Reform UK represents a serious threat to the working class, minorities, and progressive politics in the UK. While the party’s pro-business and nationalist rhetoric may appeal to certain segments of the population, the interests of the wealthy are placed over the needs of the majority.
Farage and the Reform agenda is aligned with Putin and Trump’s reactionary and nationalist ideologies.Their agenda is regressive, meaning they want to undo the progress that has been made in terms of democracy and voting, worker rights, anti-racism, gender inequality, and decreasing prejudice for gay and trans people.
The rise of Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage and a group of wealthy business figures, highlights a deeply concerning shift in British politics, especially in the context of its appeal to the working class. Despite its claims to represent the disenfranchised and working-class population, the party’s leadership and funding structure reveal it is profoundly pro-business and tied to wealthy interests.
It is important to separate out what Reform UK says to win support and votes, and what they say and do behind closed doors that tells us what their real agenda is.
Political Power
Reform UK wants political power to drag the UK further to the right. Nigel Farage used UKIP and the Brexit Party to leverage his political campaigning skills to exert political power over the Tories to get a hard Brexit. Going forward, Reform’s goal is to either:
- replace the Tories as the main right-wing political party in the UK, or
- make the Tories an even more right-wing party, with Reform UK acting as an external pressure on the Tories, forming a coalition government with them to form a new far-right party similar to what the Reform party in Canada achieved.
Weaken British democracy
The global far-right represents a threat to democracy by gradually undermining its foundations while claiming to defend them. Reform UK presents itself as a voice for change while implementing something far more concerning: a systematic effort to dismantle the guardrails that protect British democracy. This is the playbook used by authoritarian leaders from Viktor Orbán to Vladimir Putin: create a facade of democratic legitimacy while hollowing out democracy’s substance. Farage himself has publicly admitted that he “admired [Putin] as a political operator because he’s managed to take control of running Russia”.
These plutocrats’ policy platforms, masked in populist rhetoric about “taking back control,” aim to effectively dismantle crucial democratic safeguards. Farage wants to withdraw the UK from the European Convention on Human Rights, impose restrictions on postal voting that could suppress participation, and systematically defund independent institutions from the BBC to the civil service. Farage frames himself as a defender of “the people” against a sinister “elite,” fuelling distrust in politicians and institutions.
Nigel Farage and Reform UK has a history of challenging the legitimacy of democratic processes by questioning election results in Peterborough (2019), Rochdale (2024) and Oldham (2015), where Farage said that the electoral process was “dead” due to “ethnic changes in the way people are voting”.
Farage repeatedly attacks the media to undermine and reduce trust in British democracy. During the 2024 general election, Farage attacked both the BBC and Channel 4 as partisan institutions unworthy of the label of public service broadcasters.
Multinational corporation shills and representing the super-rich interests
Reform’s economic vision is to benefit corporations and economic elites through tax and spending cuts, and the deregulation of environmental, health and employment protections.
Farage has repeatedly said that he wants to replace the NHS with a US insurance-based healthcare system that prioritises the profits of private healthcare companies over patients’ needs. Farage confirmed this position in an interview in January 2025 but saying he was open to anything, including a French insurance model.
Farage was the face of the Brexit campaign, which was funding by several super-rich individuals as they saw it as a way to get rid of the EU-wide protections that were (imperfectly) designed to stop big businesses from exploiting workers and polluting our environment. And therefore make more profit.
Dark money is also behind the long term strategy to undermine and destroy climate action. Specifically in relation to Reform, we know that around 90% of donations to Reform in the last couple of years have come from oil and gas industry or climate deniers so it unsurprising that Reform attacks clean energy and net zero policies that will help bolster energy security and tackle climate change, this would threaten their funders’ interests.
In February 2025, Nigel Farage was the “special guest of honour” and keynote speaker at the launch of the UK branch of US-based climate denial think tank, the Heartland Institute
(https://magazine.newstatesman.com/2025/02/07/its-time-for-climate-populism/content.html, https://www.desmog.com/2024/12/19/nigel-farage-helps-to-launch-heartland-institute-climate-denial-group-in-uk/)
The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank described Reform UK’s 2024 manifesto tax cuts as providing “minimal benefits to lower-income households while significantly increasing the disposable income of higher-income households.”
STOP REFORM UK 