“The first battle for the future of London starts today, but it is won on May 7,” Reform UK’s mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham told an electric ExCel Centre last Friday.

The Westminster councillor’s rabble-rousing speech, which reverberated around the corridors of the east London venue, was much more than a local election launch.

From Chancellors visiting seaside coffee shops to Prime Ministers popping into pharmaceutical distribution centres, local campaign launches usually steer clear of box office moments.

But Nigel Farage’s party, which is always willing to buck the trend, opted for something different.

“Nobody does pyrotechnics like Reform,” a gleeful Mr Farage said.

As the confetti rained down on 2,500 Reform UK members, the challenge ahead in London became somewhat clearer.

Mr Farage made no secret about Reform UK’s short-term struggle, with the Clacton MP making three direct pleas for members to stand across London’s 1,817 wards.

GB News has seen an email, titled “Reform London Needs You”, a play on Lord Kitchener’s Great War recruitment drive, stating: “We have 87 days until April and across London we require 1,817 council candidates. Without candidates in every seat, thousands of Reform supporters in London will not have a Reform UK voice to vote for.”

Reform UK managed to field 1,624 candidates in the 2025 Local Elections — a significant increase on the 323 put up in 2024.

“We intend to stand in every ward in London,” a Reform UK source told the People’s Channel.

However, it was the musings from high-ranking members of Mr Farage’s inner circle that were perhaps more revealing.

“I think we will adopt a doughnut strategy, like Boris Johnson and Sir Lynton Crosby did,” an ally of the Reform UK leader said. “The question is how close we can get to the middle.”

Alex Wilson, who represents Reform UK in City Hall, added: “It’s no secret that the outer ring boroughs are our most promising in Greater London.”

Mr Farage made the same admission, pointing out Reform UK’s top targets include the likes of Havering, Bexley and Bromley.

Reform UK’s rise in London, from just 3 per cent in the 2024 mayoral election to 19 per cent today, is fuelled by an outer borough revolt against Sir Sadiq Khan.

The Labour mayor, who is yet to decide whether he wants to run for a fourth term, has seen his grip on London slip since his first victory in 2016.

The expansion of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (Ulez) sparked fury from car-reliant commuters, while Sir Sadiq’s mumblings about homicides being at a decade-long low have fallen on deaf ears.

Knife offences have surged to 16,000 a year under Sir Sadiq, with phone thefts soaring to over 100,000 and shoplifting jumping to 90,000 annually, official data shows.

Mr Wilson said: “For almost a decade, Sadiq Khan and his cronies have made life measurably worse for those living on the outskirts of our city through anti-driver policies like Ulez, failing to deliver adequate family housing, and even closing their local police stations.”

Despite this, Reform UK potentially faces a different challenge to the Tories in 2008 or 2012.

Under the stewardship of the Australian strategy supremo, Sir Lynton Crosby, Boris Johnson managed to overcome London’s red label to pick off every single outer borough: from Bromley and Barnet, to Wandsworth to West Central.

The future Prime Minister and Conservative leader did not convert 21st century London to conservatism. Instead, he adopted a carefully engineered campaign as the capital’s favourite atypical Tory — laying the groundwork for his successful 2019 general election pitch to socially-conservative, Labour-supporting Red Wall voters.

Eccentric and at the time liberal-minded, Mr Johnson opted to draw progressive voters back to the Tories against a controversy-ridden “Red” Ken Livingstone.

Incumbency and the 2012 Olympics undoubtedly helped propel Mr Johnson back to City Hall in 2012. Yet the path to victory was forged through an unconventional combination of personal appeal and a new brand of conservatism.

Reform UK, in a post-Brexit Britain, might find it more challenging to coalesce such a varied coalition of voters in a city that saw 60 per cent vote to remain in the European Union.

“In theory, that doughnut strategy could still apply with Londoners now being three terms into a hugely incompetent and unpopular mayoralty,” a veteran ally of Mr Johnson said.

“The real problem for Laila at this point is awareness. People might think she’s a rising star in Reform circles, but voters don’t know who she is yet. That’s a big issue for her, as it had been for previous Tory candidates in London, while it certainly wasn’t for Boris.”

The former PM’s confidante added: “The doughnut strategy definitely can work in London for a centre-right candidate, but it will be interesting to see who the Tories put up. I actually think that a Conservative candidate with awareness and a high-profile presence can win in London, and that could be problematic for Reform.”

Nevertheless, Tory campaign veterans warn it would be foolish to write Reform UK off.

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• Nigel Farage blasts ‘nasty racist abuse’ directed at Laila Cunningham but rejects calls for X ban
• Nigel Farage just sent shivers down Sadiq Khan’s spine – but Reform was clear about its one obstacle
• REVEALED: Nigel Farage’s path to topple Sadiq Khan in London’s ‘turquoise belt’

“They’re definitely more disciplined,” one London Tory insider said. “And in terms of their boots on the ground for Reform, it’s quite a few former Tories, but also some ex-Labour people too.”

Reform UK has also just launched its new canvassing app, with its roll-out poised to grow between now and May 7.

Despite the Conservatives struggling since Mr Johnson’s departure as mayor in 2016, the Tories have repeatedly outgunned Mr Farage’s various incarnations in London, excluding the return of two Brexit Party MEPs in 2019.

Even at Ukip’s peak in 2014, Mr Farage only managed to claim victory in 12 out of 1,851 wards, while the Tories returned some 612.

Reform UK is just one short of that total, with a series of defections and a single by-election victory in Bromley leaving Mr Farage 382 off Kemi Badenoch’s haul in the capital.

Unlike in years gone by, Reform is quietly confident about making inroads in new territory after outperforming the Tories in council by-elections contested in Greenwich and Barking & Dagenham.

Mrs Cunningham said: “From now until May 7, I will be in every borough, I’ve already been to see a few of you, every corner of this city, building the force that defeats Khan’s machine. Council by council, ward by ward, person by person.”

“This is the first time we have someone who can beat Sadiq,” one attendee at Reform UK’s rally confidently told GB News.

Opinion polls appear to reflect this newfound confidence among Reform’s base, with More in Common suggesting Mr Farage would pick up eight parliamentary seats and come a close second in a handful more.

A senior Tory strategist also admitted Reform UK is leaving a dent in Surrey-bordering Croydon.

“The Reform creep starts in Kent and then bleeds into London through Bromley and Bexley before reaching parts of Croydon,” they said.

Reform UK has been putting feelers out in Croydon for some time, with the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice organising a fundraising event at a hotel in the borough before it was cancelled by disgruntled staff members.

Mr Tice also made the trip up to Hendon this week, just a few months after Reform UK secured a close second in a crunch council by-election.

Mr Wilson also suggested Reform UK has its eyes set on pastures beyond the Essex and Kent border boroughs.

He said: “The failure to deliver for Londoners rests with the Conservatives as well as Labour. One only has to look at Tory-run Croydon with its billion-pound debt as a case study to see why locals and residents across the whole city are flocking to Reform.”

Reform UK has established associations across all 32 boroughs, with regular campaign days taking place across London.

In some corners of inner London, however, Reform is not a natural alternative to Labour.

Reform UK received its lowest number of constituency votes at the 2024 general election in Hackney North & Stoke Newington, finishing in fifth and failing to retain its deposit.

Despite doubling its support since 2024, one Labour figure in London suggested some corners of the capital will lend support to the Greens or even Your Party rather than Reform.

“London is a very progressive city, so the most sensible place for Reform to look for votes is on the outskirts,” the source said. “The biggest loser is the Tories, who will see their vote split. They’ve already lost one council seat to Reform in Bromley, and I expect there’ll be more pressure in May.”

It is a combination of diverse demographics and matcha-drinking left-wing graduates that creates one potential “no-go” zone for Reform.

However, Reform does not need to win over these votes to win in London, with Mr Farage polling in the low single-digits among so-called “progressive activists”.

Reform needs to attract newfound support from once-staunch Conservative voters in the city’s west and south west.

“Our biggest threat would be the Liberal Democrats,” one leafy London Tory said. “The upper-middle-class demographic in London is much more globalist pro-EU types who still get annoyed about Brexit.”

Before Mr Johnson tarnished his credentials at London dinner party tables by backing Brexit, residents in west and southwest London regularly voted Conservative .

In 2015, under David Cameron’s leadership, the Tories won back Kingston-upon-Thames, Richmond Park and Twickenham, with a Brexit backlash making the three staunch Liberal Democrat safeholds thereafter.

Luke Taylor, who serves as Sir Ed Davey’s London spokesman, appeared confident about stopping a turquoise trickle seeping through South West London on May 7.

“The Lib Dems are the only party taking on Reform and winning,” the Sutton & Cheam MP said. “We look forward to bringing the fight to them this May.”

However, Reform UK is gradually siphoning off more votes among this demographic, slowly emerging in a rather distant fourth place.

Mr Johnson’s ally gave a word of advice to Mrs Cunningham that appears to have come straight LaMr Johnson’s playbook.

They said: “Unless Laila ia creates a distinct flavour away from Farage, people in the leafier corners of London will just go: ‘Oh, Reform candidate, Farage, no thanks’.”

Mr Johnson, who was also laying the groundwork for a leadership tilt, defied Mr Cameron on issues ranging from Heathrow Airport’s expansion to police funding cuts.

“I would gladly embarrass any Government that is in power if it was in the interest of Londoners,” Mr Johnson admitted at the time.

But Mrs Cunningham is already promising Reform UK’s 2028 manifesto will be written “by Londoners, for Londoners”. And the ex-lawyer has struck the right note on the biggest issues cited by Londoners.

Mr Farage made Mrs Cunningham a cornerstone of his push to win over middle-class women last year, focusing the mother-of-seven’s efforts on crime, public safety and social cohesion.

The self-styled vigilante has already spoken proudly of her own efforts to apprehend London’s teen-terrorising troublemakers.

Reform UK has more than doubled its support in areas such as Chelsea & Fulham, Twickenham and Kingston & Surbiton.

Mr Farage is even running Labour close in Feltham & Heston, narrowly trailing the Lib Dems in Sutton & Cheam, and now finds himself neck-and-neck with the Tories in Mr Johnson’s old stomping ground of Uxbridge & South Ruislip.

Nevertheless, Reform UK’s eight seats currently put Mr Farage in third place across London, with the Tories making up for their losses by picking up once-safe seats that had been lost to Labour in 2024.

The figure would still equal the Tories’ poor performance in 2001, while Labour’s 14 net losses take Sir Keir Starmer to just 45 seats — the party’s worst result in the capital since 2010.

When polls open in less than four months, Reform UK’s rivals will receive their first impression of how far-reaching Mr Farage’s appeal is in places where it was not imaginable.

And it might yet influence whether Sir Sadiq really wants a fourth bite at the capital’s cherry.

Our Standards:
The GB News Editorial Charter