Talk:Reform UK

Reform is more than simply 'Right-wing' as listed under Political position / infobox

I do not think there is sufficient evidence in the article, to describe Reform UK as a 'Right-wing' party in the infobox.

'Right-wing' by itself suggests that they are a mainstream party, similar to the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats or the Labour Party.

I don't think they should be called right-wing, seemingly because this is the safest description for them to be given. 92.13.122.219 (talk) 00:48, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

The debate over what political position they should be described as has been had numerous times before in this talk page. It is the consensus that as most major UK news publications and other sources describe the party as "Right-wing" that this is correct position for the wiki page. DontForgetJeff (talk) 05:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

What about right wing to far right? GothicGolem29 (talk) 18:57, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Their policy on immigration (Freeze on 'non-essential' immigration) is more than simply 'Right-wing'.

Additionally, Reform UK wants the UK to Leave the European Convention on Human Rights. This is a viewpoint shared with some of the most right wing members of the Conservative Party.

Seemingly, policies do not seem to play a role in deciding what a political party should be described as. 92.13.122.219 (talk) 23:18, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I would agree those policies are more than just right wing yeah. I would not be against labelling them as far right but since right wing-far right covers that and the other opinons I also think that would be a good option if agreement cant be found on far right GothicGolem29 (talk) 00:44, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

These arguments are WP:OR; we don't make interpretations of their policies to label them. — Czello ^(music) 09:06, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

My original point still stands (I am 92.13.122.219) - There is insufficient information and evidence, to characterise Reform as just 'Right-wing' in the info box.

The Wikipedia article lists a single reference, as evidence that Reform UK is a right-wing party, as follows:

https://www.politico.eu/article/nigel-farage-new-party-ron-desantis-white-house-hopeful-land-uk/

I would have thought the Wikipedia editors would put more work into researching Reform UK, which is still a relatively new political party (formed as the Brexit Party in November, 2018).

Reform UK's leader was previously the leader of UKIP, which the article lists Reform UK as a split from. There is little debate about the political position of UKIP, in the Wikipedia article. 78.147.20.190 (talk) 17:48, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I would like to add that Cas Mudde (Professor of International Affairs) has written an article (titled 'Democracy is in a doom spiral—but it isn’t dead yet') for Prospect Magazine, pointing out that Reform UK is not a mainstream UK party. In a chart titled 'Shifting the Dial', Mudde compares Reform UK to other political parties around the world, such as the Freedom Party (Austria) and National Rally (France) - Most of which have both seen large increases in vote share at elections in 2024. The chart is labelled as 'Change in vote share for far-right parties in parliamentary elections, %'. He clearly states that Reform UK is neither a mainstream, or typical right-wing party in his article.

The article can be accessed here:

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/democracy/68694/democracy-doom-spiral-elections 80.44.57.137 (talk) 02:18, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

We have suggested this many times, and come to a general consensus, many times.

However many people (Who i suspect have a CoI) stop the change being made. I am honestly sick of this, as bias has no place in edits. Jaybainshetland (talk) 18:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

This exactly. Same as what needs to happen with the page about the Republican party in the US, they are definitely at least somewhat far-right Kdf122 (talk) 19:56, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Strongly Agree

I agree, and I am honestly getting very bored of this.

We have had this discussion many times, and came to a general conclusion many times, but it never gets done. I suspect this is because of people opposing despite multiple sources that are able to prove that it should be changed. Jaybainshetland (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

In the Ideology and platform section of the article there are numerous sources that support the consensus of it being described as Right-wing DontForgetJeff (talk) 17:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't actually. In the Ideology and platform section here:

It says that:

"The British politics professor Matthew Goodwin described the party as national populists, while Goodwin and others have also described the Brexit Party as neoliberal, populist, right-wing populist, right-wing nationalist, and radical right."

None of these say that it is just a right wing party. It's poorly defined in this section.

In the next paragraph of this section, there is a source which describes Reform UK as a far-right party:

"In January 2024, the French newspaper Le Monde described Reform UK as a far-right party." 80.44.57.137 (talk) 22:10, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

The political position part of the infobox allows for a quick and easy way to determine the position of the party on the Left to Right axis. The ideologies section allows for the more complex descriptions of the parties positions. I think that this thread is trying to over complicate things. If you want more ideologies to be added to the infobox go ahead and discuss that but the consensus is that Right-wing is used by most media in the UK and internationally. The academic sources in the section I mentioned suggest that the party is Right-wing. Right-wing populism is then in the ideologies section of the infobox. I may support some additions in the ideology section if they are well founded but I will not support this if this is just another attempt to get Far-right added onto the infobox despite at least two publications, that I know of, retracting this description of the party the BBC being one of them. DontForgetJeff (talk) 01:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Le Monde doubles down on it's previous claim that Reform UK is a far-right party in this (paywall free) article here:

https://archive.is/2r7Ue

No retractions made in this case. So, the Wikipedia article appears to be a bit out of date, regarding Le Monde.

A New York Times article describes Reform UK's leader (Nigel Farage) as a:

"veteran political disrupter, ally of Donald J. Trump and hard right, anti-immigrant activist". Article here:

https://archive.is/v8x6p 80.44.57.137 (talk) 06:13, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

On the 2nd of July, The Guardian published an article describing Reform UK as Hard-right.

"A second Reform UK candidate has quit the hard-right party, alleging that the vast majority of those standing for it in the general election are “racist, misogynistic and bigoted”.

Link:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/02/second-reform-candidate-quits-over-racism-and-misogyny 80.44.57.137 (talk) 21:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

An article published in The Guardian describing Reform UK's party conference in September 2024, says the following:

"A sequence of the speeches took on a populist and hard-right tone, with some echoing far-right conspiracies".

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/20/nigel-farage-tells-reform-supporters-they-can-win-next-general-election 80.44.57.137 (talk) 22:39, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

In many other articles in June and July 2024, The Guardian have referred to Reform UK as a hard-right party, including:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/04/reform-party-on-brink-of-seismic-breakthrough-after-exit-poll-predicts-up-to-13-seats

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/11/europe-right-immigration-britain-nigel-farage-rishi-sunak

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/08/from-humiliation-to-annihilation-could-this-election-mean-the-end-of-the-tory-party-as-we-know-it 80.44.57.137 (talk) 23:24, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

So, are there likely to be any changes made, as we head into 2025?

The content grade for the article is quite low (despite the increased importance of Reform UK as a political party), and clearly there's lots of room for additions to the main Reform UK page. 89.240.68.107 (talk) 22:30, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I would not use The Guardian as a reliable source for anything. They label everything they don't like as far right, hard right or alt-right. Nreive (talk) 18:36, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia considers The Guardian as a reliable source of information, please correct me if that’s wrong.

Page here:

The Guardian 2.100.158.28 (talk) 22:32, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

So, are you saying that The Guardian is not left leaning? And can be trusted to give reliable information about any party that is not left leaning? Parties are either left, left/centre, centre, centre/right, right. What is this fascination to label Reform Far Right, Hard Right, etc. If that is the case, then isn't Labour Far Left or Hard Left? Nreive (talk) 23:17, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

are you saying No, they are not. "Left-leaning" and "unreliable" are two different concepts even if you believe for some reason that they are the same. For the reliability see WP:GUARDIAN. --Hob Gadling (talk) 15:41, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

Reform UK gained 4,117,610 (14.3%) of the votes at the 2024 general election and have since set up a branch structure covering 450 constituencies. As at today (23rd December 2024) they have just over 120,000 members and five members of parliament.

The party has appointed a chairman and recently a treasurer and is amassing a considerable amount of funds both from individual membership fees and individual donations.

To describe them as “not a mainstream party” is frankly ignorant. C R Munday (talk) 09:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

For one thing, they are lead by Nigel Farage, who has made a career from attacking status quo politicians, and institutions such as the EU. But, we are getting into the realm of opinions, with the comment you made, especially because there are so few sources who would describe the fledging Reform UK party as part of the political mainstream.

Getting lots of money from party donations is neither here, nor there. 2.100.158.28 (talk) 11:44, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Correction — fledgling. 2.100.158.28 (talk) 11:49, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, Mr. 2.100.158.28., according to numerous polls and local elections, Reform UK are up there with Labour and Conservatives, beating both in some cases. You may not like them but Reform have arrived... Nreive (talk) 18:47, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Them arriving doesn't really affect if they are right wing or far right tbh GothicGolem29 (talk) 02:57, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

In the British electoral system, the Liberal Democrats, and before that the Liberal Party have held the 3rd or 2nd place in terms seat count. And general elections are ultimately what count, because they show broad support for a party, across the UK.

Reform gained 5 seats in the July 2024 general election (less than 1% of the total 650 seats), compared to the election in 2019. The Liberal Democrats gained 64, and holds a total 72. 2.100.158.28 (talk) 22:46, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Which is why the Lib Dems are typically described as a mainstream party by the media. In addition to their relative success in local elections. 2.100.158.28 (talk) 22:49, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Seat count can show strong support in specific areas, if vote share/count is low. Vote share/count nationwide can show if a party has broad support.Halbared (talk) 23:18, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I would add a small correction that before this election the SNP held the third party spot GothicGolem29 (talk) 23:35, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Or they did from the 2015 general election till the 2024 general election GothicGolem29 (talk) 23:37, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

nor does being mainstream affect a political party's position on the left/right scale, but that was also mentioned above. There seems to be a lot of "opinions" floating around here and an obsession to label a popular and growing political party as "far right". I wonder why? Nreive (talk) 10:32, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

From my point of view, there is not sufficient evidence to describe Reform UK as just a 'Right-Wing' party. There is a single reference to an article to support this description, and it is clear that the Reform UK Wikipedia page as a whole needs improvement (It has a grade C on Wikipedia's content assessment scale, so it is of a lower grade than the pages for the Labour Party, The Conservatives, The Liberal Democrats and the Green Party).

There are plenty of sources listed on this discussion page, which seem to contradict the idea that Reform UK is a right-wing party.

Far right is quite a strong term to use, and Reform UK have made it clear that they will sue any media outlets which use the term, so it is really not surprising that the term has not generally been used. 2.100.158.28 (talk) 02:00, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

If you hover over the citation right after the first sentence in the "Ideology and platform" section, right after the sentence "Reform UK is a right-wing political party." of citation [139] you will see that within that citation there are five reliable citations/sources that all call the party right-wing. Helper201 (talk) 02:40, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

I think there's arguments (now with sufficient reliable sources) that the party could be described either as 'Right-wing' or 'Hard-right' in the infobox.

However, since there is no 'Hard-right' Wikipedia page (which is mostly a British / European term), I think it leaves the Wikipedia description of Reform UK at a bit of a dead-end.

I would describe the term 'Hard-right' to describe a type of politics that is very right wing, as opposed to it being equivalent to the position of 'Far-right', which would imply extremism. So, the term serves as an intermediate position in-between 'Right-wing' and 'Far-right'. 2.100.159.184 (talk) 08:25, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

There are numerous instances of “yeah, I think this” in this discussion. Frankly, the quality of debate has been awful from both sides.

As editors, our role is to go with what the majority of sources say. It’s important recent sources have more weighting than older sources. We MUST NOT determine the party’s position based on our own political affiliation, despite how obvious we may believe the party’s position to be.

This debate has been held numerous times with no change implemented. I suggest people respond to this post with numerous sources claiming the party is “far-right” and we can work together to determine their validity (look at archived discussions for potential sources - I think I’ve posted some which haven’t been discussed in depth). News articles are much less helpful than scholarly ones.

Once we have discussed the sources and come to a decision, we should close this discussion and not have any further ones opened for quite some time. DWMemories (talk) 23:26, 2 January 2025 (UTC)

I'd be interested to know what people think about the term 'Hard-right'. Do people consider this term to mean more or less the same thing as 'Far-right'? Or, something different?

Is there a suitable term for a political party that is somewhere in-between 'Right-wing' and 'Far-right'? 2.100.159.184 (talk) 11:58, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

It is notable that The Guardian have described Reform UK as a 'hard-right' party in many articles, but have refrained from describing them as 'Far-right'. I assume that is because the later term is considered to be much more contentious? 2.100.159.184 (talk) 12:04, 3 January 2025 (UTC)

its not an obsession to label it as such if you think theres enough evidence as some do. And the reason is simple some here believe the evidence supports them being far right. GothicGolem29 (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 December 2024

Reform UK has several Far Right fractions within the party, and therefore would be more accurate and fair to be described as 'Right Wing to Far-Right'. Therefore, this would cover all positional leanings of the party Kdf122 (talk) 19:51, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template. M.Bitton (talk) 23:00, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

Ideology

I thought it might be worth adding to the ideology section the fact that various sources like this one (https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20241219-musk-s-possible-meddling-in-uk-politics-stirs-concern) describe Reform UK as far-right. I'm not sure how others feel about this.

I know the term far-right is a contested term, but in a broad sense it can be used to describe a party that is to the right of more mainstream right-wing parties (e.g. centre-right parties). zictor23 (talk) 19:44, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

This was a subject of debate before, including a vote held (should be in the archive), but there wasn't a consensus for the far-right idea. I'm definitely against it, and I even remember an (earlier) France24 article being brought up there.

I know the term far-right is a contested term, but in a broad sense it can be used to describe a party that is to the right of more mainstream right-wing parties (e.g. centre-right parties).

This would be WP:OR. Brat Forelli🦊 23:50, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

GB news

Someone put GB news as a source for reform getting 150k members but as per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources GB News is not a reliable source. So could someones with access for editing please change the source to this as its more reliable https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/reform-membership-kemi-badenoch-fakery-row-b1202295.html and the number to 153,765 GothicGolem29 (talk) 13:28, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

After checking the recent chats on GB news, it may be due for an RFC. it seems strange that an opinion piece from Le Monde (with an axe to grind) is deemed reliable status when GB is not.Halbared (talk) 15:18, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

What recent chats? I support the current consensus on GB news that outlet is absolutely not reliable. GothicGolem29 (talk) 16:42, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

And because of said consensus I still think someone with access should change the GB news article to a more reliable source like the one I gave GothicGolem29 (talk) 16:45, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

I looked through the associated chats relating to reliable sources on the page you linked. Some sources (like GB) are brought up on a regular basis to reevaluate.Halbared (talk) 18:25, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks I can’t manage to see those chats there unfortunately but fair enough as to them being there GothicGolem29 (talk) 20:23, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Yup, they're archived, it requires some clicking (bit of a rabbit warren...like most pages here...)! There's a tonne, obviously lots gets brought up to be reevaluated all ze time. It was interesting reading. :D Halbared (talk) 21:00, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough thanks GothicGolem29 (talk) 03:56, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

Reform UK's political doctrine is explicitly reformist

Shall that be added to the parties ideology? A desire for reforming the UK government is constantly professed. I believe it is a reformist party per se. Chastizement (talk) 22:13, 4 January 2025 (UTC)

You'd need significant sources that describe them as this. — Czello ^(music) 09:13, 5 January 2025 (UTC)