How Nigel Farage and Reform UK are winning over women
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.
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.
0:40
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.
1:04
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.
6:11
'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".
0:31
'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."
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The Independent
19 minutes ago
- The Independent
The ‘bully' and the ‘silly man with silly ideas': How Sycamore Gap fellers brought shame on tight-knit communities
Dotted along the edge of Hadrian's Wall, the pretty archetypal English villages of Kirkandrews and Grinsdale are the final stops for walkers and cyclists before the urban sprawl of Carlisle. There's no pub, or a shop. There are two village halls. One, now closed, was once a popular dance hall and used by the local young farmers' club. The other, a single-storey brick building, holds regular coffee mornings and afternoon teas. There used to be a railway with a station, but the unprofitable line shut in the 1960s. And the villages, with a combined population of around 600 people, would have gone largely unnoticed had it not been for one of their residents cutting down the iconic Sycamore Gap tree on the night of 28 September, 2023. Dan Graham was a well-known bully, according to neighbours, who would often spot him riding a horse trap or driving around in his groundworks company lorry. The local parish council even publicly claimed residents were threatened by his 'dominant and oppressive behaviour' in a lengthy planning dispute over his claim for the permanent siting of a caravan in the village. But they could still not believe what the 39-year-old would do. Alongside his former best friend Adam Carruthers, Graham travelled during a storm to the dip in Hadrian's Wall where the Sycamore Gap tree once stood, and chopped it down with a chainsaw. No one knows for sure which one of the pair did it, or who filmed it on a mobile phone. But it doesn't matter - both vandals have disgraced the communities in which they lived. 'It's embarrassing,' one neighbour told The Independent. 'That someone from your neighbourhood could have done something so heinous, it's shameful and upsetting for everyone living here. He was a bully, a difficult person, but to do this? Never.' Graham was no stranger to local police, say locals, who often spotted marked cars outside the entrance gates. It has emerged he had convictions for violence and battery between 2007 and 2016 and for Public Order Act offences between 2021 and 2022. He also had a caution for stealing logs, which he had chopped up with a chainsaw. It was his criminal activity and Graham's tree surgery work that perhaps fuelled the immediate rumours that swirled around the village in the wake of the felling, indicating he was responsible It wasn't until Northumbria Police received a 'strand of intelligence' two weeks later that officers carried out the dawn arrest of Graham at his home. 'Within a couple of days, people were saying it was him,' the neighbour said. 'It was a case of waiting for him to be caught, and when he was convicted at the trial, there was a sense of relief, but also embarrassment over his link to the area.' They added: 'But no one knows why he did it, do they? We heard it was a bet. Either he lost a bet or someone made a bet with him to chop the tree down. The problem is no one will ever really know, will they?' At their sentencing hearing, it emerged that Graham and Carruthers had both now accepted responsibility, but it's still not known why they did it. The suggestion of a bet only adds to the list of unproven theories put forward, which also includes Carruthers wanting a trophy wedge from the tree as a present for his newborn child. During the two-week-long trial, Graham had described himself as a 'man with no friends'. He said he lived a quiet life, only seeing his co-accused Carruthers and his on-off girlfriend outside of work. A falling-out with his family at the funeral of his father brought him closer to Carruthers, who helped fix his father's Land Rover Defender for the ceremony. Down a track less than half a mile from Graham's home, a woman living with her parents and children in a caravan said: 'He was the type who kept himself to himself in that yard, we really didn't see much of him.' More recently, she said her family had a 'gripe' with Graham after he told environmental officials they had polluted the river that passed his compound. 'He'd been digging across the field and pointed the finger at us,' she said. 'Like everyone round here, we're really shocked,' she added. Also nearby, a neighbour remembers when detectives first arrived to arrest Graham and search his compound. They discovered chainsaws, but never found the machine that cut down to the Sycamore Gap, or the wedge of tree that was pictured in his car boot when he returned from the crime. 'He was a ruffian, so it wasn't a complete surprise when [we] heard about the evidence,' they said. 'No one really knew him, though. You'd see him driving the van, and you'd hear about the developments on the yard he shouldn't be doing. But no one really went to speak to him. Why would they?' Graham told the jury that he and Carruthers had 'bumped into each other', before forming the close relationship. But by the summer of 2024, their friendship was teetering under the pressure of evidence put to them by police. Then, in August, Graham dropped a bombshell when he made a 10-minute 101 call to police, pinning the blame on his friend. 'One of the lads, Adam Carruthers, has got the saw back in his possession,' he said. Turning the screw even further, in December, Graham posted a picture of Carruthers on Facebook. But Carruthers, despite the finger-pointing from his co-accused, never directly blamed Graham, even when giving evidence in court. For Carruthers, unlike Graham, neighbours of his parents in the town of Wigton, a 45-minute drive from Graham's home, said they were shocked to find out the 32-year-old's involvement. One neighbour said he was a 'silly man with silly ideas', but admitted his surprise when the case got to court. The neighbour said: 'He liked his cars, he was a mechanic. He was doing alright at one point. He had a job at the factory [Innovia Films], but then was caught doing up cars on a day he should have been in. He was an ordinary lad, really.' In a pub in Wigton, a drinker said he knew Carruthers because he did the MOT on his vehicle twice. 'He's not the bad guy in this,' he said. 'He got pushed into this by the other one, Adam was alright.' Carruthers was living with his partner in a ramshackle yard at an old fuel depot next to RAF Kirkbride airfield at the time of the Sycamore Gap felling. Rusting cars and machinery sit around the gated compound, where dogs guard the entrance. His partner Amy Connor had given birth less than two weeks before the tree came down. It was the prosecution's case at the trial that Carruthers had kept the wedge from cutting down the tree as a present for the newborn. Graham, when giving evidence, claimed Carruthers had a 'fascination' with the tree. He alleged Carruthers even had a length of string in his workshop, which he used to measure the tree's circumference and kept for sentimental reasons. Neither the used chainsaw, wedge of tree or length of string was ever found. Like the questions of motive behind the criminal damage, information on the whereabouts of the items looks to remain locked up with the pair who were sentenced to four years and three months in prison, as many continue to mourn the loss of the Sycamore Gap tree.
The Guardian
20 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Sycamore Gap: why would anyone cut down a tree that brought joy to so many?
'It's one of the most asked questions that I get,' says the detective who helped bring to justice the two men who cut down the Sycamore Gap tree in the middle of a stormy September night two years ago. 'As soon as anybody knows I'm involved in the investigation, the first question is: 'Why?'' Why would anyone cut down a tree that brought only joy and happiness to people? Did Daniel Graham and Adam Carruthers see it as a lark? Or a challenge? Was it a cry for help? A yell of anger? Was it no more than an act of 'drunken stupidity', as suggested by Carruthers' barrister Andrew Gurney? Both men were sober, the prosecution argued. DI Calum Meikle, of Northumbria police, genuinely does not know, he says, and thinks we might never know. 'That is potentially the biggest frustration that people hold. Because if there was an obvious reason, if there was an obvious grudge, then people could understand it.' What the detective, the son of a forester, does believe is that Graham and Carruthers had no idea of the ramifications of what was described in court as a 'moronic mission' to cut down the famous tree. 'I don't think they fully understood the enormity of their actions.' Graham and Carruthers have been sentenced after being found guilty by a jury in May at one of the highest-profile criminal damage trials held in the UK. It is a measure of how seriously the state viewed the crime that one of the north's leading KCs, Richard Wright, led the prosecution in court one of Newcastle's huge postmodern quayside crown court building, and a high court judge oversaw the case – Mrs Justice Lambert, who was, until 1 January, the presiding judge of the north-eastern circuit. 'It was just a tree,' Carruthers told a jury, while also swearing blind that he had nothing to do with its felling. The huge public and media reaction mystified him. 'It was almost as if someone had been murdered,' he said. The sycamore tree in a dip on Hadrian's Wall in Northumberland was most likely planted in the late 19th century at the behest of the landowner John Clayton, Newcastle's town clerk who is recognised as 'the man who saved Hadrian's Wall'. Clayton owned land containing 20 miles of the wall, including five forts, and organised a number of pioneering excavations. He did everything he could to protect the wall and could also surely see where was a good spot to plant a tree. He would never see just how wonderful the spot he chose for the sycamore tree was, but countless generations who followed have. In 1991, the tree featured in the Hollywood film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves in a scene with Kevin Costner and Morgan Freeman. It looks almost too beautiful. It helped put the tree into the wider public consciousness to the point where, in more recent decades, it became a place for birthday celebrations, marriage proposals and the spreading of ashes. It was one of the most photographed trees in the UK, but also morphed into something much bigger. It had a cultural identity. People said it felt like it was part of the DNA of north-east England. When Danny Boyle filmed 28 Years Later, set in the north-east, he of course featured Sycamore Gap just as he, of course, featured Antony Gormley's Angel of the North. The tree had gone when Boyle filmed, but he reasoned that 'all the things that have happened to us in the last 28 years have not happened'. So he recreated it. Its survival in the rage virus apocalypse was a wonderful tribute to the tree, he said. In reality, the tree has gone. Early suspects in the keenly watched investigation included an elderly former lumberjack – who was evicted from his home near the wall – and a teenager. Both were arrested and cleared of any involvement. Meikle said 'a single strand of intelligence' led police to Graham and Carruthers, who drove from their homes in Cumbria over the border to Northumberland on 27 September 2023 with one thing in mind. It was a night deliberately chosen by the pair, the court heard, because Storm Agnes was raging and, as experienced tree fellers would know, it is easier to fell a tree in a storm. Graham and Carruthers were once the best of friends who talked on the phone to each other every day. They were described as an 'odd couple' who 'stumbled on each other' about four years ago after Carruthers restored the Land Rover of Graham's father who, before it was completed, killed himself. The picture Graham painted of his life was a bleak one. The court heard he rarely socialised with anyone other than his on-off girlfriend. He lived in a caravan on a plot of land four miles from Carlisle with his two dogs for company. He had trouble sleeping and never made plans, he told police. The land was the base for Graham's groundworks business, which included tree-work – work for which he enlisted the help of Carruthers. They were the best of friends but by the time of the trial they could barely look each other in the eye. Since their arrest, Graham had turned against Carruthers. Graham denied being involved but told police he knew who was responsible, although he would not reveal the guilty man's identity because he had young children. That supposed reluctance soon changed. He showed police a photograph of Carruthers holding owls while in the background were chainsaws. Concerned that the police were not making enough progress, Graham made an anonymous call to 101 telling them that 'one of the lads that done it, Adam Carruthers, has got the saws back in his possession'. If they went to the property where Carruthers lived with his partner and children, they would also find a section of the tree, he said. He also warned that there were firearms on the property. Police found nothing to incriminate Carruthers, or firearms. Graham claimed Carruthers had a 'fascination' and 'strange interest' in the tree. He said his mechanic friend even had a length of string in his workshop, which he used to measure the tree's circumference and kept for sentimental reasons. In his interviews and evidence, Carruthers offered no thoughts on who was responsible but insisted it was not him. He was at home in his caravan on an airfield at Kirkbride, Cumbria, at the time, he said. The evidence against Graham and Carruthers was overwhelming, not least that police could prove that it was Graham's phone that was used to film the act of the tree being felled at 12.32am on 28 September 2023. That footage, lasting two minutes and 40 seconds, and enhanced by digital experts, was shown to a packed, silent, stunned courtroom. The terrible revving of the chainsaw in the Northumberland emptiness is followed by the sound of the tree cracking and crashing to the ground. Carruthers and Graham insisted they were not there. Messages between the men, which showed them revelling in the publicity and anger that followed the felling, had been misinterpreted, they said. A jury found the two men guilty, but the question of 'why' remains. The prosecution suggested it was 'a bit of a laugh' for the pair. It emerged after the trial that Graham was embroiled in a planning row and faced eviction – was the crime something to do with the bleakness of his life? Whatever the reasons for what the prosecution called 'mindless thuggery', the tree has gone – but in a way, it will never go. Saplings grown from seeds recovered at the site have been titled 'trees of hope' and have been given to good causes across the UK. At a visitor centre near Sycamore Gap, the Sill, people can see a section of the tree in a permanent art display created by Charlie Whinney. It's regarded as 'the people's tree' and visitors are free to photograph, touch or even hug it. And at the site of the felled tree there are signs of growth from the stump, which have been described as 'astonishing'. Sycamore Gap has gone, but there will be a sequel.
The Guardian
20 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Two men behind ‘senseless' felling of Sycamore Gap tree jailed for four years
Two men who carried out a 'moronic mission' to fell one of the most loved and photographed trees in the UK have been jailed. Daniel Graham, 39, and Adam Carruthers, 32, were each given prison sentences of four years and three months for an act of criminal damage that caused the Sycamore Gap tree to crash down on to Hadrian's wall in Northumberland on a stormy September night in 2023. The attack, using a chainsaw in the middle of the night, was met with sadness, disbelief and anger that rippled around the world. The sycamore was probably planted in the late 19th century and in recent decades the site was known as a beauty spot where people went to picnic, celebrate birthdays, propose marriage, spread ashes or just take photos. Graham, from Carlisle, and Carruthers, from Wigton, were found guilty in May of the criminal damage of the tree and the wall beside it, a Unesco world heritage site. They had denied criminal damage even though there was evidence that Graham's car had been used to drive to the beauty spot with a chainsaw in the boot. During an eight-day trial at Newcastle crown court, the jury watched footage from Graham's phone of the tree being felled and heard messages between the pair that the prosecution said showed them revelling in the infamy. The prosecutor, Richard Wright KC, said during the trial that the crime was a 'moronic mission' and the 'arboreal equivalent of mindless thuggery', and that the two men showed a 'basic lack of decency and courage to own up to what they did'. He said: 'Up and down the country and across the world, the reaction of all right-thinking people to the senseless felling of the Sycamore Gap tree has been one of sadness and anger. Who would do such a thing? Why would anyone do such a thing? Take something beautiful and destroy it for no good reason.' Wright said the 'public indignation, anger and downright disgust' at the felling had been palpable. 'Far from being the big men they thought they were, everyone else thought that they were rather pathetic.' More details soon …
