A mood of panic is running through the clogged arteries of Britain’s moribund political establishment. The people have spoken and their verdict is a brutal rejection of the traditional duopoly that has run our country for the last century. As the votes are being counted, it'll become clear that the Tories have taken a real hammering, yet Labour, bruised and unpopular, have been unable to capitalise on their opponents’ chronic weakness.

Labour’s failure has opened the way to the remarkable advance by Nigel Farage’s Reform party, which now looks more like an alternative government rather than a protest movement. The key to Reform’s surge is in the public’s profound disillusion with the way Labour and Conservative politicians have misgoverned Britain in recent decades. Mediocrity, short-termism and incompetence are their hallmarks. Soaring debt, creaking public services and rising taxation are their accomplishments.

Britain’s leaders used to be renowned for their pragmatism, but today they seem in thrall to progressive fads like the push for net zero carbon emissions which has not only undermined the reliability of the grid but has also led to the highest electricity prices in the world. Even Sir Tony Blair, the arch left-wing moderniser, declared this week that Britain’s green strategy is “irrational, hysterical and doomed to failure”.

Warped priorities also shine through the two main parties’ addiction to open borders and divisive identity politics. Without any democratic mandate they have transformed the fabric of our country through mass immigration, with the result that many Britons now feel like aliens in their own land.

Nigel Farage has far more credibility than most politicians on this issue because for years he has attacked the shambolic open door approach, showing how the vast, unceasing influx of newcomers has imposed a colossal burden on the civic infrastructure, weakened social solidarity, promoted divisive sectarian politics, and fuelled violent crime.

His powerful campaigning put both parties on the defensive. Labour talks tough about “smashing the gangs” of traffickers but, in the week that the number of illegal migrants crossing the Channel passed the total of 10,000 for 2025, such rhetoric sounds increasingly hollow. On a wider level, Labour has struggled badly in office despite their huge Commons majority. Failing to deliver either the economic growth or fiscal retrenchment she promised, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves has shown that her two chief talents are for alienating key groups of voters like farmers and for putting up taxes.

Moreover, Sir Keir Starmer is too much the metropolitan lawyer to galvanise a revival in Labour’s traditional heartlands of the North and the Midlands. In fact, according to the esteemed polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice, Labour’s support has collapsed more drastically than that of any new government in modern British history.

But the Tories’ woes are more serious. Although Kemi Badenoch has failed to capture the imagination of the public, it would be absurd to heap all the blame on her. The real problem lies with her party’s recent record in office.

When the Conservatives won in 2019 under Boris Johnson, they had a golden chance to reshape British politics. But they squandered the opportunity in spectacular style. Their erratic handling of Covid was compounded by the stench of sleaze that hung over Downing Street.

Even worse was their catastrophic decision to let immigration rip by removing a host of border controls, such as restrictions of unskilled workers, while they also embraced much of the woke programme, including the green agenda, the trans cult and diversity dogma. Through a mix of complacency and arrogance, they alienated both their core base and the new supporters in Labour’s former Red Wall seats.

The sense of betrayal runs deep, which is why talk of a comeback by Boris Johnson is so foolish. Having helped to drag the Tories into the quagmire of chaotic unpopularity, he cannot be his party’s saviour. Nor should Conservatives invest any hope in a pact with Reform. Farage’s party wants to supplant Conservatism, not nurse it back to health. Any such move would be against Farage’s interests because it would shatter Reform’s credentials as an authentic anti-establishment voice.

The Tories can only recover through their own endeavours. The task is immense but not impossible. In the 1991 local elections, the party lost more than 1,000 seats, yet decisively won the General Election the following year. It is too early to write the obituary for this historic organisation.