‘Reform’s populist act cracks when the right people tell the truth about them’

Eighty-seven. That’s how many national opinion polls there have been since May 1st: and Reform have led every single one. Not most. Not many. All of them.

On the same day they dominated the local elections, Reform stormed the Runcorn by-election and left Labour looking lost. But instead of treating it as a fundamental turning point, we all just shrugged. Four months later, Reform are still miles ahead, and we’re still acting like it’s just a blip. It’s not a blip, it’s a story. And right now, Labour aren’t the ones writing it.

The truth is that, for some reason, we’re acting like Reform curious voters will behave like policy machines. We imagine they’ll weigh up our deeply researched plans for the economy, pore over our house-building proposals, and nod approvingly at the footnotes before they head to the polling station. But most people don’t enjoy spreadsheets. They enjoy stories. They vote on instinct, on identity, and, most importantly of all, on who they feel is on their side.

So this is why Persuasion UK’s most recent research is genuinely a breath of fresh air: it shows exactly why Reform are still winning, but also where they’re vulnerable if we’re smart about it.

‘Telling the simple truth that Reform is run by big business’

Take immigration. Their research tested a deportation video that highlighted Labour’s asylum policy. It didn’t convert away from Reform, but it did spike the salience of immigration, pushing it higher up people’s mental list of “what matters.” That’s exactly why Farage and his pundits keep hammering it. Every time immigration dominates the conversation, Reform win, even when they’re not directly making the case.

But here’s the flip side: Farage’s veneer of “man of the people” populism cracks badly when you shine a light on who’s really bankrolling them. In Persuasion UK’s tests, the single most damaging message was the one that tied Farage and Reform to corporate interests. Not by shouting “they’re corrupt” or “they hate immigrants” into a void, but by telling the simple, understandable truth that they’re run by big business, and they’re not fighting against the system because they’re owned by the system.

Reform have taken over £2 million from fossil fuel lobbyists, polluters, and climate change deniers, more than 90% of their donations come straight from them. That’s why Farage wants to abolish net zero spending, slash workers’ rights, and hand tax breaks to the rich. He pretends he’s leading a rebellion, but the rebellion’s funded by the same people he’s pretending to rebel against.

READ MORE: ‘Labour’s personal attacks on Farage will backfire’

‘Personal critique works best, not cheap shots or mud-slinging’

But there are so many other angles that this genuinely very good piece of research didn’t test – ones that cut even deeper, because it’s about who these people really are. Take James McMurdock, one of Reform’s elected MPs, now an Independent. This is a man who’s been convicted of violence against women. That isn’t spin, it isn’t conjecture, it’s an objective fact. And it matters.

Reform’s latest lines have been selling themselves as the true defenders of British women and girls, but when one of the MPs they put in the House of Commons has a conviction like that on his record, it punctures the whole act. It forces people to confront the reality behind the performance: if these are the people who want to “take back control,” who exactly are we handing it to?

This is where personal critique works best, not cheap shots or mud-slinging, but truths that reveal the nasty character of the people running Reform. Voters understand stories about power and hypocrisy, far more viscerally than they ever will a bar chart about tax policy.

But we also have to ensure that the right messengers are the ones giving these messages, because fundamentally the best-crafted attack line in the world won’t resonate if it comes from the wrong mouth. While representing left wing views on channels like GBNews I’ve seen this over and over again, it’s not just what you say, it’s who says it.

READ MORE: ‘Five ways to bring rail fares down with public ownership’

‘It’s about sounding like someone they’d actually talk to’

Myself, and fellow working class political commentators, have often said almost identical things to Labour ministers, whether it’s on the Middle East, or the steelwork closures and yet, with Reform-curious audiences, those points simply land better when they come from voices that feel closer to their own lives.

It’s not about being cleverer or louder; it’s about sounding like someone they’d actually talk to. When people hear arguments from voices they instinctively relate to: voices that share their accent, their frustrations, their lived reality – the message cuts through in a way that no polished soundbite ever can.

For years, we’ve relied on the “command and control” model of communications, everything scripted, branded, signed off, and delivered from the top down. It’s safe, tidy, and orderly. But it’s also extremely flat, and reeks of the politics-as-usual the electorate have been forced to accept for decades, and politics-as-usual is exactly what Reform-curious voters are rejecting.

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‘Voters trust each other in a way they’ll never trust SW1’

That’s why the messenger matters more than ever. We need credible, working-class voices across the board – not just MPs, but councillors, trade unionists, and commentators too. Among the 411 MPs Labour returned at the last election, there are plenty who look and sound like Reform-curious voters, and the same is true of hundreds of councillors rooted in their communities and trusted local figures who speak the same language.

It’s not about handing out scripts or soundbites from HQ; it’s about empowering these authentic voices to go out and make the case in their own words, showing exactly who’s really pulling the strings behind Farage’s “man of the people” act, and expose the genuine hypocrisy of many of Reform’s main characters.

Because that’s the point: voters trust each other in a way they’ll never trust SW1. And if the person making the case looks, sounds, and feels like ‘one-of-us’ – talking about the things we care about, in the way we actually talk, Reform’s populist armour starts to crack.

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