the science behind it.

For instance, Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform, recently said that it’s “much better and cheaper that we adapt to it [climate change] sensibly rather than arrogantly think we can stop the power of the sun and volcanoes”, while a Reform councillor on Nottinghamshire County Council, Bert Bingham, was quoted as saying that he’s “never seen such nonsense as the anthropogenic global warming hoax”.

Consider the economy. It shrank in April, it shrank in May and chances are that’ll have shrunk in June, too. Labour, it seems, doesn’t actually know what to do to get it back on track, despite promising that it would kickstart economic growth. As impossible a task as it might be – with the somewhat understandable obsession with growth and GDP a philosophical problem as much an economic one – it has still had one year in government and 14 years in opposition to come up with some radical and effective ideas to turn things around.

Reform’s response to this, in part, would be to cut spending and cut taxes. The Institute of Fiscal Studies described this as “problematic” in June 2024. “Spending reductions would save less than stated, and the tax cuts would cost more than stated, by a margin of tens of billions of pounds per year,” it explained. “Meanwhile the spending increases would cost more than stated if they are to achieve their objectives.”

But everyone has their truths now. And, in any case, anger clouds judgement. In an era where a gatekeeperless media ecosystem bends towards the right – which provides “an algorithmically filtered vision of society that stokes resentments”, as the sociologist and political economist William Davies described it recently in the London Review of Books – the new pretenders are able to quietly exploit the fissure that emerge. Orthodoxy isn’t necessarily dead but it’s rotting away.

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Back then to the question. Would Keighley and Ilkley, with an electorate at the last general election of 74,367 – and made up of the wards of Craven, Ilkley, Keighley Central, Keighley East, Keighley West and Worth Valley – turn turquoise in 2025? The short answer, according to the findings of a poll by More in Common, is no. By the skin of its teeth, it would remain Tory blue and Robbie Moore, the current MP, would once again be able to say, as he did back in 2024 when he bucked the national trend (the constituency appears not to be quite the bellwether it once was), that it was "completely unexpected”.

It was indeed close. He got 40.2% of the vote backed by 18,589 people and a majority of 1,625. It was a change of -7.8%. In 2019, as a result of the Boris Bump – perhaps our first attempt at flirting with a less professional and more entertaining kind of British politics (read Boris 2019 as Trump 2016 and, maybe, Reform 2025/2029 as Trump 2024) – he got 48.1% of the vote, with 25,298 voters sticking him in the House of Commons for the first time with a 2,218 majority.

Labour, which has some very modest form in the constituency – winning the seat in 2017, 2005, 2001, 1997 and, to give some further historical context, 1979 and 1974 – was a close-ish second in 2024 and 2019. Despite Reform eating into the Conservative base – the party picked up 10.4% of the vote – Moore probably had the Green and independent candidate to thank for his win last year. Though Labour also missed out in 2019, neither featured back then. It was the Lib Dems that were the “third party”. Not so in 2024. Their candidate, Chris Adams could only muster 970 votes.

The More in Common poll suggests that the Conservatives and Reform would respectively get 30% of the vote at a general election in 2025 – the intimation being that a few votes here and there would manage to keep it Tory blue instead of turning turquoise Reform – with Labour on 24%, the Lib Dems on 10% and the Greens on 6%.

It wouldn’t be a regional outlier, either. Skipton and Ripon would hold for the Conservatives (31% compared to Reform’s 27%, Labour’s 18%), as would Richmond and Northallerton (35%, 25% and 18%) and Wetherby and Easingwold (34%, 22% and 18%). Elsewhere, Shipley, Leeds North West, Leeds North East, York Central and York Outer would remain Labour. Intriguingly, Bradford West would go independent (taking 29% compared to Reform and Labour’s 23% and the Conservatives’ 9%).

But the Conservatives would, even more so than today – their leader, Kemi Badenoch, has effectively been silenced by both Reform and her own lacklustre approach to opposition (no policies, no ideas, no vision) – now find themselves part of an even more diminished political movement. Reform would have 290 seats (but no majority), Labour would hold onto 126 seats (incurring heavy losses) and the Conservatives' would drop down to 81 (third party double digit territory).

The so-called natural party of government would, given Reform’s increasing neo-Conservative evolution – Lee Anderson was a Tory MP, Sarah Pochin was Conservative councillor, Andrea Jenkyns was a Tory MP, Richard Tice was Conservative member, Jake Berry was a Tory MP, David Jones was a Tory MP, Anne Marie Morris was a Tory MP (and so on and so on) – could, quite easily, in that scenario, become more than a willing coalition partner. After all, it would still represent a return to government, to power. And that’s quite the temptation. Otherwise, what’s the alternative? The ignominy of not having a front row seat?

Maybe. If there is any nous, contrition and talent left in this alternative present-slash-future, the consensus among the lucky few may be that it’s better to ride it out. Let Reform have its moment as a more fringe version of right wing British conservatism. Let the UK exorcise its demons.

Plus, look what happened to the Lib Dems in 2010. The party’s greed for a rare moment in the sun resulted in them getting badly burnt. Their willingness to prop up the Conservatives, to participate in austerity and to renege on commitments like scrapping tuition fees took them to the edge of oblivion. So, maybe it’s better to sit quietly and rebuild because it’s all likely to go pear shaped. And when it does, traditional, one-nation Conservativism will be there ready to respond.

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What about previous local election data? What does that say about Reform’s chances of getting a candidate elected as the member of parliament for Keighley and Ilkley if a general election were held in 2025? It’s complicated.

Farage’s insurgent party, as it is today – a more professional though no less controversial outfit with growing brand equity isn’t the same as it once was. It’s no longer just a party for older white bros. See teenagers in charge of local councils, growing support among Gen X women and Zia I am a "proud British Muslim patriot” Yusuf. The public’s perception, too, has noticeably changed, with a groundswell of recent support for the party turning politics on its head. Reform only won two council seats in 2021, two in 2022, six in 2023 and two in 2024. In 2025 it was 677.

The party’s local electoral successes this year, while expected, nevertheless exceeded all expectations. Nothing, for example, could have prepared Durham County Council, once a Labour stronghold, for Reform’s turquoise revolution. The party now has 64 councillors on the council. Labour now has four (it had 53 in 2021) and the Tories a measly one (down from 24). Politically, it appears, anything in the 2020s is near enough possible.

So, as we take stock of how each of the six wards making up the constituency have voted since 2015, a year that saw austerity’s architects given permission to march forward in their punishing number crunching economic mission, a year that also marked the long end of a pre-Brexit world, an objectively disastrous event we’re still reeling from, which in some ways broke the unanimity of voters traditionally defined along party lines – the country was temporarily split more along remain and leave lines than party affiliation – it’s worth noting that in a short period of time the political landscape has changed significantly. So, while the data is historically useful, it may not be that helpful for forecasting, but we’ll still give it a go.

First up is Craven, which would likely rebuff Reform’s charms. It has, since 2022, voted Green and, given its rural nature, is likely to stay that way even though it has a track record of voting for Conservatives (the only exception was in 2016 when an independent picked up the seat). It was ranked 28 out of 30 for the 2019 index of multiple deprivation. Thirty is the least deprived. Our guess? Craven actually votes for a Green candidate.

Next we have Ilkley. Die hard Tories. Old school in outlook. Affluent (it was ranked 29 out of 30 for the index, with one being the most deprived). Except for 2024, when it voted in the Green candidate Ros Brown, probably more on a personality basis than a political one, they ward has exclusively voted for Conservatives. And that includes Anne Hawkesworth who, despite sitting as an independent for a big chunk of her time, was (and arguably remains) a Conservative at heart. Again, though some voters in Ilkley will happily give their vote to a Reform candidate, it would likely stick with what it's used to. And that, come rain or shine, will always be the Tories.

Now it’s the turn of the Keighley wards. First up is Keighley Central, which was ranked six out of 30 for the 2019 index of multiple deprivation. Close to half (48%) of the population identifies as Pakistani, which a Reform candidate would struggle to win over. Though they’re likely then to pick up votes that have traditionally gone to the Conservatives (the party got 36% in 2023 versus Labour’s 49%; took the seat in 2022 – although it’s now independent – got 20% in 2021; and 40% in 2019), the seat is likely to be tightly fought competition between Labour and independent candidates.

Keighley West, meanwhile, sits in the middle of the index (14 out of 30). This is Reform’s for the taking. While it has traditionally been a contest between Labour and the Conservatives, there’s an audience here that is very receptive to right wing candidates and right wing ideas. For instance, at the last election in 2024, Reform picked up 10% of the votes, with Labour on 40% and the Conservatives on 31%. In 2022, For Britain, a now disbanded, fringe, far right movement, got 1% of the votes. In 2021, UKIP, which Reform has ultimately emerged from, got 3% and For Britain 1%. Prior to that UKIP secured 21% in 2019, 39% in 2016 (Brexit fever) and 23% in 2015.

Wrapping up the Keighley wards we come to Keighley East. Reform is likely to miss out here – but only just. The ward, ranked 20 out 30, has since at least 2015, voted in one Labour candidate after another. That voter base may feel a little disillusioned with the government – not to mention Lab Bradford Council, where the prevailing mood is that the Labour-run authority is badly managed, financially all over the place and disconnected with locals – but that’s unlikely to result in a big switch to Reform. Although, come to think about it, Durham is a useful case study in suggesting otherwise – and with Tories offering some competition here, the numbers could add up for Reform.

Finally, we have Worth Valley. It ranks 24 out 30 for the index, is 97.3% white and home to the village of Haworth which was, once upon time, home to the Brontë sisters. If you thought Ilkley was as Tory as wards get, then you’ve obviously not been to Worth Valley. It’s voted strongly for Conservatives time after time. For instance, in 2024, the party got 56% of the vote. In 2023, 59%. In 2022, 54%. In 2021, 60%. In 2019, 61%. Among those numbers, though, there will be Reform curious voters – and come a local election you can expect that high share to drop. But, again, as with Ilkley, at a national level, it’s unlikely to translate into a meaningful sum for a wannabe Reform MP for Keighley and Ilkley. The appetite for radical change, in this neck of England’s woods, as of 2025, remains low – though the electorate is definitely willing to snack on Reform’s fast food politics.

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For now, we can put the lid firmly back on the speculative idea of Keighley and Ilkley turning turquoise in 2025 and instead turn our attention to the 2026 local elections. It’s here that we’ll be able to really see whether Reform has charmed its way into the hearts and minds of voters in the constituency and the West Yorkshire region more generally or not.

A lot will have happened in the run up to the elections. Reform-run councils will have a year of them in power and Labour will have another 12 months in Number 10. The conflict in Gaza and Ukraine will, no doubt, loom large, so too TACO trade wars.

It’s only once the dust has settled after 7 May 2026 that we will we be able to more accurately say whether Reform’s tremendous 2025 performance was part of the habitual local rebuke of national government post general election – and therefore more of a tantrum and a consequential bit of tomfoolery – or part of a bigger shift in the way people vote, where increasingly niche identities and environments that have emerged as a result of people spending more and more time online, translates into less reliable votes for the duopoly and, consequently, more votes for Reform and others in a more competitive and diverse political landscape.

You can call all of that change – but not the kind of change Labour was thinking of when it put together its 2024 party manifesto. Sure, the electorate via the party did everyone a favour by pulling the plug on 14 years of “endless Conservative chaos” – summed up by a collection of essays edited by Anthony Seldon and Tom Egerton as easily the worst government in Britain’s postwar history (“overall, it is hard to find a comparable period in history of a Conservative, or other, government which achieved so little, or which left the country at its conclusion in a more troubling state”) – but in the 12 months since they were elected the party’s promise of “national renewal” has not materialised.

And that has given Farage – now via Reform but previously through the Brexit Party and UKIP – another opportunity in 2026 to seize on the same malaise that has compounded the British public since at least the financial crash of 2008, which he has managed to both take advantage of and exacerbate as the calamity that is Brexit has shown (according to the LSE, the “UK‟s economic performance was strong during the period of [New] Labour, 1997–2010. GDP per capita grew faster than in France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. Productivity growth was second only to the US).

Not that anyone remembers – especially today, when everyone’s favourite pastime is to happily scroll their brains into mushy goo at any opportunity. A turquoise storm is coming to West Yorkshire. The next 10 months will determine how severe it will be.