Nigel Farage surges with Gen Z women

LONDON — Reform UK is winning over Gen Z women, a demographic that the right-wing populist party has struggled to attract in the past. 

The party’s vote share among women aged 18 to 26 shot up in May — jumping from 12 percent to 21 percent after nationwide local elections, according to polling for the More in Common think tank shared with POLITICO.

Most of the new recruits seem to have defected from the Conservative Party, according to the data.

“In the general election, you could confidently say the median Reform voter is a middle-aged man who voted for Brexit,” said Louis O’Geran, research assistant at More in Common. “The gender gap is narrowing, but also that age distribution is spreading out.” 

It’s a striking shift for a party long dogged by accusations it has a problem with women.

Leader Nigel Farage has previously dismissed gender disparities in business as a result of men being more willing to “sacrifice family lives” — and once praised controversial far-right influencer Andrew Tate, who was later charged with rape by British prosecutors, as an “important voice” for “emasculated” men.

The party’s manifesto includes a pledge to scrap the U.K.’s Equality Act, legislation meant to prohibit discrimination based on gender, disability, race, and more. 

Reform is, however, finding clear traction with younger women, some of whom see the party as clearer on its policy aims than the alternatives. Young women point to a dissatisfaction with the opposition Conservatives and the governing Labour party — and “the sense that the two main parties just aren’t working,” O’Geran said.

The poll, which is based on an average of four surveys conducted in May of roughly 9,000 adults in Great Britain, reflects a broader increase in Reform’s overall vote share, which moved from 24 percent of the national vote to 29 percent during the same period.

“While the increase in support among Gen Z women is really significant, they started on a far lower base than any other age group … the increase is probably part of a wider expansion of Reform’s support following the election,” said O’Geran.

Joining UKIP at age 14

Charlotte Hill, a 25-year-old Reform UK councillor in Derbyshire, joined Farage’s old party UKIP at the age of 14, around the time of the Brexit campaign. In doing so, she took after her father, who was a staunch Leave voter and “played a big part in [her] life lessons,” she told POLITICO.

Hill followed Farage’s political journey — and eventually became a Reform UK supporter. 

While she studied English literature at university with hopes of becoming a teacher, she felt alienated by the course’s “very Jeremy Corbyn positive and Nigel Farage negative” tone, a reference to the hard-left Labour leader who quit in 2019.

Hill said she had grown disenchanted with being “the odd one out” amongst her peers, and changed her course into construction management — a “male-dominated space” where she has “fortunately never had a problem” with discrimination. 

What attracts her to Reform is the party’s prowess in communicating its message, and its ability to start “tapping into the younger generation quickly” on social media platforms like TikTok.

Farage has 1.2 million followers on TikTok. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Tory Leader Kemi Badenoch aren’t even on it. 

“We look at Labour and Conservatives, and in my opinion, their values are quite similar now,” argued Hill. “You can’t ring fence either party’s values, whereas with Reform, I think you can.”

Hill also believes Reform is offering direct policy support for young women. Pointing to Farage’s recent announcement that he wants to scrap a two-child cap on social security benefits, and bring in tax breaks for married people, Hill said Reform would enable women “to stay at home for longer or to go part-time.”

Safety — and scrapping DEI 

O’Geran notes that Gen Z women diverge from the rest of the population on key issues. Only five percent of those polled named immigration as a top concern — compared to 22 percent among the wider public. Instead, the issues that matter the most to this cohort are the cost of living, jobs, mental health and affordable housing.

Still, some of Reform’s female politicians want to link immigration to women’s safety. “Once those illegal immigrants are in the community, that’s when women’s safety becomes a real issue,” Sarah Pochin, a new Reform MP for Runcorn and Helsby, said. “That’s when women feel that they can’t let their children play out on the streets.” 

Sarah Pochin (L), Andrea Jenkyns (Centre), Charlotte Hill (R) | Photo-illustration by Aimee Rogers/POLITICO (Source Images from WikiCommons and Reform UK)

Andrea Jenkyns, newly elected Lincolnshire mayor, similarly told POLITICO that “especially in coastal areas, young women were saying … that they feared for their safety, because especially on the coast there’s migrant hotels. I think if we’ve got this strong policy on illegal migration and safety, I think that would appeal to people.”

Both Reform reps share the idea of people being promoted in the workplace based on ability, and reject diversity initiatives. 

“I’m not a feminist, I’m a meritocrat,” said Jenkyns, a former Conservative MP.

Although she is neurodiverse and has a son with autism, Jenkyns doesn’t believe laws like the Equality Act are necessary, saying support is “just showing kindness in society.” 

“You don’t need policies for that,” she said. “It’s about creating the environment so everyone can thrive,” adding that she would like to see a “more blended learning environment” for neurodiverse people to thrive. 

Section 20 of the Equality Act legally requires employers and public bodies to “make reasonable adjustments” for disabled people, including those who are neurodiverse. 

Pour my wine, please 

Even if it’s making inroads with women, representation remains a sore spot for Farage’s party.

Fewer than a quarter of its local election candidates were women, according to data from the University of Exeter’s Election Center. That lags behind the Tories on 30 percent and the Green and Labour parties, both on roughly 40 percent. 

But Pochin hopes her win last month, making her Reform’s first female MP, will make women “more interested in Reform.” Just don’t expect her to champion gender quotas anytime soon. 

“Women only want meritocracy,” she told POLITICO. “That’s all I ever wanted. I’ve worked in a male-dominated world all my life, and I have never felt at a disadvantage once.” 

“I still want a man to pour my glass of wine or whatever it is at night,” she added. “I still want a man to hold a door open for me. I still want a man to say, ‘oh, you look nice,’ when you come down to go out for the evening.”

Society, she laments, has lost “the fun and banter” of the workplace. “Of course, we need to protect women. There’s times when it goes wrong or people overstep the mark, but generally speaking, I think we’ve become utterly paranoid.”