More young women are backing Reform UK: but why? We asked them

Cosmopolitan

4 days ago

He's dressed in a floral shirt and a pair of bright turquoise trousers, espousing his politics while sausages grill on the BBQ. Surrounded by Union Jack bunting, David Bull, the new Chairman of Reform UK, the country's most divisive mainstream party, drinks in the praise.
A year ago, it'd be fair to say the majority of those cheering him on would be white, middle-aged men. But in this new clip? Reform's first female MP, Sarah Pochin is also given a microphone – and it's not just the number of women inside the party that's growing either. The crowd? A fairly equal gender split enjoying a barbeque at the Essex and Hertfordshire Summer Party.
Young women, in general, tend to vote more left-leaning than right and the latest data shows that more men still support Reform than women. But new data also shows, along with the crowd at this Reform summer party, that change is afoot. Opinion pollsters More in Common recently found Reform's vote share among women aged 18 to 26 in particular has climbed from 12% to 21% in around six months.
Then there's the data that suggests Nigel Farage's party has a genuine chance of winning at the next election. This is a huge feat, considering Reform had six MPs elected in this Parliament – and two have already left the party [one for alleged workplace bullying and another resigned after reports of fraud].
So, what's the real story behind Reform's seemingly growing appeal across the gender divide – does the party actually have much to offer beyond bluster and buzzwords? And who are the young women being drawn to Reform?
There's been a vibe shift over the last three years, something Seb Wride, Head of Opinion Research at consultancy Public First, calls 'anti-politics'.
'Voters don't believe politicians are improving their lives, making changes or getting much done,' Wride explains, saying this accounts for the speed of Starmer's unpopularity just one year in. 'Labour built their electorate by going after the anti-political, but you lose them the moment you disappoint.' Now, these disappointed voters are turning to Reform in droves, he says.
Think about Nigel Farage. Despite being a privately educated 61-year-old son of a stockbroker from Kent, he (purposefully) gives off a 'man of the people' image. Like he's the sort of guy you'd find in your local pub. In fact, pubs are where he does a large amount of his meetings and media appearances. It reminds me of the manner in which former PM Boris Johnson won votes over, by (allegedly) mussing up his hair before appearing on stage, appealing to the parts of the media – and some of us too – that loves a 'bumbling buffoon'.
As for Sarah Pochin, she's outspoken and engaging, and before switching over to Reform, she was a Conservative and, after a by-election earlier this year (caused by a Labour MP punching a constituent) she became Reform's newest and only female MP, for Runcorn and Helsby. She won by just six votes, making her the most senior woman in the party.
A privately educated mum of two boys, Pochin grew up in a Margaret Thatcher-supporting family and says education is what first drew her to politics. Prior to winning earlier this year, she'd served on councils and wanted to be an MP for a long time. However, she makes it clear while speaking to Cosmopolitan UK that she didn't want to be in Parliament 'just for the sake of it', finding those people a bit 'desperate'. Simply wanting to be a good voice for people is what drives her, she says.
Despite not being selected by the Tories to run as an MP, Pochin is pleased with how things ultimately worked out; both because she thinks she was 'too much of a handful' for her old party, but also because the demands of the job would have been too difficult when her children were younger.
'This is my dream job,' she tells me over the phone on a sunny Monday in July. 'And I finally got here, at my age.'
Pochin, who is in her mid-fifties presents herself as a strong supporter of women, committed to making sure we have a level playing field and someone keen to share the lessons that she believes have enabled her to achieve her professional ambitions. 'Life is a long-term project. You can have children, you can have a career,' she says. But, despite coming across as one in many ways, she 'doesn't like being labelled a feminist', emphasising that she enjoys male company and 'likes to be looked after [...] You know, I like having a door open. I like someone telling me I look nice. I like having my wine poured for me.' We didn't get into a detailed discussion about the relative importance of having wine poured versus women's rights (the actual point of feminism), though I get the sense that she might have quite enjoyed having that particular debate.
As the first Reform female MP in a previously male-dominated environment, she says she was welcomed with open arms, adding 'they've even had to get used to the lipstick and the hairspray and the constant need to rush into the room to find a mirror. I mean, they've been charming. I think it's been a bit of a shock, but they're getting used to it.' Though given her previous stints as a magistrate, a banker and a mother, to name only three of her life experiences, the men surely recognise that what she brings to Reform is far more than just a fully stocked make-up bag.
Pochin gave up her successful corporate career to raise her children and work part-time, and seems very supportive of working mums and flexible careers, taking into account your stage of life, describing her philosophy as 'work hard, play hard.' But in the same breath, she also backs Farage's opposition to working from home and described hearing one of her son's friends getting four months paid paternity leave as 'staggering' and 'not common sense.' Given that longer paid paternity leave results in reduced risk of postpartum depression for mothers and in children with better language skills, test scores and social development – and remote working has been proven to help mothers remain in employment – it's hard to see why this falls outside the 'common sense' camp.
These two words – 'common sense' – crop up a lot when speaking to Reform supporters and party members, with most of them having a strong view of what is, and isn't, common sense. But, by speaking to Pochin and through researching this feature, I get the impression that 'common sense' seems to be more of a vibe, a feeling, rather than a set of policies based on any hard evidence.
Pochin has only been in Parliament for a few months and used her first Prime Minister's question – where she could have asked anything - to query whether or not Britain should ban the burqa. She also recently voted against decriminalising abortion, an issue Cosmopolitan campaigned on.
The MP says a lot of her anger around this was about the process; that there wasn't enough time to debate a serious issue, but when it comes to reducing the abortion time limit – a point she made in the discussion – she is clear that 24 weeks is 'too long' (despite this not being supported by any of the Royal Colleges and less than 1% of terminations happening by this point, with the majority being for medical reasons).
She told me that Labour's position here was 'murdering babies' and hopes that if Reform gets into Government, they will look at abortion laws again.
Pochin did agree that social media in particular is having an 'utterly damaging' impact on impressionable young men and boys, and that the constant pressure to look a certain way and be seen to be having 'an amazing time' all time were causing mental health issues. Though like most parties, Reform seem to struggle with a solution, only advocating a vague review in their policy manifesto.
She takes a similar broad-brush approach to equality saying, 'What women want is fair treatment, fair opportunities and equal pay. We just want to exist in a meritocracy. If you're good enough, then you're going to keep your job, aren't you?'
It is a point of view that assumes everyone is born with the same opportunities but gender, race, your childhood can all impact someone's ability to get ahead – the Sutton Trust has an Opportunities Index and says 42 of the top constituencies for opportunity in the UK are in London. Elsewhere, up to 74,000 women a year lose their job for getting pregnant or taking maternity leave, according to Pregnant then Screwed.
Pregnancy discrimination is something Pochin brands as 'outrageous' and when I gave her the stats on the issue, she did say she'd be happy to look into it further. But the reality is that those numbers could easily grow bigger if Reform's policy to overhaul the Equalities Act – designed to protect from discrimination based on characteristics like pregnancy and maternity, as well as sex, race, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation and gender reassignment – kicks in. The party favours (you've guessed it) a 'common sense first' message instead but hasn't provided detail on what an alternative to the Equalities Act might look like, leaving some wary.
They're also vocal in wanting to scrap Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) rules that, in their words, have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity. Speaking to Pochin, I can see how women could support her message of female choice and common sense. But underneath this, there are real risks that the changes Reform proposes to rules designed to protect women, in a society that often undervalues us, and sometimes worse, may be swept away.
So, who are the women who vote for her and are supporting the party?
I find Isabel, a 21-year-old who grew up on a Yorkshire council estate, when she commented on a Farage TikTok video. She used to vote Labour, but as one of the few female Reform backers willing to go on record for this article, she describes watching her parents struggling with money as a big part of what shaped her political views.
Since graduating from university and becoming a full-time carer, Labour is no longer the party that Isabel believes has her interests at heart. Some weeks, she explains, she works seven days in a row – and at the end of the month, still finds money tight.
'We provide those (asylum seekers) with hotel rooms or housing, food, money for phones and consoles… Yet British citizens can barely afford to get by,' she says. The UK currently houses asylum seekers and then gives them £49.18 per person a week, though if they are in catered accommodation they receive £8.86 per week.
Isabel says her mum is disabled and struggles to get appointments at her GP, has faced long waits in A&E and has been languishing on a surgery waiting list for surgery for months; she sees Farage as 'the only person not afraid to say the truth' about the NHS. He has repeatedly called for the NHS's funding model to be re-examined, floating the idea of an insurance-based option. Isabel sees this as a better way of getting the healthcare her mother deserves, but others fear it could see the UK descend into a US-style system, where it is estimated 14 million people owe over $1,000 in medical debt.
Hana John, a Reform councillor in Nottinghamshire, describes herself as part of the group of 'young, single professional women in their early thirties" who back Nigel Farage's thinking. She is the daughter of Caribbean migrants and is now the council's Cabinet Member for Education, alongside her work in education and justice. Even though she has personally relied on the Equality Act, John would still support changing it.
Her concern stems from positive discrimination schemes, which she believes means the best person doesn't always get the job, as well as the lack of cultural integration being raised to her time and time again on the doorstep. 'It's about a strain on resources,' she says.
Emily, a 25-year-old beauty therapist from Cambridgeshire, shares many of these views. She was never interested in politics before Reform but says plainly, '[Britain] is going down the drain [with politicians] more worried about immigrants than their own people'.
For many young voters, it's the Reform leader's ability to 'say it how it is' – particularly on social media – that means more than his work as a new local MP in Clacton.
Charlotte Kelly is a 30-year-old mother of two and Staffordshire Reform councillor. She explains that both living on a council estate and knocking on doors to help her mum get elected to the district council (as a Conservative) as a child have shaped her views. She doesn't get particularly offended if people label Reform as racist saying her friends know that she isn't.
Kelly describes housing as 'the big one'. 'Young women are concerned about where they're going to live,' she explains. 'I know a lot of families who are in two-bedroom properties with three children of different ages, different genders. And they're on the waiting list for years and years.'
Given we're just one year into Labour's supposed five-year term, Reform are betting on their newly elected 677 local councillors, who control 12 local authorities, proving that they can improve things in their local areas and show that the party is ready for national Government. But there are already signs that the party is struggling: 18-year-old, George Finch, has found himself as Council Leader for Warwickshire, managing a multi-million pound budget and trying (unsuccessfully so far) to get the pride flag removed from the shire hall. One Cabinet member in Kent also claimed he was sacked after being told 'how shit he was', with his boss telling the media that the decision was mutual.
From spending time in Reform's world, it's clear they are tapping into a desire for change that has been building for some time. But there's little evidence yet that their 'common sense' vibes will provide any tangible solutions to the problems young women face with housing, cost of living pressures and access to healthcare, to name only a few raised in this piece.
Reform's bold statements, combined with disappointment in the current Government, and their pretty impressive social media operation, means there's lots of room for voters to project onto the party what they want it to be – and potentially miss what it really is. But, as one of the Reform supporters told me, 'they offer hope, whereas other parties let us down a little bit along the way.'