If Labour and the Conservatives are in a state of bewilderment about how to manage Reform’s explosion in popularity, so too is the British media. Across the mainstream media, Reform’s strong showing in the local elections was considered almost entirely through the prism of what the results meant for Labour and the Conservatives. Nowhere did I read any analysis on how Nigel Farage might translate local election success into a general election victory. Or a proper assessment of Reform’s economic policy. Or – beyond the work of campaigners Hope Not Hate – detailed examination of its candidates. There was virtually no consideration of Reform itself.
We can only assume editors have failed to read the think-pieces their political editors keep churning out about the end of two-party politics. Because Britain’s established news media – operating through print, broadcast and online – is stuck in a two-party world. Like the Japanese soldier who continued fighting for nearly 30 years after the end of the Second World War, they’re stuck in a battle long over.
Reform has received (and benefited from) excessive media attention compared to the Liberal Democrats and Greens in recent years. But it has been reported upon almost as an entertaining cultural phenomenon, like K-pop or darts. Now, with Reform taking 30 per cent of the popular vote in last week’s elections, the news media has to accept Reform voters in the UK are no longer “they”, but “us”.
I’m guessing that in the case of the Daily Mail Reform supports make up a significant chunk of readers. And yet in Saturday’s edition the editorial told Badenoch: “The first imperative is not to panic.” By Sunday the right-leaning Express didn’t even bother to mention the Tories’ enormous losses on page one, and dedicated just a two-paragraph leader to the issue, calling on Badenoch to give people a “reason to vote Conservative”. A leader in the Sunday Telegraph simply called for “hard work” from the Tory leader.
Reform is a monster created by the right-wing media’s anti-immigration, anti-net zero and anti-woke obsessions. But following the results of the locals it appeared bewildered as, like Frankenstein, it “beheld the wretch” it had made.
Farage couldn’t care less, for he is already dominating in the social media arena, where six parties (if we’re counting the SNP) are slugging it out. During last July’s election campaign Reform generated nearly three times more social media interactions as Labour. X’s algorithm favours the bold. TikTok – where Farage is the most followed politician with 1.2 million – favours the funny and frank. Facebook is still a useful recruiting tool among older voters and those rooted in communities. Reform benefits from all.
Farage uses social media to talk directly to those attracted to his brand of populism, while painting the established media as an elite trying to stymie his bid for power. He has attacked the BBC for “double standards”, accused Question Time of being “rigged” and flung accusations of political interference at the Daily Mail and Channel 4.
It is essential for him to keep a battle going with the mainstream media, as it is for Trump, to protect his reputation as an anti-establishment disruptor and to undermine the validity of its scrutiny, while provoking from it the attention he requires.
Earlier this year the BBC failed to ensure journalistic standards were upheld in the creation of its How to Survive a Warzone film about children in Gaza, when it emerged the narrator was the son of a Hamas official. Now, the corporation is compounding this failure by blocking a totally separate documentary about medics in Gaza.
The film was apparently ready to air in February, but has been pulled while a review of How to Survive a Warzone is concluded. The new documentary’s creators, Basement Films, say they are “desperate” for a release date.
It is ridiculous that the inquiry into what went wrong in the first film has taken three months, with no sign of when it will be concluded. But what is worse is that a film that has already been cleared to air and that deserves to be seen has been paused, seemingly for nothing more than fear of provoking controversy.
Saturday 3 May was World Press Freedom Day, but it was not a day for celebration. This year, Reporters Without Borders, which creates the annual Press Freedom Index, highlighted economic pressures on journalism as “a major, more insidious problem” globally.
The UK was 20th on the global press freedom charts – up from 23rd in 2024. But the report made mention of how many newsrooms have closed and staff have been laid off. There was also a reference to the government’s failure to address intimidatory SLAPP legal actions against journalists.
The US fell two places from last year to 57th in the index, reflecting an “alarming deterioration” in press freedom, “indicative of an authoritarian shift in government” under Donald Trump, alongside the loss of thousands of journalist jobs since 2002. Populists present an obvious danger to our media, but its profitability could prove fatal.
[See also: Cosplaying Reform will doom Labour]
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This article appears in the 07 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Peace Delusion