Reform UK just set up a tent in my town centre. So I went along to ask some important questions. But the answers showed the party only cares about distractions, not about actually solving Britain’s problems.

Thatcherism gave us the cost-of-living crisis. But Reform UK says… let’s have more Thatcherism!

The Thatcherite Reform UK party is out of touch with ordinary people on most issues. The corporate media, meanwhile, are struggling to make their attacks on the resurgent left land after almost five decades of destructive Thatcherite rule. So Reform knows its distraction politics will only take it so far. That’s why it’s investing a lot in its ground game, to try and channel people’s disenchantment with the status quo into votes. What it’s apparently not investing in, however, is a meaningful plan to help ordinary people in Britain with the two big issues they really face: economic struggle and deteriorating healthcare.

The neoliberal politics that Margaret Thatcher championed is all about austerity (cutting public spending), privatising public resources, freeing companies from regulations, and fostering individualism and distrust of others. And that very much captures the essence of Reform’s platform (cuts, deregulation, distrust), with an extra dose of bigotry and a nod to privatisation’s dismal failure in the water, energy and rail sectors.

The canvasser I spoke to definitely defended Reform’s agenda. Because when I asked why people are struggling with the cost of living, all he had was mad corporate-media soundbites like:

“To deal with the cost of living we need to get down immigration.”“They’re not going to stop coming over until we go bankrupt.”“Energy costs are high because of the Green Agenda.”“People are over-coddled.”

Apart from calling for less regulation for businesses and less support for ordinary people, he constantly tried to bring the conversation back to immigration. Rather than blaming the people who’ve had power in Britain for the last five decades (and the obscenely rich people their policies have benefited), he wanted to place the blame for the problems they’ve created on people from other countries who have almost no power or money. And while he backed the idea of ’rounding immigrants up and putting them in detention camps’, he seemed to feel perfectly comfortable with the super-rich getting richer and profiting off public services.

Reform UK — Push back, and the cracks show

There are very clear tensions within Reform’s volatile coalition on issues from workers’ rights to the environment, and even immigration. And that was apparent in some of the views the canvasser shared.

The deterioration of public services and people’s wellbeing, of course, has nothing to do with poor people from other countries, taking action on the environment, or people being ‘too soft’, and everything to do with the super-rich concentrating more and more wealth in their hands at everyone else’s expense while destroying the planet in the process. But when I pushed the canvasser on that point, some sense began to seep out.

For example, he expressed his distrust of elites and admitted that the super-rich have too much power over Labour, the Tories, and also Reform. On top of that, he agreed that both billionaires and most businesses “should pay more tax”, and backed a crackdown on tax evasion. (This might shock the tax–avoiding leaders of Reform, who want to cut both taxes and workers’ rights).

Having family working in the NHS, meanwhile, he stated that “most of the NHS is private now” and that it’s wasting public money as a result. Doctors and nurses, he agreed, should have more input about how to spend money within the service. (Reform leader Nigel Farage, of course, has expressed his interest in even more private interference in the NHS.)

The canvasser also admitted that if the super-rich stopped exploiting workers or fuelling war in the Global South, it would reduce immigration significantly. And he said Britain shouldn’t waste money on aggressive military action abroad (i.e. Afghanistan, Iraq etc). (Reform, meanwhile, still wants to increase military spending, and has been sickeningly cosy with the genocidal colonial war criminals in Israel.)

Challenging Reform on the ground matters

Canvassing of different types has been around for centuries. It builds a real connection between local people and politicians, and helps mobilise potential supporters. Door-knocking works, but many people hate it. So Reform has been setting up in town centres instead.

It’s clearly serious about taking power. And it has ordinary supporters with real concerns. But if we scratch beneath the surface, they have no real solutions to Britain’s problems. Whether it’s conscious manipulation or just indoctrination, they will try to bring focus onto immigration rather than the real causes of these problems. Because talking about Reform’s neoliberal policies will attract few after almost five decades of neoliberalism. So the distraction tactic of ‘look over there – someone who looks different and speaks differently’ is their best hope. Failing that, they could just hope for a simple protest vote against the awful blue and red Tories.

But the fact is that many people want real change. And that even includes most millionaires, apparently:

It’s often said that if we tax the rich more they will just leave and overall tax revenue will be lower. Not only is there no evidence of this but the overwhelming majority of millionaires, especially those who would be affected, support a 2% wealth tax on assets over £10 million pic.twitter.com/DTGesIzwHs

— cez (@cezthesocialist) November 14, 2025

We’ve all put up with decades of decline. And most think Britain was better before Thatcher’s destructive politics came along:

1975 was BEFORE Margaret Thatcher (1979).

The reason Britain is worse is because of her. pic.twitter.com/hYXaOhIPQm

— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) November 13, 2025

We can absolutely break the neoliberal stranglehold on our lives, too. We know a clear left-wing alternative to Reform UK can stop its march to power. Because Green leader Zack Polanski has been doing precisely that, highlighting the connection between extreme wealth inequality, super-rich profiteering, and environmental destruction. But we also need to be getting that message out on the ground, in town centres, like Reform’s doing.

That means engaging in communities ourselves, but also challenging Reform when they turn up. Ask them tough questions, turning the conversation away from immigration and towards the super-rich. If you don’t change their minds, you can at the very least waste their canvassing time.

By Ed Sykes

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