Talk:Reform UK

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This article was nominated for deletion on 28 January 2019. The result of the discussion was keep.

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Semi-protected edit request on 28 November 2024

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Increase Reform Membership to 100,000, given their recent announcement of reaching this goal K English 06 (talk) 13:31, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. M.Bitton (talk) 01:22, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Membership numbers

The membership has not been independently verified and has only come from Reform UK's press release. I think this needs to be stated clearly and looked into. 31.185.189.222 (talk) 17:40, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The source already mentions it is reported by farage. And what do you mean by looked into?Itv here is happy to report it and seems to take no issue with the numbers https://www.itv.com/news/2024-11-28/people-want-something-different-how-reform-uk-has-soared-to-100000-members GothicGolem29 (talk) 19:02, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

Add "British unionism" as an ideology

I believe that both the stances of Farage and the party alongside their electoral pact with the TUV shows that they are committed to a unionist ideology. DontForgetJeff (talk) 05:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would agree they absolutely are unionist GothicGolem29 (talk) 18:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This would need a reliable source explicitly calling them "British unionist". Helper201 (talk) 01:44, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would their alliance with the tuv a unionist party not show they are British Unionist? GothicGolem29 (talk) 00:46, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We need reliable sources using the term about them. It is not for us to carry out original research. This is how Wikipedia works. Bondegezou (talk) 14:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ok fair enough GothicGolem29 (talk) 00:09, 7 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How come page is locked?

. 82.17.69.176 (talk) 23:37, 12 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Persistent vandalism and addition of unsourced content. — Czello ^(music) 11:53, 13 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Help, accidentally broke a citation

Hi there, please could someone help me direct citation number 6 to https://www.reformparty.uk/

I tried to do this but accidentally broke it. Many thanks C R Munday (talk) 14:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]