The political system of one of the world’s oldest continuous parliamentary democracies is showing signs of collapse, as both the Labour and Conservative parties are rapidly losing the confidence of the British public. During a panel discussion at MCC Feszt 2025 on Friday—moderated by Executive Director of the Danube Institute István Kiss—Dominic Cummings, Co-Founder and Campaign Director of Vote Leave and former adviser to Prime Minister Boris Johnson; Head of Policy at MCC Brussels Jacob Reynolds; and Editor-in-Chief of The European Conservative Mick Hume explored the alternatives that may lie ahead for the United Kingdom and examined how Reform UK could differ from the establishment parties in significant ways.
Opening with a keynote speech, Cummings first spoke about current global developments, which many describe as the transformation of the world order as we know it. He highlighted that we are living through a new historic cycle of slow crises and the parallel collapse of the international system. ‘The ideas on which the current system is built have failed to adapt to what is going on,’ he declared. Drawing a historical analogy, he compared the current moment to the period between 1840 and 1870, when the emergence of new technologies and ideologies led to the crumbling of old international structures and the toppling of regimes. ‘We are living through quite the same developments,’ he said, pointing out how institutions such as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Health Organization are failing to respond to the myriad of crises destabilizing the global order—while the rapid development of artificial intelligence is transforming our lives in unprecedented ways. ‘21st century technologies, 18th century bureaucracy, coupled with 19th century crisis management,’ he listed, adding that this collision is fuelling today’s global chaos.
Turning to domestic politics in the United Kingdom, Cummings underlined a crisis of confidence, as people rightly feel their vote no longer matters. ‘Everybody campaigns on change, yet once in power, they double down and go in the same direction,’ he said. Cummings explained that both establishment parties support the current system—only Nigel Farage’s Reform UK stands against it. ‘We need to flip the current system on its head,’ he stated firmly. According to Cummings, real change—on mass migration, rising crime, reversing net-zero climate policy—can only begin if a new government takes control of the deep state and replaces it, from academia to the bureaucracy.
Following Cummings’ keynote, István Kiss posed a question to the panellists—one that leaves many in a state of bafflement: despite having a Conservative government for 14 years, the United Kingdom has failed to resolve the issue of illegal migration, has struggled to capitalize on Brexit, and has fallen short of delivering a credible climate policy. What went wrong?
Cummings noted that, from the outset, Brexit was not achieved by the Conservative Party, but for the Conservative Party—as Vote Leave was not a Tory initiative. That, he said, explains why they failed to implement it effectively. He further argued that since the Tony Blair era, most Conservative MPs have aligned with Labour on key issues—essentially, conservatives in name only, doing the same as the Left but with slight variations. ‘MPs do what bureaucratic institutions want them to do.’ He added that immediately after the December 2019 election, Boris Johnson began normalizing relations with the so-called ‘Old London’ establishment—a move Cummings considers central to the Conservative Party’s deeper problems. ‘They’re living in a weird parallel world built by mainstream media,’ he argued, noting that after their recent election defeat, many Conservatives blamed a supposed shift ‘too far to the right’.
Mick Hume argued that the greatest achievement of the Tory governments in the past decade was digging their own grave. ‘The Tories have made conservatism a slur word in Britain,’ he said, adding that there was nothing conservative about their actual policies.
After analysing the failure of the Tories, the panellists turned to the prospects of the only viable alternative to the establishment: Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, which is leading most polls by a significant margin. Jacob Reynolds emphasized the enormous potential ahead of Reform, but warned that the UK’s ‘first-past-the-post’ voting system is difficult to penetrate. ‘Once you’re there, you have a real chance to change the system,’ he said. According to Reynolds, Reform’s primary task is to win the trust of voters who are desperate for an alternative.
Agreeing with Reynolds, Hume also identified the voting system as a major challenge for any third party. However, he recalled US President Donald Trump’s recent visit to the UK and his advice to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. According to Trump, Britain’s two-party system now consists of Labour and Reform, and Starmer must ‘stop the boats and cut taxes’ to beat Farage—something Hume argued Starmer cannot and will not do. He also insisted that a vote for Reform is much more than a protest vote, as establishment parties claim in an attempt to delegitimize it. Hume sees the central task ahead for Farage’s political movement as the reestablishment of national conservatism.
Cummings agreed, pointing out that both Labour and the Tories are at unprecedentedly low levels of support. ‘At the grassroots level, the Conservative Party is done. It is finished,’ he said bluntly, adding that Farage now has a real opportunity to destroy the party completely in the coming period. As for what Reform should do if it is entrusted with governing, Cummings said the most important task for the next government is to control the government itself—instead of allowing bureaucrats to do so, as has been the case for decades. For that, he argued, Reform would need a strong democratic mandate.
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