Goodbye to the Brexit bad boys - Farage is now wooing gen X women

Reform's new recruits are female, less ideological and more worried about energy bills than Europe

- Rachel Sylvester Political Editor

"We now have a new fuel in our rocket engine: GIRL POWER," the Reform UK MP James McMurdock posted on X as the election results trickled through last Friday morning.

Nigel Farage's party has its first female MP, Sarah Pochin, who won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, and the former Conservative minister Andrea Jenkyns was elected Greater Lincolnshire mayor as the "bad boys of Brexit" turned into a serious electoral force. Reform is no longer the party of old white men.

This demographic breakthrough suggests that these results may represent a permanent shift in the political landscape that requires a different response from Labour and the Tories.

For years, Farage's support base has been heavily male, Brexit supporting, hostile to immigration, skeptical about tackling climate change and ferociously "anti-woke". The party's new voters are more female, less ideological and worried about energy bills rather than Europe.

Since the general election, support for Reform has almost doubled among gen X women aged 45 to 60. Last July, 16% of this group backed Farage now it is almost a third, according to pollsters More in Common. Reform is the most popular choice for gen X women. Across all age groups, the proportion of female voters who support Farage's party has gone up nine points.

Attention has focused on the young men turning to the right, attracted by Farage's laddish TikTok videos, but there has been an equally dramatic shift among middle-aged female voters. Pochin, a magistrate, built her campaign around "family, community and country" a message designed to appeal to women like her.