As we enter a new year with Reform UK well in the lead in the chase for Westminster, Herald columnist Andy Maciver asks, if we assume that Reform will be the next UK government, which party will be its opposition?

As we prepare to enter a new year, there is a date to keep in mind. It is April 13th. When April 13th rolls along, it will mark one year since a party other than Reform UK led in a Britain-wide opinion poll. On that day, the governing Labour party was recorded by YouGov as being one point ahead of Reform, and three ahead of the Conservatives. In each of over 175 polls since, Reform has led, polling on average around 30 per cent. In the most recent opinion poll, Reform held a 15 point lead over the Conservatives. Labour were fourth.

We should not underestimate the significance of this. For 100 years, Britain has been a two-party state dominated by the Labour party and the Conservatives. For the half century before that, it was a two-party state ruled by the Conservatives and the Liberals, and for 200 years before that by the Tories and the Whigs. In other words, change is extremely rare. It has been a century since a disruptor party (in that case Labour) formed a government and consigned an incumbent (in that case the Liberals) to a slow death.

In the 2017 General Election, Labour and the Conservatives gathered 82 per cent of the vote - in the wake of the Brexit referendum, two party politics appeared cemented. But we should pay close attention to the trend since then. In the 2019 election, the two gained less than 76........

© Herald Scotland