Reform UK, traditionally a minor party, is currently the
highest-polling political party in the UK at 28%. Nevertheless, it has no peers in the House of Lords.
Reform UK’s party leader, Nigel Farage, wrote a letter to the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer of the Labour Party, to argue that Reform UK should be represented in the House of Lords, given its election results and popular vote share, and given that other minor opposition parties are already represented in the Lords.
From Times policy editor Oliver Wright:
“[…] Reform ha[s ] four MPs and control[s ] ten councils, but no representation in the second chamber [the House of Lords].
[Nigel Farage] pointed out that the Green Party, which also has four MPs, has two working peers while the Democratic Unionist Party, which has only five MPs, has six members in the upper chamber.
Political appointments to the House of Lords are entirely within the gift of the prime minister, who is under no constitutional obligation to elevate politicians from opposing parties.
Political convention has it that Downing Street asks opposition leaders to nominate candidates for peerages at the same time as the prime minister elevates his own supporters.
In December [Labour party Prime Minister Sir Keir] Starmer [...] allowed the Conservatives to appoint six new peers […] while the Liberal Democrats were allowed to appoint two.
Despite winning five seats at the election and 14 per cent of the popular vote, Reform were not asked by No 10 to nominate anyone.
Farage said in his letter to Starmer […] “My party received over 4.1 million votes at the general election in July 2024 [and] have since won a large number of seats in local government, led in the national opinion polls for many months and won the only by-election of this parliament,” he wrote.
“The Greens, DUP, Plaid Cymru and UUP [Ulster Unionist Party] have 13 peers between them, but Reform UK has none. The time has come to address the democratic disparity that exists in the upper house.”
The party leader has accused Sir Keir Starmer of presiding over a ‘democratic disparity’, but experts say the PM is under no constitutional obligation to agree
www.thetimes.com
archived 15 Aug 2025 02:20:32 UTC
archive.ph
The prime minister responded to Mr. Farage’s request through his defense secretary John Healey:
“John Healey said that Farage wanted to fill the upper chamber with his “cronies” and that his party had been “conspicuously absent” over the war in Ukraine.
[...]
Healey told LBC “[this was] the same Nigel Farage that called for the abolition of the House of Lords”, adding: “I’m not sure that parliament’s going to benefit from more Putin apologists like Nigel Farage, to be honest.”
Farage has previously called for the upper chamber to be abolished or reformed, arguing that it is too large and needs to be made more democratic.”
archived 19 Aug 2025 09:38:21 UTC
archive.ph
What on earth do Ukraine and Putin have to do with the very reasonable arguments that there is an ongoing tradition of allowing opposition parties to nominate peers, and that parties with an equally small MP share and smaller vote share are already represented in the Lords?!
The Government’s response seems to be nothing more than an argument ad hominem.
Regarding their other arguments:
Presumably, the Labour Party does not believe its other political opponents, such as the Conservative Party, “benefit” Parliament either – but they nevertheless allowed those parties to nominate peers.
As for Mr. Farage calling for the House of Lords to be abolished yet wanting representation in that house: The Labour Party spearheaded the campaign to remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords, yet it nominated Labour hereditary peers to run for election to the hereditary peers’ Lords seats for as long as the system was in place.
peeragenews.blogspot.com
www.hellomagazine.com
www.theroyalforums.com
www.bbc.com
www.bbc.co.uk
