Reform's TikTok Rise Takes The Party By Surprise

Growing on TikTok was not an original part of Reform UK's strategy, but party figures believe they are now reaching an audience of socially-conservative young people who Rishi Sunak's Conservatives are overlooking.

“We are catching a zeitgeist," said one Reform insider.

"We are revolting against the whole political consensus. But we are freewheeling."

PoliticsHome had asked what the thinking was behind the party's presence on TikTok, which appears to have become one of Reform's most effective tools heading into the 4 July General Election. The account had 183,900 followers at the time of writing —  nearly as many as Labour’s 200,000. 

When the right-wing party set up its account in November 2022, just a few weeks after Rishi Sunak took over from Liz Truss as prime minister, it did not expect much success among TikTok’s younger users. Reform – previously the Brexit Party – has a voter base largely made up of the over-60s. In fact, creating an account, according to Reform staff, was not initially part of a coherent national strategy.

They said the decision to set it up was largely based on research which showed that “disillusioned” young people were not consuming news through traditional channels. Reform felt they needed to use TikTok to simply "let people know" Reform existed. "We were a very new party. Nigel [Farage] wasn't massively behind us at that point… so our identity was a big problem, and it's helped," they said.

To the party’s own surprise, Reform has seen a steady rise in engagement on the platform, as well as across other social media pages, which it claims has happened entirely organically. “If this was a seminar I wouldn’t be able to explain it to you,” said an insider.

A large number of Reform voters also appear