Nigel Farage faces ticking timebomb that could blow up in Reform UK's face this year

OPINION

Mark November in the calendar! That's when Reform UK's fortunes - as remarkable as they have been - may begin to steadily change. That month, Tory MPs will finally be able to vote on the leadership of under-fire Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. To be fair to Badenoch she faces a thankless and near-impossible task leading a party which failed so abysmally over 14 years.

Yet while I have said the optics of booting her out would be dreadful for the Conservatives, one cannot escape the sense she is warming the seat for another, perhaps Robert Jenrick. Not that Jenrick - with his Damascene conversion to immigration hawk - is guaranteed to U-turn Tory fortunes. But seriously, can he do any worse? For Reform leader Nigel Farage, the question then is could his party see its lead in the polls start to reverse by Christmas

Prima facie, things are on the up and up for Reform. Rupert Lowe out and James McMurdock are gone, and yet the party marches on with increasing purpose. YouGov's latest poll has Reform 7 points ahead (up from 4) while More In Common has Reform 6 points clear (down from 7, but still a commanding lead).

This week meanwhile, Reform welcomed yet another former Tory MP in Adam Holloway, who said "the Reform leadership and voters grasp the scale of our national peril and back a party serious about addressing it." While Farage must be mindful of Reform becoming a dumping ground for the waifs and strays of the Conservative Party, another Tory jumping ship adds to the sense Reform is the future and the Tories the past.

However, the risk for Reform is this creates yet more pressure on Badenoch, which makes a leadership push all but inevitable come November. If Badenoch is one of Farage's greatest assets, her removal is hardly going to be on the Reform chief's Christmas list. Yet come the end of the year, she could well be gone.

Labour's failings have also been a gift to Farage, with Jeremy Corbyn's comeback party perhaps the cherry on the cake if it helps further split the Labour vote. But Labour MPs are no doubt wise to this. Could then a leadership push be in the offing for Labour as well? Right now, Reform benefits from an unpopular PM, seemingly a disappointment to backbenchers and voters alike.

Would Reform get so lucky with say a Prime Minister Wes Streeting, a gay working-class hero, a man who grew up on a council estate and went to Cambridge, only to later survive cancer? Never mind Sir Keir "son of a toolmaker" Starmer, Streeting has a story to tell, while Jenrick surely also has a sporting chance of reversing Tory fortunes.

With an election almost certainly coming no earlier than four years from now, Reform needs to guard against peaking too soon and cannot afford to rest on its laurels. There is no guarantee Badenoch or Sir Keir will even be MPs by 2029.

Reform's star inexorably rises it seems, yet risks lurk beyond the party's control, while its record in local government will be scrutinised beyond belief between now and the next election. Watch out first however for November when Badenoch will face her first real test.