Reform ‘is becoming refuge for anti-abortion politicians’

Campaigners have warned that Reform UK has become a “political refuge for antiabortion politicians” amid fears Britain could experience a US-style politicisation of the issue.

- ATHENA STAVROU

Pro-choice activists have raised the alarm after several political figures who have previously called for greater restrictions on abortion defected to Nigel Farage's party. Abortion Rights, a UK campaign group, said Reform UK is “fast becoming the political refuge for antiabortion hardliners”, accusing the party of “proudly embracing anti-choice politics”. Experts have said that while abortion is largely medicalised in the UK, the issue risks becoming politicised, as it has been in the US.

“We've been seeing US-style antiabortion politics in the UK for a long time,” Kerry Abel, chair of Abortion Rights said. “The new dynamic with Reform is that they seem to be capitalising on immigration rhetoric and increasingly – as we've noticed since the end of 2024 – speaking about abortion and family values generally.

“It's been a tactic by anyone who is anti-choice to look to the US, but I think this is a sign of where Reform are going with this.” She added: “I think it's cynical, and Nigel Farage is throwing it into the basket to see if it works. The defections from anti-choice MPs and ex-MPs are showing that it is working.”

A Reform spokesperson said the party does not have a stance on abortion and has no intention of making changes to the current abortion laws. But among those who have defected are Danny Kruger, who said in a parliamentary debate on the US abortion ban in 2022 that he disagreed that pregnant women had an “absolute right to bodily autonomy”. He later said his position had been “misunderstood”.