Reform UK’s divisive manifesto takes aim at ‘transgender ideology’ and ‘pronoun swapping’

Despite a Channel 4 exposé that showed Reform UK campaigners in Nigel Farage’s seat in Clacton using extreme racist and homophobic language, the July 4 General Election saw the party exceed expectations.

Reform won four seats – on a night that saw the party receive a high share of votes in many constituencies, often knocking the Conservatives into third or fourth place.

Nigel Farage was one of the four: the Reform UK leader will represent the Essex seat of Clacton, having won by a majority of nearly 10,000. Former Tory MP Lee Anderson became Reform’s first elected MP earlier in the evening when he was re-elected in his Ashfield seat.

Former party leader Richard Tice won in Boston and Skegness, and Rupert Lowe also won for Reform in Great Yarmouth.

In June, Nigel Farage launched Reform UK’s manifesto for the general election and has pledged to “ban transgender ideology” in schools, including stopping social transitioning, if the party is elected.

Farage launched the party’s pledges – which it calls its ‘contract’ with British voters– in Merthyr Tydfil, south Wales on Monday afternoon (17 June).

The 25-page document, which is significantly shorter than manifestos released by other parties, outlines how the right-wing party will “secure Britain’s future as a free, proud and independent sovereign nation” on issues like immigration, the economy, healthcare and eduction.

What does the Reform UK manifesto say on LGBTQ+ issues? 

The LGBTQ+-related pledges in Reform UK’s manifesto focus on the trans community.

In the opening statement, the party states “transgender indoctrination is causing irreversible harm to children” alongside blasting multiculturalism and “divisive, ‘woke’ ideology”.

“The unprecedented population explosion has pushed Britain to breaking point,” Farage writes in the statement. “There’s a housing crisis. A benefits crisis. Record crime. Record NHS waiting lists. Wages are stagnating. Net Zero has sent energy costs soaring. It is making us poorer and colder, damaging British industry and forcing drivers off the road.

“The Tories have broken Britain. Labour will bankrupt Britain. A vote for either is a vote for more incompetence, dishonesty and defeat. The two-party system has failed. We are ruled by an out-of-touch political class who have turned their backs on our country.

“But there is an alternative. The British people now have a common sense choice in Reform UK.”

Banning ‘transgender ideology’ and mandating single-sex spaces

The party states in its education section that it will ban “transgender ideology” – a term widely considered an anti-trans dogwhistle – in both primary and secondary schools.

“No gender questioning, social transitioning or pronoun swapping. Inform parents of under 16s
about their children’s life decisions,” the pledges read. It is not clear how Reform UK would enforce this policy and how it would stop people using certain pronouns.

In the same section, Reform UK states schools must have single sex facilities.

This is a pledge which is repeated in the ‘children and families’ wherein the party states that single-sex facilities would be mandated in public toilets and changing areas.

Furthermore, another pledge of Reform UK would be to review the Online Safety Bill because “social media giants that push baseless transgender ideology and divisive Critical Race theory should have no role in regulating free speech”.

Human rights and equality, diversity and inclusion

In the manifesto, Reform UK state they would leave the European Convention on Human Rights and replace the Equality Act 2010.

“The Equalities Act requires discrimination in the name of ‘positive action’,” the pledges read. “We will scrap Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) rules that have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity.

Reform UK then further reaffirms its commitment scrapping diversity roles and regulations in its section on policing, saying it will stop “two tier policing”.