Whilst we can all agree that national issues contributed significantly to Labour’s 2026 election implosion, that’s only half the story. I argue that a combination of modern technology and business marketing techniques has changed the political campaign compass. Reform is leading the way.
In the 2024 US presidential election, Kamala Harris's ground campaign outspent Donald Trump’s election campaign by orders of magnitude. In the 2026 local elections, up until the last few weeks, Labour prided itself on outspending Reform UK on Facebook advertising by orders of magnitude. What is the common thread? Democrats and Labour were soundly beaten. What happened? We have to look back to the 2016 USA Presidential election to understand the roots of the problems Labour faced in 2026.
Trump realised the power of digital media early. His 2016 campaign used Cambridge Analytica-inspired micro-targeting with Steve Bannon’s relentless media ‘flooding the zone with shit’. This tactic overwhelms the media with salacious controversies and disinformation. It uses media as political entertainment, making meaningful scrutiny difficult. Reform UK mimics this, dominating press coverage and hampering opposition from the start. Strike 1!
I was a teller at the Gorton and Denton by-election and sat next to a Reform teller. Their app was much more agile than Labour’s app. Reform assumes people won’t turn up with their polling card, yet will intuitively know their postcode. It provides an immediate advantage, as Reform tellers don’t have to ask people to show a voter registration card with an unfamiliar ID reference. It’s embarrassing when your opponents are helping you out when your app is too slow to cope with a stream of people coming through the polling station door. Strike 2!
Reform members get weekly app updates. One teller said, "It’s not perfect, but it’s great for news and actions." The party uses the ReformPro and ReformGo apps to share content rapidly. These apps keep members engaged, both on social media and in person. I can easily imagine the Reform rage machine pumping out content to members who are only too willing to share it in pubs and on social media groups. Reform’s apps are, therefore, pocket-sized weapons of mass distraction, providing oven-ready utility for the party faithful. Strike 3!
Reform’s tech uses easily improved, off-the-shelf software without legacy constraints. Despite bugs, their speedy development leapfrogs other parties. The entire ethos is to only build for the 21st-century tech-savvy user and the disgruntled voter who wants someone, anyone, to fix the world.
Does Reform’s app work for members in any circumstance? Yes. Recently, I sat with a young Reform candidate applying for a town council spot. He was always on his phone. His rivals, much older, never looked at theirs. After the vote, a sitting councillor said, “He was well prepared, he’s been media trained.” For a position as a councillor for a town of some 16,000 people? Go figure.
Labour’s tech portfolio is outdated. Members have no single interface for access. The Party relies on leaky and disorganised WhatsApp groups to push ad slop, facilitate ad hoc conversations, or organise digital campaigns. Group management is chaotic; without conversational threading, group sprawl worsens. Verification of Party membership is lacking. Members complain about being in too many WhatsApp groups. Sometimes, I turn off notifications. Reform knows these problems and bans WhatsApp.
One result is that Reform has a strong incentive to keep its members engaged through content delivered via a modern information distribution system operating under firm central control. Reform has, in effect, created the tooling for an efficient army of activists, capable of singing from the same hymn sheet on all occasions. Labour has nothing comparable. Mainstream has notably adopted modern packaged apps as its tech framework.
Reform’s app keeps members engaged at all times. Labour mostly sends ad hoc emails. The ‘sticky’ Reform app builds confidence and reasons to actively participate in Reform activities. It’s a big part of Reform’s marketing, making members push the movement and win votes. Reform’s marketing is excellent. Its use of AI supports the daily production of eye-catching, though often misleading, content that keeps leaders in the news. Labour sends dull press releases.
One notable weakness of the Reform approach is its reluctance to trust local political leaders to develop local and hyper-local digital campaign content. We have an edge there, but it is poorly exploited. Labour can build on its local knowledge to demonstrate its commitment to serving everyone through smart storytelling. Are we ready to do that outside the usual six-week campaign window?
Make no mistake, Reform is here to stay. It is the unexpected political force that should urge us to rethink campaigns for today. If, as one of my supported candidates said, “We might as well not have bothered,” with their otherwise excellent mailers, then now is the time to accept that campaigning has truly changed. We may still believe that doorstep talks work, but I argue that view no longer fits. The powerful effect of Reform’s 24/7/365 digital campaigning defines this new world. Are we willing to face this challenge?
Some members will wince at the idea of dialling back on doorstep work in favour of modern digital campaigning methods. But then I ask - how do you explain Reform’s stellar performance in the local elections when they barely campaigned outside the digital world in most of the local contests I saw?
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Following a long career in finance, enterprise technology and digital media, Den Howlett uses his media and systems knowledge to better understand the modern political landscape. His mantra? Ignore Everyone.
All blog posts represent the views of the author alone and not necessarily those of Mainstream.
