‘Reform’s Policies Are Dangerously Out of Step With Public Opinion and It’s Time the Media Started Scrutinising Them’

In just one short month, the world has watched with mounting horror as Donald Trump’s America has abandoned Ukraine and Europe, switched sides to align with Vladimir Putin, gutted the US state to the detriment of the poorest in America and abroad, and ripped up agreements to protect the planet from the worst impacts of climate change. All the while he has been cheered on by Nigel Farage. 

With Reform surging in the polls, Britain could soon be heading for its own Donald Trump. And yet Reform’s policies and positions on a whole range of key issues, Ukraine included, remain wildly out of step with the British public and need to be scrutinised. 

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Siding with Trump on Ukraine

Both Farage and his deputy Richard Tice have praised the US negotiations with Russia to end the war in Ukraine, notable for being carried out behind Ukraine’s back and to its cost.

In a rare example of the right-wing media holding Reform to account, Julia Hartley-Brewer slammed Tice on TalkTV when he argued “most wars end up with some form of negotiation”.

Much as everyone wants to see peace, the trouble is, the negotiations between Trump and Putin amount to two imperial powers carving Ukraine up like a roast — with Ukraine forced to cede its territory to Russia and its rare earth minerals to the US. Most people wouldn’t call that a negotiated peace, they’d call that surrender. Or appeasement. 

Such sentiments are a world away from the British public, who remain firmly behind Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression.

Recent YouGov polls show 58% support British soldiers being stationed in Ukraine as peacekeepers alongside European allies in the event of a peace deal, a move criticised by Reform when Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he was “ready and willing”. 

And, contrary to Farage and Tice’s backing of Trump’s alignment with Putin, most respondents say that if the US negotiates a peace deal without involving Ukraine that leaves Russia in control of some conquered territory, and Ukraine does not accept those terms, Britain and Europe should discourage Ukraine from accepting the deal and continue supporting it militarily. 

While Farage has always been closely aligned with Trump, to the point of offering up his services as US ambassador, he has not offered a whisper of criticism as Trump has blamed Ukraine for the war and sided with Russia in an unprecedented global realignment.

But this is just one of the many issues on which Reform finds itself completely out of step with the British public.

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Climate Change is ‘Absolute Garbage’

In another of Tice’s many pronouncements, he wrote off unequivocal evidence of humanity’s impact on climate change as “absolute garbage”.

Such sentiments are very much in keeping with Reform’s policies to tax, as Tice puts it, the “massive con” of renewable energy and “scrap stupid net-zero”. Again, so far, so Trump. And yet bearing no relationship with reality or public opinion. 

Polling conducted by More in Common for the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) of people who intended to vote in local elections last year found 77% in favour of net-zero targets. Even 52% of Reform’s own voters were in favour.

They, like the rest of us, will be in for a rude awakening should Reform enter Government and, like Farage’s idol across the pond, neuter any attempt to tackle the threat of climate change.

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‘Open to Anything’ on the NHS

Whereas in the US, healthcare free at the point of use and funded by taxation would be tantamount to communism, public reverence for the institution of the NHS has meant even the most right-wing of Conservative Governments have been unable to privatise it wholesale. 

Not so Reform, with Farage stating he is “open to anything” when it comes to replacing Britain’s NHS with “an insurance-based model”.

The 83% of British people who believe the NHS should be primarily funded by taxation might look at that and not unreasonably come to the conclusion that the NHS would not be safe in the hands of a Reform government.

Indeed, the direction of travel under a privatising Reform government would be completely at odds with a public who overwhelmingly back the nationalisation of public services.

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Brexit – Wrong Again

Even on Brexit, which Farage perhaps did more than anyone else to bring about, cheered on by Trump, Reform now finds itself at odds with the public: 55% of British people say it was wrong for the UK to leave the EU, compared with only 30% who say it was right. 

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Time For the Media to Ask Questions

None of this is to say Reform haven’t successfully tapped into some hot-button issues, and indeed stoked them. But while Farage’s party has surged in the polls, scratch beneath the surface of its policies on a great many areas of concern to the British public, and you’ll find a party dangerously out of step. 

Part of the problem is, up until now, Reform has been treated as a protest party. Its policies and pronouncements have largely avoided full public scrutiny, while the media has wheeled out Farage and his colleagues time and again as colour commentators and talking heads, giving them undue credibility in the name of balance and a hugely disproportionate platform to set the stage of debate.  

But now with Reform leading in the polls, it needs to be considered by the media as a potential party of government and its policies have to be forensically scrutinised as such. In large part, the media created this monster and now it must hold it to account. 

It will be an uphill battle even in our traditional media landscape, skewed as it is to the right. Harder still in the face of widespread misinformation and Elon Musk’s algorithms promoting once-fringe far-right voices and serving up alternative facts.

But unless Reform faces the same level of scrutiny the other parties face, the UK could find itself sleepwalking into its own version of Donald Trump. And it will be a dark day for the British public.