Time for journalists to do their job properly when it comes to Reform

Opinion

If Reform is claiming, as it is, to be a party capable of governing this country, then the media must subject it to the same kind of scrutiny applied to Labour or the Conservatives.

Whether they realise it or not, media organisations in the UK should be giving a lot more thought to how to cover Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

It is difficult to ignore the increasing impact of Reform, from its five MPs in Westminster to its 600 local council seats in England (albeit out of a 20,000 total) to the fact that it had recently hit a 30% share in a tracking poll for the first time.

As Sir John Curtice, professor of politics at University of Strathclyde, has pointed out, in a five-party system — which is what we may increasingly have in the UK — a 30% share of the votes in a general election could now produce a government.

The media, and in particular the BBC, bears a heavy responsibility.

Question Time has notoriously helped to create the cult of Farage by platforming him at least 39 times, presumably because he was considered box office.

Even now, it seems members of a party with five MPs are more likely to be given greater TV prominence than the party with 72 MPs, the Liberal Democrats.

Populism aided by uncritical media

Without the (sometimes uncritical) attention of the media, Farage, with his succession of near-single-issue parties, would never have gained the status of a national figure who can now dream of becoming prime minister.

It is reminiscent of how the US networks helped to create the coalition of the disaffected that gave Donald Trump two spells in the White House.

Apart from the pulling power of Farage, his current party has the advantage of at last finding an effective name: Reform. It is usefully vacuous — reform what? — but still carries the undertones of hope and improvement.

Media organisations have to remember that Farage and Trump are part of the widespread international phenomenon that is populism — mainly nurtured online but also encouraged by their complacency and acquiescence.

Populism brings together those who are disaffected by existing parties and the current political system with the offer of simple solutions to complex, intractable problems.

As the far right won Poland’s presidential election this week, a prominent Polish film director noted that those with only primary education “decided for us”.

And, yes, the higher the educational qualifications, the lower the likelihood of a Reform vote.

Scrutiny needed

Never mind the past. We are where we are. What should the media do now?

The answer is obvious, although perhaps the implementation is more demanding.

If Reform is claiming, as it is, to be a party capable of governing this country, then the media must subject it to the same kind of scrutiny applied to Labour or the Conservatives.

Such scrutiny must be applied to the past record of those associated with Reform, its current policies and its performance where it is in power, such as the 10 local authorities where it is now in control.

There was a largely uncritical piece in the Daily Mail this week reporting that Reform was setting up its own “Doge” — or Department of Government Efficiency in the Elon Musk model — to look at “wasteful spending” by councils.

There was no mention that Musk’s Doge found little waste and merely caused chaos.

The Mail did, however, mention previous Reform activity in this arena. Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, promised to remove all diversity officers from the council staff — only to find there was none.

Reform chairman Zia Yusuf said low-traffic neighbourhoods in its 10 council areas would be scrapped — only to find there weren’t any.

Zia also claimed, without evidence, that councils were spending the absurdly high figure of £7bn on diversity and equality programmes.

Selective coverage

There has been publicity for the fact that, despite immigration being Reform’s number one policy area, Farage was on holiday in France when the Labour government launched its “reset” of relations with the EU. It has also been noted that the Reform leader has spent little — if any — time in Clacton, the constituency he represents.

But it was difficult to find any coverage of the failure of all five Reform MPs to attend this week’s important government statement on defence strategy in the face of the threat from Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Likewise, little attention has been given to Reform councils Kent and Nottinghamshire cancelling around 80% of their scheduled meetings so far.

The Conservative-supporting press has a serious dilemma. Do they stick, given that 39% see Farage as the next prime minister compared with 37% for the Conservatives, should Labour lose the next election?

Will any of them be crazy enough to start supporting Reform or push for a Reform-Conservative coalition?

This is not normal times

Whatever the political outlook of the newspapers, all should be prepared to highlight the economic impact of Reform policies that were apparently plucked out of the air and totally uncosted.

Surely it would not be in the interests of any news organisation to see the crash of the economy on a scale that would put Liz Truss’ efforts into the shade?

The mistake the US media made for a long time — and, to some extent, is still making — is to equate Trumpism as a variant of conventional politics deserving of basic principles of impartial reporting.

Make America Great Again is not normal; neither is Reform under Farage. They should never be normalised and must instead be scrutinised and exposed at every turn.

The good news is that four years is a long time in politics and simplistic nonsense need not prevail — but only if journalists do their job properly.

Raymond Snoddy is a media consultant, national newspaper columnist and former presenter of NewsWatch on BBC News. He writes for The Media Leader on Wednesdays — bookmark his column here.