How Nigel Farage and Reform UK are winning over women

Published

2 months ago

July 14, 2025

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Reform UK is on the march.

Following a barnstorming performance in this year’s local elections, they are now the most successful political party on TikTok, engaging younger audiences.

But most of their 400,000 followers are men.

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I was at the local elections launch for Reform in March, looking around for any young women to interview who had come to support the party at its most ambitious rally yet, and I was struggling.

A woman wearing a “let’s save Britain” hat walked by, and I asked her to help me.

“Now you say it, there are more men here,” she said. But she wasn’t worried, adding: “We’ll get the women in.”

And that probably best sums up Reform’s strategy.

When Nigel Farage threw his hat into the ring to become an MP for Reform, midway through the general election campaign, they weren’t really thinking about the diversity of their base.

As a result, they attracted a very specific politician. Fewer than 20% of general election candidates for Reform were women, and the five men elected were all white with a median age of 60.

Polling shows that best, too.

According to YouGov’s survey from June 2025, a year on from the election, young women are one of Reform UK’s weakest groups, with just 7% supporting Farage’s party – half the rate of men in the same age group. The highest support comes from older men, with a considerable amount of over-65s backing Reform – almost 40%.

But the party hoped to change all that at the local elections.

Time to go pro

It was the closing act of Reform’s September conference and Farage had his most serious rallying cry: it was time for the party to “professionalise”.

In an interview with me last year, Farage admitted “no vetting” had occurred for one of his new MPs, James McMurdock.

Only a couple of months after he arrived in parliament, it was revealed he had been jailed after being convicted of assaulting his then girlfriend in 2006 while drunk outside a nightclub.

McMurdock told me earlier this year: “I would like to do my best to do as little harm to everyone else and at the same time accept that I was a bad person for a moment back then. I’m doing my best to manage the fact that something really regrettable did happen.”

He has since suspended himself from the party over allegations about his business affairs. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Later, two women who worked for another of Reform’s original MPs, Rupert Lowe, gave “credible” evidence of bullying or harassment by him and his team, according to a report from a KC hired by the party.

Lowe denies all wrongdoing and says the claims were retaliation after he criticised Farage in an interview with the Daily Mail, describing his then leader’s style as “messianic”.

The Crown Prosecution Service later said it would not charge Lowe after an investigation. He now sits as an independent MP.

A breakthrough night

But these issues created an image problem and scuppered plans for getting women to join the party.

So, in the run-up to the local elections, big changes were made.

The first big opportunity presented itself when a by-election was called in Runcorn and Helsby.

The party put up Sarah Pochin as a candidate, and she won a nail-biting race by just six votes. Reform effectively doubled their vote share there compared to the general election – jumping to 38% – and brought its first female MP into parliament.

And in the Lincolnshire mayoral race – where Andrea Jenkyns was up for the role – they won with 42% of the vote.

The council results that night were positive, too, with Reform taking control of 10 local authorities. They brought new recruits into the party – some of whom had never been involved in active politics.

‘The same vibes as Trump’

Catherine Becker is one of them and says motherhood, family, and community is at the heart of Reform’s offering. It’s attracted her to what she calls Reform’s “common sense” policies.

As Reform’s parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Highgate in last year’s general election, and now a councillor, she also taps into Reform’s strategy of hyper-localism – trying to get candidates to talk about local issues of crime, family, and law and order in the community above everything else.

Jess Gill was your quintessential Labour voter: “I’m northern, I’m working class, I’m a woman, based on the current stereotype that would have been the party for me.”

But when Sir Keir Starmer knelt for Black Lives Matter, she said that was the end of her love affair with the party, and she switched.

“Women are fed up of men not being real men,” she says. “Starmer is a bit of a wimp, where Nigel Farage is a funny guy – he gives the same vibes as Trump in a way.”

‘Shy Reformers’

But most of Reform’s recruits seem to have defected from the Conservative Party, according to the data, and this is where the party sees real opportunity.

Anna McGovern was one of those defectors after the astonishing defeat of the Tories in the general election.

She thinks there may be “shy Reformers” – women who support the party but are unwilling to speak about it publicly.

“You don’t see many young women like myself who are publicly saying they support Reform,” she says.

“I think many people fear that if they publicly say they support Reform, what their friends might think about them. I’ve faced that before, where people have made assumptions of my beliefs because I’ve said I support Reform or more right-wing policies.”

But representation isn’t their entire strategy. Reform have pivoted to speaking about controversial topics – the sort they think the female voters they’re keen to attract may be particularly attuned to.

“Reform are speaking up for women on issues such as transgenderism, defining what a woman is,” McGovern says.

And since Reform’s original five MPs joined parliament, grooming gangs have been mentioned 159 times in the Commons – compared to the previous 13 years when it was mentioned 88 times, despite the scandal first coming to prominence back in 2011.

But the pitfall of that strategy is where it could risk alienating other communities. Pochin, Reform’s first and only female MP, used her first question in parliament to the prime minister to ask if he would ban the burka – something that isn’t Reform policy, but which she says was “punchy” to “get the attention to start the debate”.

‘What politics is all about’

Alex Philips was the right-hand woman to Farage during the Brexit years. She’s still very close to senior officials in Reform and a party member, and tells me these issues present an opportunity.

“An issue in politics is a political opportunity and what democracy is for is actually putting a voice to a representation, to concerns of the public. That’s what politics is all about.”

Luke Tryl is the executive director of the More In Common public opinion and polling firm, and says the shift since the local elections is targeted and effective.

Reform’s newer converts are much more likely to be female, as the party started to realise you can’t win a general election without getting the support of effectively half the electorate.

“When we speak to women, particularly older women in focus groups, there is a sense that women’s issues have been neglected by the traditional mainstream parties,” he says. “Particularly issues around women’s safety, and women’s concerns aren’t taken as seriously as they should be.

“If Reform could show it takes their concerns seriously, they may well consolidate their support.”

According to his focus groups, the party’s vote share among women aged 18 to 26 shot up in May – jumping from 12% to 21% after the local elections. But the gender divide in right-wing parties is still stark, Tryl says, and representation will remain an uphill battle for a party historically dogged by controversy and clashes.

A Reform UK spokesman told Sky News: “Reform is attracting support across all demographics.

“Our support with women has surged since the general election a year ago, in that time we have seen Sarah Pochin and Andrea Jenkyns elected in senior roles for the party.”

UK

Labour deputy leadership: Contest to replace Rayner set to become two-horse race

Published

8 hours ago

September 11, 2025

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Labour deputy leadership: Contest to replace Rayner set to become two-horse race

Labour’s deputy leadership contest is on the brink of becoming a two-horse race between Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell, as the other three candidates scramble for nominations.

The official tally from the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) on Wednesday night put Ms Phillipson, the education secretary, ahead with 116 nominations.

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Ms Powell, the former Commons leader who was ousted in Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle last week, is behind with 77 – just three shy of the 80 needed to make it to the next round.

Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Paula Barker and Dame Emily Thornberry all had support from 15 or fewer MPs as of Wednesday evening, fuelling speculation they could follow in the footsteps of housing minister Alison McGovern and pull out.

Ms Barker, the MP for Liverpool Wavetree, told Sky News she was “genuinely undecided” and had a lot to consider.

Ms Barker, a former trade union official, has challenged the government on Gaza and welfare cuts and is part of the newly formed soft-left “Mainstream group”.

Her allies are keen for her to stay in the race, with one telling Sky News she “outshone the others by miles” during an online hustings event for MPs, and would be a “real alternative for the membership”.

Her supporters are expected to throw their weight behind Ms Powell if she does drop out, with one saying of the Manchester Central MP: “She is closer to Andy Burnham, and she was just sacked, so those who dislike Morgan McSweeney [the prime minister’s chief of staff] I guess will get behind her.”

However, while describing her as “slightly more left” than Ms Phillipson, they said she is “hardly a socialist”.

Some MPs want to avoid a race between Ms Powell and Ms Phillipson, believing there is not much difference in what they offer, but others had more praise for the former, calling her performance at the hustings impressive.

One MP said: “Her pitch is that she’s been the shop steward of the parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) in government, but now she’s not in government she can dedicate herself to the role of deputy leader full time without a department to run. She wants to focus on defining our voter coalition and making sure we’re speaking to them.”

They added that Ms Phillipson might be too busy to fulfil the deputy leadership role, especially with SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) reform coming down the track “which could be a horror show”.

Ms Phillipson has been making the case to MPs about her experience fighting populism in her Houghton & Sunderland South seat in the North East, where Reform UK is on the rise.

Dr Jeevun Sandher said he was won over by the education secretary following her pitch at the hustings in which she also spoke about the cost of living crisis.

The MP for Loughborough told Sky News: “Bridget was strong, articulate, and very impressive. She was able to communicate the deep thought we need to govern well and win the next election.”

The deputy leadership race was triggered by the resignation of former deputy prime minister and housing secretary Angela Rayner after she admitted underpaying stamp duty on a flat.

The candidates need 80 backers by 5pm Thursday. As of Wednesday evening’s tally, 235 MPs had made their nominations out of Labour’s 398 MPs.

Ms McGovern pulled out on Wednesday afternoon, saying it was “clear that the momentum of this contest had shifted, and I am not going to progress to the next stage”.

The MP for Birkenhead was rumoured to be Number 10’s preference before it was clear Ms Phillipson – who she has since nominated – would enter the race.

Timeline for the race

Many Labour MPs are keen to see someone who would work constructively with the prime minister to avoid the party becoming more divided.

There are also calls for the deputy leader to be from the north to balance out the number of cabinet ministers who represent London seats – which both Dame Emily and Ms Riberio-Addy do.

If more than one candidate secures 80 nominations by Thursday evening, they will then need to gain backing from either three of Labour’s affiliate organisations, including two trade unions, or 5% of constituency parties.

That process will continue until 27 September, meaning a contested election threatens to overshadow the party’s annual conference that begins in Liverpool the next day.

The successful candidates will then appear on the ballot for a vote of all party members and affiliated party supporters, which will open on 8 October and close on 23 October at 12pm.

The winner will be announced on Saturday 25 October.