BSA 43 | Who supports Reform?

Introduction

Post-war British politics has hitherto been dominated by two parties, Labour and the Conservatives. Ever since the 1945 election they have always been the two most popular parties. Power has alternated between them, with the winner usually enjoying an overall parliamentary majority. Outside Scotland at least (where the SNP have long been a significant force), until now only once had there been a severe challenge to that duopoly. In the 1980s the Liberal/SDP Alliance set out to ‘break the mould of British politics’ and was ahead in the opinion polls in the final months of 1981 and the early part of 1982 (Crewe and King, 1995). However, by the time of the 1983 election, their challenge had faded and the Alliance found itself – like the Liberal Party before it - in third place.

However, since the 2024 election a new challenge to the traditional post-war order of British politics has arisen – Reform UK. The party has been continuously ahead in the polls since the spring of 2025 – a much longer period than the Liberal/SDP Alliance managed that feat. Yet until shortly before the 2024 election, Reform’s leader, Nigel Farage, former head of both UKIP and the Brexit Party and long-term campaigner for Brexit, had seemingly retired from active politics. Indeed, in March 2024 he stated that he would not return to the political fray unless he thought there was a chance of replacing the Conservatives as the principal party of the right in Britain.¹

However, just a few weeks later, Mr Farage had taken on the leadership of Reform, secured election to the House of Commons for the first time, and helped inflict on the Conservatives the biggest defeat in their history. Now, in the period since the 2024 election, Reform have seemingly made significant further progress in realising Mr Farage’s ambition – and in undermining Labour’s electoral prospects too.

This chapter puts the spotlight on this new challenge. It examines the character of support for Reform, assesses how it has evolved as the party’s support has increased since the 2024 election, and considers some of the possible explanations for the party’s rise. It focuses primarily on two possible explanations. One is that the increase in Reform’s popularity is primarily a ‘protest’ vote. After all, voters might be thought to have good reason to be unhappy about the state of the country. Living standards have flatlined in the wake of limited economic growth and a spike in inflation, not least in respect of food and energy (Francis-Devine, 2026; Pabst, 2026). Waiting times for NHS treatment that became much extended during the pandemic are still very high by historical standards (British Medical Association, 2026) - even though there has been a marked increase in spending on health funded by substantial rises in taxation (Jeffries and Purbeck-Thomson, 2025, Office for Budget Responsibility, 2026). Although these trends first became evident during a Conservative administration, the Labour government elected in 2024 has seemingly struggled to deliver the ‘change’ the party promised (Labour Party, 2024). Between them these developments have seemingly helped erode the public’s trust and confidence in how Britain is governed, including, perhaps, in the capabilities of both its traditional parties of government, and have led voters to turn to Reform.

However, as we have already noted, Nigel Farage has been one of Britain’s chief advocates for Brexit, the referendum on which in 2016 divided the country into two very different political camps. The decision to leave the EU was popular among those with a socially conservative frame of mind, while it was largely opposed by those with a more liberal outlook (Curtice and Ratti, 2022). Whereas social liberals value a diverse society that contains people from different ethnic backgrounds who adhere to different cultural practices and value different moral standards, social conservatives believe that society needs to be relatively homogenous so that it maintains an adequate level of social cohesion. Some of the policy stances and rhetoric adopted by Reform appear particularly likely to appeal to social conservatives. Apart from firmly backing Brexit, the party wants to reduce net migration to zero, is antipathetic to ‘equalities’ policies aimed at improving the rights and opportunities of those from minority backgrounds, and argues that Britain should not apologise for its imperial past (BBC News, 2025; Demony, 2026; Morton, 2026; Ward-Glenton, 2024). Rather than being a protest movement that is backed by voters with divergent policy preferences, perhaps Reform supporters come primarily from an ideologically distinct section of British society that values the party for the stances it adopts on some of the so- called ‘culture wars’ issues that divide social conservatives from social liberals (Curtice and Ratti, 2022).

These two perspectives would seem to have very different implications for Reform’s future prospects. If support for the party is primarily grounded in dissatisfaction with the performance of recent governments, both Conservative and Labour, the party’s prospects might be thought to rest on what happens to Britain’s economy, living standards, and the health service. If these come to be thought to have improved and as a result the public begin to have rather more trust and confidence in how they are being governed, it would seem likely that the challenge posed by Reform would fall back, much as happened to the Liberal/SDP Alliance. In contrast, if support for Reform is primarily rooted in a pro-Brexit, socially conservative outlook, the party’s fortunes would seem to rest on its continued ability to reflect those views and to fend off claims from other parties that they can better reflect them – and that the future of the party and British politics more generally will rest heavily on who can win the competition for the support of the country’s social conservatives.

Much of the analysis in this chapter therefore focuses on which of these two very different understandings of the motivations and character of those who support Reform appears closer to the truth. Is the rise of Reform a cry of protest against the material policy failures of successive governments, or does it represent a distinctive ideological view about how some of the cultural challenges that have risen up the political agenda should be addressed? After introducing the level of support for Reform, we examine first the demography of Reform support, focusing in particular on the extent which it mirrors that for Brexit and whether its growth since 2024 has been achieved by widening the social base of the party’s support or by winning over more of the kind of voter who was already more likely to support Reform. Then we assess how far Reform supporters are particularly unhappy about how they are governed, before turning to consider how far their views are ideologically distinctive, and which of the two motivations appears to be the more important. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our analysis.

Level of support for Reform

In our 2025 survey, 18% of respondents said they supported Reform in answer to one of a set of three questions that were asked to ascertain party support (for details see the appendix to this chapter). That compares with a tally of 13% on our 2024 survey (conducted in the autumn after the election). Only just over half of those who, in our latest survey, said they supported Reform reported having voted for the party in 2024. The growth in support for Reform as measured by the opinion polls is therefore also reflected in our survey.

Two features of our analysis should be noted. First, given that those aged 16 and 17 could not vote at the last election and given that Reform did not contest any seats in Northern Ireland, all our analyses are based on those aged 18 and over living in Great Britain. Second, when we are analysing the demography of Reform support now and how it compares with that of those who actually voted for the party in 2024 (and thus participated in the election), we exclude from the denominator on which our figures are calculated those who do not name any party as one they back. In contrast, in our analysis of the ideological and attitudinal character of party support (and how it compares with the character of support in 2024), our figures are based on all respondents, including those who do not identify with any party (albeit the figures for this group are not shown).

The demographic character of Reform support

There were two key demographic divides in how people voted in the EU referendum in 2016 (Curtice 2017a; 2017b). First, older people were more likely than younger people to vote Leave. Second, those with less in the way of educational qualifications were less keen than graduates on exiting the EU. That second pattern also meant that support for Brexit was less high among those in professional and managerial occupations than it was in other occupational groups.² In addition to these key differences, men were more likely than women to vote Leave, those from an ethnic minority background were less likely than those who are White to do so, while those who said they were English rather than British were more likely to want to exit the EU (Swales, 2016).

But how far are these divisions reflected in the pattern of support for Reform? And has that pattern changed since the 2024 election? If support for the party is primarily rooted in support for Brexit and the social conservatism associated with voting Leave, we would anticipate that the party is more popular among those demographic groups among whom Brexit was more popular and that the increase in its support since the general election has been more marked among these groups. In contrast, if much of the recent rise in support is primarily the product of discontent with the economy, public services, and the way that the country is being governed, then even if the level of support for the party is higher among those demographic groups among whom Brexit is more popular, we might anticipate that the increase in support for the party since the 2024 election has been just as evident among Remain-inclined, more socially liberal sections of the public, as it has been among those who are supportive of being outside the EU.

Age

Table 1 shows that, in line with the pattern of support for Leave, older voters are more likely than younger ones to say they support Reform. Among those aged 55 and over who name a party in response to our sequence of questions on party support, 27% say they back Reform, nine points above the equivalent figure among those aged less than 35. This pattern is the very opposite of that for the Greens who are much more popular among younger than older people. Moreover, as compared with how people voted in 2024, support for the party has risen most rapidly among those aged 55 and over. In the general election, just 15% of those aged 55 and over turned out for the party, compared with 14% of those aged 35-54 and just 12% of those aged 18-34 (Curtice et al. 2025). So support for Reform is 12 points up on its tally in 2024 among those aged 55 and over, twice as much as among those aged below 35.

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus who are living in Great Britain and who support a political party. Source: British Social Attitudes}

Education

As shown in Table 2, support for Reform varies even more by educational background – and again in a manner that replicates the pattern of support for Leave in 2016. Two in five of those whose highest educational qualification is less than the equivalent of an A-level now support the party. In contrast, slightly fewer than one in ten (9%) graduates back the party. It is the most popular party of all among the less well educationally qualified, but has the least support of any party among those with a degree. Again, the profile of Reform’s support is very different from that of the Greens, and indeed also stands in contrast to that for Labour.

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus who are living in Great Britain and who support a political party. Source: British Social Attitudes}

The vote for Reform was already much higher in 2024 among those with less than an A-level than it was among those with more in the way of educational qualifications. The gap is, however, much wider now. At the last election, Reform won 25% of the vote among this group, 15 points below its standing now. In contrast it won 18% among those whose highest qualification was an A-level and just 5% among graduates. Reform’s current support among graduates is thus only four points above what the party secured in the 2024 election, while the equivalent figure among those with an A- level is only six points.

Thus, even as compared with 2024, the demography of Reform’s support has come to reflect even more closely that for Brexit in 2016. The party is heavily dependent on older voters and especially those with less in the way of educational qualifications. It is evidently appealing to a very distinct section of British society – much as the Leave campaign did in 2016.

Occupational class

As we might anticipate, given the strength of the association between support for Reform and people’s educational background, the party is less popular among those in professional and managerial occupations than it is in any other occupational group (see Table 3). At 17%, support for the party among professionals and managers is little more than half that among those in semi- routine and routine (i.e. working class) occupations. Indeed, Reform is more widely supported among those in semi-routine and routine occupations than any other party, a position it also enjoys among those in supervisory occupations and among small employers (a group that, in contrast to those in working class jobs, has historically been very supportive of the Conservatives (Evans and Tilley, 2017)). As a result, Reform’s support varies more by occupational class than does that for any other party including, not least, both Labour and the Conservatives, who, until recently, have been more popular among those in working-class and middle-class occupations respectively (Curtice and Simpson, 2018).

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus who are living in Great Britain and who support a political party. Source: British Social Attitudes}

However, in contrast to both age and education, the class differences in support for Reform are no bigger than they were in 2024. At the election, support for Reform stood at 9% among those in professional and managerial occupations and 14% among those in intermediate positions. So, in these two groups the current level of support for the party (among those who support any party) is eight and nine percentage points respectively higher than its share of the vote in 2024. In contrast, the equivalent figure for both those in semi-routine and routine occupations and small employers is three points higher. Only in the case of those in supervisory occupations is there a more noticeable increase in support for Reform (of 17 points). This finding perhaps underlines previous evidence that educational background is more important than class position in shaping the character of support for Reform.

Sex

Just as they were more likely to vote Leave in 2016, so men are more likely now to support Reform (see also Walker, 2025; for a different view see Morris, 2025; O’Geran et al., 2025). Indeed, at nine points, the gap between men (28%) and women (19%) in their level of support for the party is rather bigger than the five-point difference between them in their propensity to vote Leave in 2016 (Swales, 2016). Men (18%) were also more likely than women (12%) to vote Reform in 2024, but here too the demographic divide has widened since the election.

However, the size of the gender gap in support for Reform varies by age. It is now especially pronounced among younger voters. Among those aged less than 35, our latest survey shows a 13-point difference between men and women in their level of support for Reform, compared with one of six points in 2024. Indeed, the growth in support for Reform among young men has been the subject of considerable interest and analysis among commentators (Barker-Singh and Losseff, 2024; Nolsøe, 2025; Penna, 2025). However, the growth in support for Reform among men has far from been confined to those who are relatively young. The widening of the gender gap – from eight points in 2024 to 13 points now - has also been marked among middle-aged voters aged between 35 and 54. That said, the gender gap is currently only eight points among those aged between 55 and 64 (six points in 2024) and just three points among the over 65s (two points in 2024). In short, an interaction between age and sex in the level of support for Reform that was not apparent in 2024 has now emerged. Even so, it is still the case that the level of support for Reform among men aged under 35 is, at 24%, no higher than that among women aged over 55.

Ethnicity, religion and national identity

According to the 2016 BSA survey, only 34% of those from a minority or mixed ethnic background voted Leave in that year’s referendum, well below the 52% figure among voters as a whole (see also Swales, 2016). Now just one in twelve (8%) of those from a minority ethnic background say that they support Reform, 18 points below the equivalent figure for those who say they are White. That represents a 4-point increase in Reform’s support since the 2024 election among those from a minority background, well below the eleven-point rise among those who identify as White. Again there has been a widening of the demographic divide in the pattern of Reform support.

Even sharper is the divide by religious identity. Reform spokespersons have sometimes portrayed Christianity as part of Britain’s ‘traditional’ culture, in contrast to minority religions, such as and especially Islam. This has become increasingly reflected in the pattern of the party’s support. Just 7% of those who identify with a religion other than Christianity support Reform, compared with 29% of those who identify with a Christian denomination (and 22% of those who do not identify with a religion at all). That represents just a two- point increase on the party’s tally among those who identify with a non-Christian religion in 2024, whereas among Christians the equivalent figure is nine points.

National identity matters too. Within England, those who when asked to indicate which one nationality best describes themselves respond ‘English’ rather than ‘British’ were more likely to vote Leave in 2016. Now, they are also much more likely to support Reform – by 37% to 19%. Moreover, that 18-point difference is almost twice the 10-point gap between the two groups in their pattern of voting for Reform in 2024.

Support for Reform is then sharply delineated demographically. The party is more popular among men, older voters, those with fewer educational qualifications, those who are White, and those regard themselves as English rather than British. Moreover, for the most part this pattern is sharper now than at the time of the 2024 election. At the same time, this demographic profile is redolent of the pattern of support for Brexit in 2016 and suggests that support for the party is concentrated among those with a socially conservative outlook. But is that a sufficient account of the basis of Reform support and how it has grown since the general election? It is to the attitudes of Reform supporters that we now turn.

An army of the discontented?

One possibility that we set out in the introduction as an alternative – or perhaps complementary – basis of support for Reform is that it is concentrated among those who are especially unhappy about the state of the economy and public services and especially among those for whom this dissatisfaction has fed into a wider disenchantment with politics and politicians.

Reform supporters are certainly relatively unhappy about their personal economic circumstances. Support for the party stands at 23% among those who are struggling on their household income (with those who do not support any party now included in the denominator), compared with 15% among those who say they are living comfortably. As a result, almost as many Reform supporters say they are struggling on their current income (27%) as say they are living comfortably (30%). In contrast, among the public in general those living comfortably (37%) considerably outnumber those who say they are struggling (22%). Reform supporters are also rather more likely (68%) than the public in general (60%) to say that their income has fallen behind prices in the last 12 months.

At 30%, support for Reform is also relatively high among those who are very dissatisfied with the health service, although, at 17%, support among those who are ‘quite’ dissatisfied is only a little higher than it is among those who are either ‘very’ or ‘quite’ satisfied (14%). Still, this means that 60% of Reform supporters are very dissatisfied with the NHS, compared with 51% of the public in general. In short, on both the economy and the key public service of the NHS, discontent is to some extent at least particularly characteristic of those who support Reform.

But does this mean that they are also disenchanted with politics and politicians? Are they, perhaps, attracted to populist arguments that express scepticism about experts and elites and have they even come to doubt the value of a democratic system that is seemingly insensitive to their needs and wishes? Table 4 shows the level of agreement and disagreement with three items that articulate aspects of such a populist outlook. These three statements are:

1. The people, and not politicians, should make our most important policy decisions.
2. Politicians talk too much and take too little action.
3. There is a conflict between the ordinary people and those in power in Britain.

Some of these sentiments, at least, are widely supported, irrespective of people’s partisan preferences. No less than 81% of the public agree that ‘politicians talk too much and take too little action’, while as many as 73% agree that ‘there is a conflict between ordinary people and those in power in Britain’. As measured by these items at least, much of the public apparently has a populist outlook. Nevertheless, the table reveals that nearly three in five (58%) Reform supporters strongly agree that politicians talk too much, eleven points above the figure for the public in general. Similarly, half (50%) of Reform supporters ‘strongly agree’ that there is a conflict between ordinary people and those in power, whereas among all respondents only just over one in three (36%) take that view. Meanwhile, 59% of Reform supporters either ‘agree’ or ‘strongly agree’ that ‘the people’ should make most policy decisions, compared with 43% of the general public.

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain. Source: British Social Attitudes}

^{* Less than 0.5%.} 

The responses to a further item tell a similar story. In this case the proposition reflects an anti-populist position. It reads:

It is better to rely on the opinions of experts than the experiences of ordinary people.

Among Reform supporters 44% disagree with the proposition, while only 19% agree. In contrast, a third (33%) of all respondents disagree while just over a quarter (27%) agree.

Still, despite the somewhat populist outlook of Reform supporters, most still value living in a democracy. This became evident when we asked people whether they agreed that:

Democracy may have problems but it’s better than any other form of government.

As many as 79% of Reform supporters stated that they agree with the proposition, only slightly lower than the 81% figure among the public in general. That said, only just over a quarter (26%) said that they ‘strongly agree’ compared with a third (34%) of the general public. At the same time, nearly one in six Reform supporters (17%) indicated that they disagree with this statement, rather more than the one in eight (12%) of all participants in our survey. There is, it seems, a little less confidence in democracy among a minority of Reform supporters.

What, however, does clearly distinguish Reform supporters is a low level of trust and confidence in how Britain is currently being governed. Our 2024 survey found that as many as 75% of them believed that ‘the present system of governing Britain needs a great deal of improvement’, almost twice the proportion (39%) among the general public at the time. A little over two-thirds (68%) said they ‘almost never trust British governments to place the needs of the nation above the interests of their own political party’, when a little under half (46%) of all respondents expressed that view. Meanwhile, four in five (80%) reckoned they ‘almost never trust politicians of any party in Britain to tell the truth when they are in a tight corner’, notably higher than the figure of three in five (60%) among the general public.

However, none of this means that Reform supporters are any less interested in politics, while their commitment to the party they support is unusually strong. Among the public in general, 39% say they have ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of interest in politics; at 43%, the figure among Reform supporters is somewhat higher.³ This is despite the fact that a quarter (25%) of those who support Reform say that they did not vote in the 2024 general election, a higher figure than that for the supporters of any other party.

Meanwhile – and remarkably – as many as 23% of Reform supporters say they identify ‘very strongly’ with their party, well above the 11% figure for supporters across all parties. In an era when relatively few voters have a strong commitment to a party (Dalton and Wattenbrg, 2002), Reform seems to have engendered a remarkably strong sense of allegiance among its supporters.

There is then some evidence that Reform supporters are more likely to be unhappy with the state of their country. They are rather more likely to feel unhappy about the performance of the health service and to be struggling financially. They are somewhat more likely to endorse populist propositions, while a minority express a degree of doubt about the merits of democracy. Most striking, however, is their lack of trust in government and politicians and their very critical outlook on the way that Britain is being governed suggesting that they lack confidence in the ability of the British state (and perhaps the two traditional parties of British government) to solve the policy challenges that it is currently facing.

Ideologically distinct?

Liberal or Conservative?

Still, given what we have learnt so far about the demography of Reform, perhaps Reform supporters are distinguished not so much by their unhappiness with the state of the country and how it is being governed as by their ideological outlook. The strength of their commitment to the party might also be thought to suggest that their support for Reform reflects more than a cry of protest. Maybe support for the party is primarily concentrated among those with a ‘socially conservative’ outlook who respond to the stances that Reform have taken on ‘culture wars’ issues?

Ever since 1986, BSA has carried a series of items intended to distinguish ‘libertarians’ from ‘authoritarians’, or ‘social liberals’ from ‘social conservatives’. Each statement emphasises the value of either people conforming to the law, or, of their upholding society’s traditional or moral values. They thus reflect an outlook that values conformity and social homogeneity rather than social and cultural diversity. The items, six in all, read as follows:

1. Young people today don’t have enough respect for traditional British values
2. People who break the law should be given stiffer sentences
3. For some crimes, the death penalty is the most appropriate
   sentence
4. Schools should teach children to obey authority
5. The law should always be obeyed, even if a particular law is
   wrong
6. Censorship of films and magazines is necessary to uphold
   moral standards

In each case, respondents are presented with a five-point scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’. Respondents’ answers are then summed across all six items to form a single score that distinguishes between those who agree with most or all of the items (authoritarians/social conservatives), those who disagree (libertarians/social liberals), and those with a more mixed outlook.⁴ Here we have used that score to identify the one third of our respondents who were most authoritarian, the one-third most libertarian, and the one-third in between.

Table 5 shows, for each of the five main political parties in Britain, their level of support in our latest survey broken down by where they stand on our libertarian-authoritarian dimension. It reveals that support for Reform is heavily concentrated among those at the authoritarian end of the spectrum. No less than 34% of authoritarians support Reform, enough to make it by far the most popular party among this group, whereas just 5% of libertarians regard themselves as a supporter of the party. As many as three in five (60%) Reform supporters hold views that put them among the one-third most authoritarian. Conservative support is also somewhat higher among authoritarians, but the gap (see the last column of Table 5) is much less than it is for Reform. In contrast, the other three parties, Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens, are all more popular among libertarians than authoritarians. This is particularly evident in the case of the Greens, two- thirds of whose support comes from the one-third most libertarian. On this ideological dimension, at least, Reform and Green supporters occupy opposite ends of the spectrum.

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain. Source: British Social Attitudes} 

The distinctive position occupied by Reform supporters on the libertarian- authoritarian dimension is also very evident on some of the specific ‘culture wars’ issues on which the party focuses. On immigration, respondents to our survey were asked to give a score of between 0 and 10 to indicate whether (a) they thought that migrants who come to Britain are good or bad for the economy, and (b) they thought migrants enrich or undermine Britain’s culture (see also Curtice et al., 2026). We can regard those who give a score of between 0 and 3 as being inclined to the view that migrants are bad for the economy and undermine Britain’s culture. On this basis, as many as two- thirds (67%) of Reform supporters emerge as being inclined to the view that migrants are bad for the economy, while nearly three-quarters (75%) feel that migrants undermine Britain’s culture – around double the equivalent figures of 33% and 35% respectively among the general public.

Equally, Reform supporters have very distinct views on the UK’s relationship with the EU. Support for the party stands at 49% among those who would now vote to stay out of the EU, while just 9% of those who would vote to rejoin back the party. The party’s historical origins in the decision to leave the EU are still clearly reflected in the current attitudes of its supporters. Meanwhile, just 8% of Reform supporters believe that Britain’s interests are better served by closer ties with Wester Europe rather than the USA, much lower than the 30% figure among the public in general. As many as 29% of Reform supporters reckon closer ties with the USA are more important, compared with 11% of the general public – though like the general public their most popular response (50%) is ‘both equally’.

Our 2025 survey did not ask questions about equalities policies. However, a NatCen Panel survey conducted just a couple of months earlier did (Scholes et al., 2025).⁵ It shows that Reform supporters are markedly more inclined to be sceptical about attempts to increase equal opportunities for those belonging to minority groups. As many as 88% believe that attempts to give equal opportunities to transgender people have ‘gone too far’, well above the 48% figure among the general public. Similarly, 52% of Reform supporters express that view about opportunities for lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, while 51% say the same of Black and Asian people. Among people in general the figures were 27% and – most notably - just 17% respectively.

Reform are also opposed to the pursuit of ‘net zero’, arguing that the pursuit of policies to reduce climate change poses an unnecessary risk to Britain’s economic wellbeing (BBC News, 2025). Attitudes towards this subject are less strongly related to where people stand on the libertarian-authoritarian dimension than in the case of immigration, Brexit or equalities policies. Still, the attitudes of Reform supporters towards climate change are quite distinctive. True, just over half (51%) believe that climate change is taking place and is doing so at least in part as a result of human action. Nevertheless, that is well down on the 77% figure among the general public.

As many as 20% of Reform supporters do not believe that climate change is taking place, while 27% say that change is not the result of human action. Similarly, in response to a further question, just 23% of Reform supporters say that climate change is entirely or mainly the result of human action, much lower than the 54% figure among the public in general, though the most popular response among those backing Reform, given by 43%, is that climate change is equally the result of human and natural processes. In short, while most Reform supporters acknowledge that climate change is happening, there is some reluctance to lay the finger of blame at human activity.

Meanwhile, the more authoritarian outlook of Reform supporters is also reflected in their attitudes towards aspects of government spending. As many as 74% feel the government should spend more on defence, compared with 48% of the general public. As many as 18% say defence is their top priority for government spending, whereas the equivalent figure for all respondents is 10%. Meanwhile, 11% state that more spending on the police would be their first call on the public purse, when, for the general public the figure is 5%. We will turn to attitudes towards other aspects of government spending later in this chapter.

Left or right?

The divide between libertarians and authoritarians is not the only ideological divide in British politics. Indeed, historically, the most important divide so far as voting behaviour is concerned has been between ‘left’ and ‘right’ (Heath et al., 1985). BSA measures where people stand on that divide by ascertaining their responses to five items that focus on the degree of inequality in British society and on what, if anything, the government should do about it. These five items read as follows:

1. Government should redistribute income from the better-off to those who are less well off
2. Big business benefits owners at the expense of workers
3.  Ordinary working people do not get their fair share of the
   nation’s wealth
4. There is one law for the rich and one for the poor
5. Management will always try to get the better of employees if it
   gets the chance

Again, respondents were invited to express their view of each proposition by using a five-point scale that ranged from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’ and their answers were summed across all five to identify the one- third most left-wing (that is, those who tended to agree with each item), the one-third most right-wing (those who mostly disagreed), and the one-third in between⁶

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain. Source: British Social Attitudes} 

Reform supporters are not so distinctive on this dimension. At 22%, support for the party among those on the right is somewhat higher than among those on the left (15%), but the gap is only seven percentage points. Just 37% of Reform supporters are on the right – well below the equivalent figure for the Conservatives (58%), for whom the gap between left and right is as much as 21 points. Meanwhile, Labour and (especially) the Greens are more popular among those on the left than those on the right; just over half (53%) of Green supporters stand on the left, which means that, in contrast to Reform, the party’s support is ideologically concentrated on both dimensions.

That Reform supporters are only somewhat to the right in their attitudes towards issues of inequality is apparent in their attitudes towards inheritance tax, a tax that reduces the advantage enjoyed by those who inherit wealth from family members who have accumulated significant financial resources during their lifetime. This tax is far from popular among the public in general; 55% state that they are opposed to inheritance tax, while only 23% are in favour. Among Reform supporters, the equivalent figures are 65% and 13% respectively, figures that suggest they are only somewhat more opposed than the general public. Notably, Reform supporters are less opposed to the tax than Conservative supporters, 77% of whom are against.

Much the same is true of attitudes towards child poverty. Reform supporters (32%) are somewhat less likely than the public in general (42%) to feel that there is ‘quite a lot’ of child poverty in Britain today, but are more likely than Conservative supporters (22%) to express that view. Meanwhile, 62% of Reform supporters say that it is ‘very important’ to reduce child poverty, whereas 75% of the general public take that view.

Welfare

Our evidence thus suggests it would be a mistake to describe Reform supporters as markedly ‘right-wing’. They are much more distinctive in their social conservatism on culture wars issues than they are in how right wing they are on issues of inequality. This would seem to be somewhat at variance with the party’s advocacy of smaller government and lower taxes. However, attitudes towards taxation and spending – and especially welfare spending – not only reflect where people stand on the left-right dimension but also on the libertarian-authoritarian dimension. This is not surprising. Attitudes towards welfare are not just about inequality, but also about ‘desert’, that is, who is and who is not regarded as deserving of support from government. In this there is an echo of the debates about immigration and equalities policies, where attitudes reflect arguments about who is acknowledged as ‘us’ (and thus should be supported) and those who are considered as ‘other’ (and so should not). In both cases, Reform supporters are minded to draw the boundaries more narrowly than many of their fellow citizens.

This picture emerges clearly if we examine the link between party support and where people stand on a welfare scale that is also included on each year’s BSA. In this case, respondents are invited to use a five-point scale to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with eight items, five of which are worded in an anti-welfare direction:

1. Around here, most unemployed people could find a job if they really wanted one 
2. Many people who get social security don’t really deserve any help 
3. Most people on the dole are fiddling in one way or another 
4. If welfare benefits weren’t so generous, people would learn to stand on their own two feet
5. The welfare state encourages people to stop helping each other

…and three in a pro-welfare one:

1. The government should spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor, even if
   it leads to higher taxes
2. Cutting welfare benefits would damage too many people’s lives 
3. The creation of the welfare state is one of Britain’s proudest achievements

Respondents’ answers to these items can be summed into a single scale score that enables us to identify the one third who are most sympathetic to welfare, the one third who are most unsympathetic, and the one third in between⁷

Where people stand on this scale is in part correlated with where they stand on the left-right dimension. The r value (a measure of strength of association whose values lie between 0 (no correlation) and 1 (perfect correlation) is 0.3. However, it is even more clearly correlated with respondents’ libertarian- authoritarian score, where the r value is 0.5. Crucially, the clear interrelationship between people’s views about welfare and their position on the libertarian-authoritarian scale is very different from the relationship between people’s left-right score and their libertarian-authoritarian one, where the r value is but 0.1. Where people stand on the libertarian- authoritarian scale is largely unrelated to where they stand on the left-right one, but is quite strongly related to their measure on our welfare scale.

Consequently, we should not be surprised that, as Table 7 shows, those who are unsympathetic in their outlook towards welfare are also much more likely than are those who are relatively sympathetic to support Reform. At 21 percentage points, the difference between the two groups is markedly greater than the equivalent figure for the left-right scale of six points (see Table 6), though it is somewhat smaller than the 29-point difference on the libertarian- authoritarian dimension (see Table 5). Well over half (55%) of Reform supporters have an unsympathetic attitude towards welfare, a figure similar to that for Conservative supporters (52%). Here too, Labour and Green supporters – joined in this instance by Liberal Democrat supporters as well – are on the other side of the divide, with no less than 60% of Green supporters in particular emerging as sympathetic to welfare.

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain. Source: British Social Attitudes}

This unsympathetic outlook among Reform supporters towards welfare can be seen in the pattern of attitudes towards taxation and spending. This reflects the fact that, although the subject is often regarded as a ‘left-right’ issue, in practice attitudes are more closely related to where people stand on the welfare scale than to our left-right scale or, indeed its libertarian- authoritarian counterpart. Among the general public, only 19% say that, if forced to choose, the government ‘should reduce taxes and spend less on health, education, and social benefits’ while 37% support an increase (see also Curtice et al., 2026). However, nearly one in three Reform supporters (32%) are in favour of a reduction in taxes and spending, while only just over one in five (22%) support an increase – though, as in the case of the general public (41%), the most common response (42%) is that both taxes and spending should be kept at the same level as now. Meanwhile, over three- quarters (78%) of Reform supporters say that ‘benefits for unemployed people are too high and discourage them from finding jobs’, well above the 60% figure among the general public. Although as we saw earlier, Reform supporters are supportive of more spending on defence and are more likely to regard spending on the police to be a priority, the party’s emphasis on lower tax and a smaller state is far from entirely absent among Reform supporters.

Which matters more? Discontent or ideology?

We have discovered that Reform supporters are more unhappy than most about how Britain is run, while they also have a distinctive ideological outlook. This might lead us to question whether these are two independent motivations for supporting the party. Perhaps, for example, those of a socially conservative disposition are also more likely to be unhappy about the governance of Britain and that once we take people’s ideological position into account their evaluations of the health service or views on how the country is being run make little difference to the probability that someone supports Reform. Alternatively, maybe we should also consider the possibility that the party is especially popular among those who are both socially conservative in outlook and are especially unhappy about the state of the country.

In Table 8, we assess whether either of these two patterns is evident by analysing the level of support for Reform both by where they stand on the libertarian/authoritarian divide and their level of satisfaction with the health service.⁸ It shows quite clearly that support for the party is higher among authoritarians than libertarians irrespective of how satisfied someone is with the health service. For example, even among those who are satisfied with the NHS, support for Reform is 22 percentage points higher among authoritarians than among libertarians. At the same time, although the differences are smaller, those who are very dissatisfied with the health service are more likely to support Reform than are those who are satisfied. Among those who are neither especially libertarian nor authoritarian, for example, support for Reform is 16 points higher among those who are very dissatisfied with the NHS than it is among those who are satisfied. It appears that the relationship between people’s evaluations of the health service and support for Reform is largely independent of where they stand on the libertarian/authoritarian dimension.⁹

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain. Source: British Social Attitudes}

^{Unweighted bases can be found in Appendix Table A.1 of this chapter.}

That said, we might wonder whether there is an interaction effect, that is, that the level of support for Reform is especially high among those who are both authoritarian and very dissatisfied with the NHS. After all, no less than 46% of this group support Reform. Meanwhile, the difference between authoritarians and libertarians in their level of support for Reform is especially high among those who are very dissatisfied with the NHS while, at the same time, the difference in support for Reform between those who are very dissatisfied with the NHS and those who are satisfied is most marked among authoritarians. However, formal modelling indicates that such interaction as might appear to be present in the table is not statistically significant.¹⁰

Further analyses point to a similar conclusion. For example, whether people feel comfortable or are struggling on their income, their degree of assent to populist statements, and (especially) their perception of how much improvement the system of governing Britain needs all appear to be related to support for Reform, irrespective of where people stand on the libertarian/authoritarian dimension. Equally, however, the relationship is typically not as strong as that with people’s stance on that dimension.¹¹ In short, while support for Reform is partly a reflection of people’s discontent, the party appears above all to have gathered a group of people with very distinctive, authoritarian and socially conservative views.

Has the attitudinal portrait of Reform support changed?

Our analysis has revealed that Reform supporters are distinguished by their social conservatism, their unsympathetic outlook towards welfare, and by a high level of discontent with their finances and the state of the health service as well as with how the country is being governed more broadly. But is this any different from the position in 2024, when support for Reform was much lower? Has the growth in support for the party been occasioned primarily by simply winning over more of those with such attitudes – just as it has mostly won over similar kinds of people demographically - or has it been able to extend its ideological and attitudinal reach more broadly into the British electorate?

In Table 9 we compare the pattern of support for Reform by people’s position on our three value scales as registered in our most recent survey with the pattern of support recorded by our 2024 survey, conducted just a couple of months after the election. It shows a remarkably similar pattern. In 2024 too, authoritarians were much more likely than libertarians to say they supported Reform, while those who are unsympathetic in their outlook on welfare were more likely to back the party. All that has happened since is that support for Reform has grown more markedly among those whose ideological outlook meant they were already more inclined to support Reform, with this especially being evident among authoritarians.¹² As a result, the proportion of Reform support that comes from those with an authoritarian stance and an unsympathetic outlook on welfare is similar to 2024. The picture is much the same if the comparison is made with those who in the 2024 survey said that they voted for Reform in the election.¹³

^{Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain. Source: British Social Attitudes}

^{Unweighted bases can be found in Appendix Table A.2 of this chapter}

In contrast, there was only a weak link in 2024 between where people stood on the left/right spectrum and support for Reform. Indeed, support for the party among those on the right was no higher than it was among those in the centre. That there is now also no more than a modest relationship, albeit that support has risen a little more among those on the right, again suggests that the growth in support for Reform has not been accompanied by any marked change in the ideological outlook of those who back the party.¹⁴

As in our latest survey, Reform supporters were also more common in 2024 among those who were struggling financially or who were very dissatisfied with the health service. At that time support for the party stood at 15% among those who were struggling compared with 10% among those living comfortably. Now the figures are 22% and 14% respectively. However, this means that the gap is only slightly bigger now than in 2024. Similarly, in 2024 support for the party was as high as 21% among those who were ‘very dissatisfied’ with the NHS, compared with 8% among those were satisfied – a difference of 13 points. The gap now – 16 points – is little different. In short, whereas the rise of support since 2024 has been concentrated among social conservatives and those who are unsympathetic to welfare, it has been on much the same scale among the contented as it has been among the discontented. Although unhappiness with the health service and people’s financial circumstances is more common among Reform supporters, it has seemingly been the party’s ability to appeal to those with a distinctive ideological outlook that has been more important reason for the increase its support since 2024.

Conclusion

Support for Reform is not simply an expression of ‘protest’. Although those who back the party are more likely than voters in general to be struggling with the cost of living, to be concerned about the health service, and to be unhappy about how the country is being governed, they are distinguished above all by having a socially conservative outlook that is reflected, inter alia, in their attitudes towards immigration, equalities policies, and welfare spending, and is underpinned by a demographic profile that is dominated by older voters and those who have not been to university. That suggests that, on their own at least, meeting successfully some of the policy challenges that currently face the government, such as reviving economic growth, increasing living standards, and improving the performance of the NHS, will not necessarily engender a significant reversal of the rise in support that has been enjoyed by Reform since the 2024 election.

In truth, the rise of the party is best seen as the latest instalment in the transformation of the ideological basis of electoral choice in Britain in the wake of Brexit. People’s attitudes towards Britain’s relationship with the EU are aligned with where people stand on the libertarian/authoritarian dimension rather than whether they are on the ‘left’ or the ‘right’. After the referendum, Brexit became increasingly aligned with people’s vote choice as Parliament debated (again and again) whether and how best to deliver the vote to Leave in the 2016 referendum. As a result, support for the Conservative party in particular became increasingly correlated with where people stood on the libertarian/authoritarian dimension. By the time of our 2020 survey, shortly after Brexit had been delivered, nearly half (49%) of authoritarians were backing the Conservatives, compared with just 13% of libertarians (Curtice et al., 2024). As a result, the libertarian/authoritarian divide now shaped the pattern of Conservative support as much as that between left and right – in stark contrast to the position before the 2016 referendum.

However, the Conservative party has been unable to retain this coalition of voters. As we saw in Table 5, support for the party among authoritarians now stands at just 18%, 30 points below its tally in 2020. Meanwhile, at 34%, Reform’s support among authoritarians more than matches that 30 point drop. Indeed, the fall in Conservative support closely matches the current level of backing for Reform at other points along the libertarian/authoritarian dimension too.¹⁵ In other words, under Nigel Farage’s leadership Reform has acquired much of the ideological coalition of support that took Boris Johnson to victory in the 2019 election under the slogan, ‘Get Brexit Done’.

But how have Reform been able to replace the Conservatives as the most popular choice of pro-Brexit social conservatives? There was, of course, a general disenchantment with the Conservative government in the wake of the events that led to the downfall of Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss. But for many of those who voted Leave, there was a particular disappointment about how Brexit turned out, and especially so in respect of immigration (Curtice, 2026). Far from inaugurating an era of reduced immigration as many Leave voters had anticipated, withdrawal from the European Union was followed by record high levels of immigration. Meanwhile, as we have previously reported, this experience has been accompanied by a reduction in the proportion who believe that immigration is good for the country’s economy and enriches its culture (Curtice et al., 2026). In short, the climate of public opinion has become less favourable to immigration at a time when the Conservatives had been unable to deliver the fall in immigration that many Brexiteers had wanted, thereby opening up an opportunity for Nigel Farage, as one of the principal (and most charismatic) advocates of Brexit, to appeal to socially conservative voters.

Indeed, attitudes have moved somewhat in Reform’s direction on some other issues too. On equalities policies, the survey conducted via the NatCen Opinion Panel in July 2025 found that, at 47%, the proportion who believed that attempts to give equal opportunities to transgender people had gone too far was up 14 points on 2021. At the same time, the proportion who thought that equal opportunities for ‘gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals’, had not gone far enough was, at 22%, eight points down on 2021. There was also a seven- point fall (to 38%) in the proportion who felt that attempts to give equal opportunities to Black people and Asians had not gone far enough.¹⁶ Meanwhile, there has been a slight reversal of the decline in the trend towards a more libertarian outlook that had been in evidence since 2011 (Curtice, 2023).¹⁷ Some of the tunes Reform has been singing now have a somewhat wider resonance than hitherto, thereby potentially helping the party to win the support of socially conservative voters, many of whom are seemingly uncomfortable finding themselves living in a more diverse and apparently increasingly socially liberal society (Curtice and Ratti, 2023).

Still, the experience of the Conservatives indicates that it cannot be presumed that authoritarians will remain loyal to Reform should the party disappoint on the issues that are currently making the party look attractive to them – or if the Conservatives can renew their appeal to them. But what does seem to be clear is that the outcome of the battle between the Conservatives and Reform for the position as Britain’s principal party of the right will depend heavily on the choice that is eventually made by Britain’s socially conservative voters, for whom in post-Brexit Britain, ‘culture wars’ issues have come to be central to the choice they make at the ballot box.

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Appendix

Measuring party support

From its inception in 1983, BSA has measured the level of support for the parties by asking the following sequence of questions:

Generally speaking, do you think of yourself as a supporter of any one political party?

If respondents say ‘No’ or ‘Don’t Know’ in response to this question, they are asked:

Do you think of yourself as a little closer to one political party than to the others?

Those who say ‘Yes’ to either of these two questions are presented with a list of possible parties and asked:

‘Which one of the following?’

Meanwhile, those who do not give a positive answer to this question, are presented with the same list and are asked:

‘If there was a general election tomorrow, which political party do you think you would most be likely to support?’

…with ‘None’ included as one of the possible responses.

The first two questions are designed to capture whether someone identifies with and has an emotional attachment to a particular party, even if currently they might not vote for that party. Current vote intention is only captured for those who do not profess any such identity. We thus do not necessarily expect the level of support for the various parties that is obtained by this measure to be the same as the parties’ current standing in polls of vote intention.

To measure the strength of people’s support, after respondents have been asked this sequence of questions, those who name a party at any point are also asked:

‘Would you call yourself a very strong [name of party supported] supporter, fairly strong, or not very strong?’

Unweighted bases

Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain.

Table based on those aged 18 plus living in Great Britain.