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Reform UK has received an award for being the organisation that engaged in the “most prolific promotion of pseudoscience” during 2025.
Each year the UK’s long-running publication for analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal, The Skeptic magazine, names their pseudoscientist of the year, and awards them the Rusty Razor prize.
The Rusty Razor this year went to Reform UK in recognition of “their widespread embrace of climate change denialism and antivaccine misinformation.”
The award was announced in front of an audience of around 700 people at the QED science and skepticism conference in Manchester on Saturday night.
In the Rusty Razor Award category, Nigel Farage’s party was recognised for ‘promoting pseudoscientific claims’.
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Climate Change Denial
Reform UK has publicly opposed Net Zero and climate change mitigation policies, despite the international scientific consensus on the need to reduce the scale of catastrophic global warming already contributing to natural disasters. Leading Reform UK figures have wrongly claimed that human-produced CO₂ does not contribute to climate change.
Deputy leader Richard Tice MP has made explicit claims denying human contribution to climate change, while Andrea Jenkyns (Greater Lincolnshire Mayor) has called climate change a “money-making racket” and claimed it does not exist.
Senior Reform councillors have described climate change as a hoax, with now Lincolnshire council leader Sean Matthews writing on X last year: “There is no climate crisis”.
The Skeptic magazine also cites Reform’s opposition to Net Zero policies and its proposed cuts to all renewable energy subsidies as reasons for this year’s award.
Research from climate change group DeSmog found that since December 2019, Reform UK has received £2.3 million in donations from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers – representing 92% of the party’s donations.
Significant donors include Terence Mordaunt, a trustee and donor to the climate change denialist charity the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
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Covid-19 Vaccine Misinformation
At Reform UK’s party conference last month, controversial doctor Aseem Malhotra gave a speech claiming “mRNA jabs have likely killed or seriously harmed millions of people”, the World Health Organisation had been “captured” by Bill Gates, and – most infamously, and roundly-mocked – that Covid vaccines were “highly likely” a significant factor in cancer diagnoses amongst members of the royal family.
The year before, Richard Tice called for a full inquiry into the “serious problem” of thousands of people dying from Covid vaccine side-effects, a claim which is unfounded in the UK.
The UK’s Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency says that for all Covid-19 vaccines, the overwhelming majority of [adverse side effect] reports relate to injection-site reactions (sore arm for example) and generalised symptoms such as ‘flu-like’ illness… Generally, these happen shortly after the vaccination and are not associated with more serious or lasting illness.” Vaccination remains the single most effective way to reduce deaths and severe illness from Covid and many other diseases.
Other False Claims
In a September LBC interview, Nigel Farage picked up comments from Donald Trump and made “bogus” claims, linking autism to paracetamol use. Farage compared it to the thalidomide scandal, questioning paracetamol’s safety. He also made seemingly-fabricated claims that Eastern European migrants were kidnapping and eating swans from London parks.
Michael Marshall, Editor of The Sceptic, said: “Whilst the political positions Reform UK put forward are outside of the scope and remit of The Skeptic and our awards, their positions on science are not.
“On current polling, Reform UK is the party with the most support in the country, yet they have shown that they have no problem with spreading pseudoscientific misinformation that aligns with the interests of their donors, no interest in vetting their members and candidates for holding dangerously misguided views about science and health, and no issue with fostering and indulging all manner of conspiracy theories if they think there’s a vote in it.”
Marshall branded Reform “a threat to science and reason, and deserving of being singled out as winners of our 2025 Rusty Razor award.”
Past winners of the Rusty Razor award have included Twitter owner Elon Musk, ‘climate denialist’ group Net Zero Watch, anti-vaxxers Dr Aseem Malhotra (who also was given headline billing at Reform UK’s conference this year), Dr Mike Yeadon, and Professor Didier Raoult for his promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment, and Gwyneth Paltrow for her Goop range of ‘pseudoscientific’ wellness products.
The Skeptic Magazine is the UK’s longest-running publication dedicated to sceptical analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and claims of the paranormal, running since 1987.
The Ockham Awards were announced at the same ceremony during Saturday’s QED conference on science and scepticism in Manchester. Those awards are named after Ockham’s Razor, the rule of thumb stating that, all things being equal, the simplest hypothesis is more likely to be correct.
The magazine had no response from Reform UK.
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