That Reform did so badly on right wing transfers in Trafford where the Tories did best highlights a particular type of right wing voter - essentially economic liberals - who don’t like Reform, and make up a sizeable chunk of the remaining Tory base.

Worth saying that while Restore Britain's 6.8% was below some excitable briefings, Reform UK didn't get as high as that in a by-elections in the last parliament until just months before the 2024 election (ironically Rupert Lowe and Ben Habib in Kingswood and Wellingborough).

Restore Britain is a good eg of the Netflixification of British politics, where social media has reduced the barriers to entry so much you can now find and vote for a political party that is most entirely attuned to your preferences without needing to swallow bits you don’t like. Why Netflixification? In the past with TV you’d have to watch one of four or five channels with content tailored to the median viewer. Some were habitual channel hoppers but for most you’d like some of it not all of it and switch between them if you were really unhappy. Netflix, Disney, Prime change all of that, rather than watching median content you can watch exactly what you want when you want, no compromises needed. So too with political parties. In the past most would stick with the big 3 or 4. Some people were habitual swing voters, most stuck with parties even if they didn’t like everything they advocated. It was best fit rather than perfect match. Social media changes that, it reduces barriers to entry for new parties and enables more choice. Increasingly we find can vote for parties that directly fit our world view because of the platform They are given to reach people directly as Lowe has shown. Reform was a product of that opening, but what’s striking is Restore shows it’s not the end point. For some Reform involves too much compromise and so they are able to go for a more “full fat version” and so rather than the 7 party system in Britain being the new end point it could just be the start (an extreme end point is a form of direct democracy where parties are perfectly attuned to individual voter preferences). Obviously there are still factors which pull against the personalisation of politics, greater fragmentation also incentivises more tactical voting which squeezes that individual choice. Nor is social media the sole reason for fragmentation, the failure of the main parties to deliver post 2008 and the broken social contract are clearly the biggest drivers of the turn away from traditional mainstream, but social media enables it more. In fact the internet/social media have enabled (for good or ill) more personalisation in every other area of life, politics was a bit slower getting there.