Edge Rewrite
pun Source code View original
Jump to content

Talk:Reform UK/Archive 6

Page contents not supported in other languages.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1←Archive 4Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8

RfC - Should "far-right" be added as a descriptor for Reform UK?

Latest comment: 5 months ago467 comments50 people in discussion


The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
The objective of this RfC is not, as many seem to have ended up doing, to litigate a consensus on the definition of the term 'far right' or whether we think it can be sensibly applied to Reform or not. It is simply to determine whether a preponderance of reliable sources describes them as such in order to compel us to use the term in Wikivoice. The excellent source analyses carried out by Glowstoneunknown et al clearly demonstrate that there is ample grounds to include the term "far-right" in the lead and infobox alongside existing terminology. Of the counterarguments presented, the most compelling and oft-repeated is the fact the term is not widespread in British media sources. However, I do not find this to be strong enough to outweigh the numerical and argumentative consensus; namely because UK media sources need to be understandably cautious about terms that could be interpreted as pejorative (as evidenced by the lawsuit against the BBC) and because Wikipedia is under no obligation to place particular weight on the way the term is used in local sources. The only sensible alternative is 'radical right,' which sources and consensus have identified as adjacent to 'far right' in any case. As such, and given the number of supporting votes, I see no reason not to include the term 'far-right.'Athanelar (talk) 20:28, 28 February 2026 (UTC)

There have been multiple disputes over whether a label of "far-right" should be included as a descriptor for Reform UK, should the label be included in the article's lead section and infobox? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 01:05, 11 January 2026 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard and Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:09, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Survey (far-right descriptor)

Support, as nom, there are dozens of sources, scholarly and journalistic, describing the party as "far-right", some listed below:
Morris and Perry (2026, p.42): "These developments paved the way for the far-right Reform UK party to secure a parliamentary group in the 2024 general election."
Baele and Brace (2025, p.15): "This network helps understand the ideological differences between key players in a contemporary British far-right online and offline ecosystem in constant reorganization since the implosion of the BNP and the arrival of new types of movements like the English Defence League (we see in the network Patriotic Alternative, the National Front, Britain First, the Reform Party, Nigel Farage, etc.)"
Hayton (2025): "Using political science terminology, Reform UK can be most sensibly classified as a populist radical right party. This places it outside of the mainstream right and as part of the far right..."
Van Der Brug et al. (2025, p.7): "Moreover, recent elections in the US and the UK have also shown that younger voter are more supportive of the liberal-progressive parties – the Democrats and the Labour Party – than the conservative parties: the Republican Party3 in the US and Conservative Party and the far-right Reform UK party in Britain."
Meuth (2025, p.128): "Far-right currents and parties have become a visible part of the political landscapes in Germany and the United Kingdom (UK) in recent years. Particularly since the long summer of migration in 2015, with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, the UK Independence Party (UKIP), and recently the Reform UK Party (Heath et al., 2025) in England, political forces with an alleged threat to (White) Christian Western European societies through (perceived Muslim) migration processes have mobilised and attained peaks of attention, institutionalisation, and influence."
Pates (2025):
Shuttleworth et al. (2025, p.10): "Despite both UKIP and Reform UK’s clear credentials as far-right parties, they were and are often excluded from the category in academic and public discourse, whether on account of UKIP’s emergence as a single-issue ‘eurosceptic’ group (Tournier-Sol 2015, 134) or Reform UK’s protestations about the label, seeing the BBC apologise for referring to them as such (Naughtie 2024)."
Joseph Choonara (2024)
Barker (2024)
Jardine – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 01:20, 11 January 2026 (UTC)
Here's some more supporting sources:
Brown, Katy (2024) Here Comes the Sun: Can the UK General Election Really Inspire Hope? Illiberalism Studies Program: "To further destabilize these foundations, another headline-grabbing development was the re-entrance of Nigel Farage into the electoral fray and the subsequent performance of his new party Reform UK: the latest iteration of the British (or rather English) far right that rose from the ashes of the UK Independence Party and the Brexit Party."
McCrimmon, Anya. (2024) "A Double Edged Sword?: The UK's Counter Terrorism Framework and its Influence on Far-Right Movements": "After his removal, Anderson joined Reform UK, a populist far right party."
Choonara, Joseph. (2025) "Starmer’s lurch to the right." International Socialism 187: "Specifically, he accused the then Tory prime minister, Rishi Sunak, of softness towards the far-right Reform UK party, led by "Nigel Farage, who said he agreed with the basic premise of Enoch Powell’s 'Rivers of blood' speech"."
Kippin, S. (2025). Democratic backsliding and public administration: the experience of the UK. Policy Studies, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/01442872.2025.2548837: "[...] focusing on the latest of Farage’s parties, Reform UK, and its use of disruption both as a strategy and as a goal. The new far-right populist party acted as a disruptive force in the general election campaign, [...]"
Schmidtke, O. (2025) Transforming the centre right in Germany and the United Kingdom: the increasing prominence of identity politics and “culture wars” narratives Frontiers in Political Science: "However, both the British Conservative Party and the German Christian Democrats have had to contend with competition from the far-right (most prominently, the United Kingdom Independence Party, UKIP, now Reform UK since 2021, and the Alternative für Deutschland, AfD)."
Bourgeron, T. (2025). Economic sociology and the far-right. Journal of Cultural Economy, 18(5), 782–789. "On the British case again, Vladimir Bortun is currently exploring the relationship of far-right party Reform UK with elite groups, especially when it comes to business support."
Luger, J. (2025). The city and the far-right grassroots? Reactionary neighbourhoods, beyond "left behind." Dialogues in Urban Research, 0(0). "The far-right has its teeth sunk deep into neighbourhoods. As evidenced by the local success of ‘Vox’ in Spain, or ‘Reform UK’ in this year's local elections"
van der Tol, M. (2025). Christian Nationalism And The Far Right: A Transnational Entanglement. Political Insight, 16(2), 40-43."This differs from systems where the far right can form entirely new parties. In the UK, the Conservative Party is losing ground to Reform UK, now led by Nigel Farage."
Bhatt, C. (2025) Antiracism and the current moment Ethnic and Racial Studies: "Alongside the ideological diversity described earlier, there has been a “racial” diversification: virtually all major Western far-right groups and events in recent years have had a significant presence of non-white figures. [...] Reform UK's chair is currently Zia Yusuf, a businessperson, a Muslim of Sri Lankan origin, an ally of Nigel Farage, and the biggest donor to the most electorally successful far-right party in the UK for several decades (though Reform UK has strongly contested the “far-right” label.)" – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 05:24, 11 January 2026 (UTC)
Consterdine, Erica (2025) La politización de la inmigración en el Reino Unido: políticas simbólicas, fracasos de políticas y consenso bipartidista: "En las elecciones de 2024 ganaron los laboristas, pero también aumentó el apoyo al partido de extrema derecha Reform UK, poniendo de manifiesto el interés por las políticas antiinmigración. "
Soborski, R., Garapich, M. and Jochymek, A. (2025), Home-Making Through Deathscapes or How to Circumvent the Contradictions of Nationalism: The Case of Polish Far-Right Activists in Britain. Nations and Nationalism.: "Notably, there has also been an active and public effort by British far-right organisations—such as British National Party, EDL, Britain First or Reform UK—to engage on various levels with Polish politics, network with Polish far-right parties and even attempt to recruit Poles as members."
Wheatley, Jonathan (2024), How the politics of culture and identity drive a gender gap among young voters: a study of UK voters in 2024: "Evidence from UK elections since 2017 supports this shift towards a modern gender gap: men's overall preference for the Conservative Party over Labour exceeded that of women in 2017 and 2019, while women were more likely than men to support the left-wing Green Party and oppose the far-right Reform UK in 2024."
Kim, Yoonjung and Kim, Nam Seok (2024), The Recent Rise of the Far Right and Voters’ Anti-Refugee Attitudes in Europe: "Brexit represents a success of Reform UK (UKIP), a far-right nationalist and eurosceptic party, regardless of their short-spanned popularity."
Dorling, D. (2024) Elections – theatres of fears or circuses of hope?, Public Sector Focus, May/June, pp.12-15: "But that did not take account of the new far-right party, so-called ‘Reform’ pledging to put up candidates in every seat on 4 July 2024" – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 05:37, 11 January 2026 (UTC)
@GlowstoneUnknown, I see you've provided a list of what you call "supporting sources", both "scholarly and journalistic". Thanks for that. But so that we can understand the significance of this list, and make an informed decision, can you please supply the equivalent list of sources based on the same search criteria but which do not describe the party as "far-right" or which describe it as something else. Thanks. -- DeFacto (talk). 23:46, 12 January 2026 (UTC)
Sure, here's some I've found that describe the party as either "right-wing", "hard right", or "radical right" instead of "far-right":
Claasen et al. (2025): "We find that young men have become significantly more likely than young women to support Reform UK, Britain’s leading radical right party, [...]"
Laverty, Hopkins (2025): "To establish if there is an association between health metrics and patterns of voting in England, particularly in relation to a recently established right wing party, Reform UK, in the 2024 general election."
Green et al. (2025) "Within the right-wing bloc, Reform UK have principally gained support from former Conservatives and, to a lesser extent, from non-voters." (note: was only able to access this snippet without purchasing the article)
Miori, Green (2025) "The largest net losses in this period were within the right-wing bloc, with voters moving away from the Conservatives and towards Reform UK."
Wall, Derek (2024) "Farage’s Reform Uk is the latest incarnation of a series of right-wing, anti-eU, anticlimate action and, above all, anti-immigration parties led by him" (note: once again I was only able to read this snippet)
Rajina et al. (2025) "British MP for the right-wing Reform UK Party, urged the prime minister to ban the burka ‘in the interest of public safety’." (note: restricted access, only have snippet)
I found these sources explicitly calling Reform UK something other than (and specifically not compatible with[A]) "far-right"
^ A: I found more sources describing the party as "right-wing populist" and other similar labels, but excluded them as right-wing populism is a common ideology amongst far-right parties.
^ B: I've del-tagged two sources that only describe the party as part of a "right-wing bloc" without specifying its position specifically. 00:27, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
 – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 00:09, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
As soon as I hit reply, I found these as well:
Landler; Castle (2023): "Conservative right-wingers are also concerned about being outflanked by Reform UK, a fringe right-wing party and the successor to the Brexit Party, which was led by Nigel Farage"
Lester (2024) "Nigel Farage, the leader of the hard right Reform UK Party and widely blamed for fuelling the racist attacks on Black and Brown, people, Muslims and people seeking asylum across swathes of Britain in July and August 2024, supports the organisation."
Martin, Nicole (2025): "The result has been a surge of support for smaller parties such as the Green Party and the radical right Reform UK" – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 00:14, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Whilst there is, of course, a chance that I've missed some sources in my search for those supporting contrary labels, I get the impression that "far-right" is a more prominent label used in sourcing. In my opinion, this means that including it on this page alongside "right-wing" is warranted. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 00:27, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Reform UK and UKIP are two different political parties. The fact that the Kim and Kim source makes such a glaringly obvious mistake is sufficient reason to exclude the source. TWM03 (talk) 19:30, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
I’d remove the Joseph Choonara piece from the list. It’s from the magazine of the UK Socialist Workers Party which might be considered a fringe source BobFromBrockley (talk) 12:58, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I'll <del>-tag his article above (as I did for the "right-wing bloc" sources), thanks for letting me know that he may have a conflict of interest. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 13:02, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
@GlowstoneUnknown, can you also remove the one from The Guardian as they also have a CoI as they are a Labour Party-supporting source, who are perennially anti-Reform, and of which WP:RSP says: "Some editors believe The Guardian is biased or opinionated for politics". The article is also over 18 months old, which means it predates Reform's announcements of policies that fell well to the left of the Labour Party's stance on the same issues at the time. -- DeFacto (talk). 15:26, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Your claim that Reform's policies were to the left of Labour at some point needs to be sourced, and bias is allowed (hence why the Telegraph is listed below), the CoI with IS is that they're linked in an official capacity with a competing political party. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:33, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
@GlowstoneUnknown,
In May 2025, Reform UK presented new policies on the two-child benefit cap, winter fuel allowance for pensioners, and nationalisation which were widely described as being to the left of the Labour Party's policies at the time. Indeed they were held up as having contributed to the Labour Party's u-turns on various policies since then. Here are a few sources talking about that:
Bias can be accommodated with careful attribution, yes. A CoI is a situation in which a person or organisation is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. The CoI here is well known - on the one hand they openly support, and campaign for, the Labour Party and openly campaign against Reform UK; on the other they are publishing news articles in which they talk about Reform UK. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:57, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
There is no COI between Reform and the Guardian, which is wholly independent of (and often doesn’t endorse) Labour! BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:24, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Can you link to a relevant WP:RSN discussion about the source? Biased sources are allowed on Wikipedia, per WP:ALLOWEDBIAS. It having a leftist slant doesn't make it any less reliable. That said, we can mark it as his opinion. I have added an opinion from The Telegraph (right-wing) so I don't see why left-wing opinions should be excluded. Also, I don't think socialism is considered WP:FRINGE. TurboSuperA+[talk] 13:09, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
@GlowstoneUnknown, we could add that The Guardian also call them "right-wing populist", examples:
-- DeFacto (talk). 15:49, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Sure, however, that does not contradict "far-right", as RWP refers to populism of the right-wing variety, and is an ideology adhered to by many centre-right, right-wing, and far-right political parties. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:58, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
This is what I've come to realise having looked through some UK academics; some will say far-right, others will say right-wing populist. The assumption is that these are different terms, but it seems RWP is very much a part of the far-right, in the same way it's a part of right-wing; even if not entirely overlapping, it's enough for academics to not exclude the descriptor of far-right (or use it in conjunction with populist). RGW also seems similar to radical right (European version), although this a quieter term being used, and not much coverage of it in the UK either it seems. CNC (talk) 16:25, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Right, one way or another, a party can be right-wing populist as well as being far-right, hence why I think it's important to include both labels in this article. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 16:28, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
@GlowstoneUnknown, here's a few from, as yet, unrepresented publishers:
-- DeFacto (talk). 19:15, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Added the bottom three to the table and others for USA Today. I didn't add the first source as I think the descriptor "populist" isn't really helpful when we are looking at the right-wing and far-right sourcing more specifically. Obviously you are welcome to add it though, likewise I left out anti-immigrant as a descriptor from USA as appears useless: CNC (talk) 20:37, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Thanks CNC. Apparently it's a free-for-all to edit, which I hadn't realised, so I'll have a go myself if I look-for/find anything else. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:48, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I see the 2 British news outlets, The Guardian and The Telegraph, are tagged as "Some editors believe The xxx is biased or opinionated for politics". I guess, for consistency, we should do the same for:
  • ABC News (Australia) - Unrated
  • The Australian - "Some editors consider The Australian to be a partisan source." and "Several editors expressed concern regarding their coverage of climate change related topics" (which this is).
  • Deutsch Welle - "Some editors consider that the quality of DW depends on the language edition".
  • Euronews - Unrated
  • Future UAE - Unrated
  • The Guardian (Australia) - Unrated
  • GZERO Media - Unrated
  • The Independent - "Some editors advise caution for articles published after [March 2016]".
  • Le Monde - "Some editors consider Le Monde diplomatique to be a biased and opinionated source". Unrated
  • El Pais - Unrated
  • People's Dispatch - Unrated
  • Yorkshire Bylines - Unrated
AlJazeera, Arab News and BBC are rated, but have no red flags.
As an aside, it would be quite useful to make the work name column and the label column sortable. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:22, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Le Monde is not Le Monde Diplomatique. TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:27, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+, okay, thanks. So Le Monde is 'Unrated' then. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:30, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
@DeFacto: FWIW, our article on Le Monde describes it as a newspaper of record. So I think saying it's 'unrated' is a bit harsh. GnocchiFan (talk) 22:44, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
Even though the table is in my userspace, I already gave explicit permission to other editors to make edits, additions and contributions, WP:NOTCOMPULSORY. I have made the tables sortable, because it was only a matter of adding "sortable" to the class=wikitable parameter. TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:34, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, I missed that. I thought it'd be rude to tamper with it myself. I even thought it was GlowstoneUnknown who was updating it, which is why I kept pinging them (sorry about that GU!). -- DeFacto (talk). 20:40, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
It'd be best moved to Talk:Reform UK/Source review, not everyone reads every comment here. CNC (talk) 21:08, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
 Done TurboSuperA+[talk] 21:25, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support. There is many reliable sources including the ones provided above and those provided during the previous non RFC discussion on this that call Reform Uk far right so to reflect the sourcing(which includes some stating right wing and others stating far right) we should list them as right wing to far right in the lead and infobox. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 02:40, 11 January 2026 (UTC)
Support per the overwhelming amount of academic sources above. Just because the BBC is willing to sanitise their ideology at the sight of a frivolous legal threat, doesn't mean we should do the same. Amberkitten (talk) 16:51, 12 January 2026 (UTC)
The BBC has a longstanding reputation for its accuracy and neutrality on British politics, see WP:RSPBBC. It seems unlikely that they would make an editorial decision based on a frivolous threat, and more likely that the decision was based on a genuine assessment of the party's political alignment, in the context of their neutrality guidelines that academic sources are not bound by. TWM03 (talk) 19:54, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
The BBC is a Tory rag, but bias is allowed on Wikipedia. It's just that academic sources are preferable and they carry more weight than news sources. TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+, "The BBC is a Tory rag"? Evidence? WP:RSP classifies it as "Generally reliable", which isn't normally given to any 'rags', let alone Tory ones. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:15, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
That's my personal opinion. But as I already said, bias in sources is allowed, per WP:ALLOWEDBIAS. However, academic sources are preferable to news/media ones when judging consensus among sources. TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:49, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
"The BBC is a Tory rag"
Good grief... — Czello (music) 20:31, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
Wow, a lot to unpack there... P.S.: The BBC is a broadcaster; only newspapers can be 'rags'. GnocchiFan (talk) 22:47, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
Support per Glowstone, there've been a lot of recent scholarship using this term, so much so it'd probably be appropriate to just have far-right alone in the infobox, but that can be another discussion for another time Kowal2701 (talk) 23:20, 12 January 2026 (UTC)
@Kowal2701, you say there has been "a lot of recent scholarship using this term". So we can get a handle on the strength of scholarly consensus, what proportion of recent scholarship would you say does not use that term, or uses another term too? -- DeFacto (talk). 23:30, 12 January 2026 (UTC)
Survey of the first 10 results on Scholar I could access for “reform uk” since 2025:
  1. gives no label
  2. no label
  3. radical right, which they say is a subset of far-right
  4. no label
  5. radical right
  6. no label, cool diagrams though
  7. radical right
  8. heavily implies far-right but no direct support
  9. no label
  10. populist
Very surprised given how many results there are for far-right (as shown by Glowstone). All in all, I wasted my time lol. Kowal2701 (talk) 00:05, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
@Kowal2701, thanks for your reply, and thanks to @GlowstoneUnknown too for their reply to my similar question to them just above.
It seems to me then, that it's not a slam-dunk for "far-right". We need to read all of the sources for each view in more detail, and try to establish which are more than just one-sentence passing remarks, and which are based on well-founded, dispassionate and context-related arguments. Hopefully then, we will be in a position to better judge where the balance of reliably sourced opinion lies and be able to build a more robust consensus. Until then it's probably best to stick with the status-quo and avoid pushing through an unsound change which will only result in yet another time-sink trip around this loop in the all to near future. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:20, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
the prosal is not that the party be described as only far right though but right wing to far right. So the fact its not a slam dunk for far right does not change the fact that many reliable sources deacribe them as far right as well as some for right wing so right wing-far right is the correct label GothicGolem29 (Talk) 10:36, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
At this point I think it’d be a violation of npov to not include far-right Kowal2701 (talk) 10:41, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Just in case it was unclear, the proposal is to add "far-right", not to remove right-wing. I'm of the opinion that the amount of sources in favour of "far-right" combined with the amount of sources supporting "right-wing" means that including both (i.e. "Right-wing to far-right") is the most balanced solution. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 10:55, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
How many of the sources call it "Right-wing to far-right" then? How would we source that? That appears to be WP:SYNTH to me: "do not combine material from multiple sources to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources." (my emphasis). If there is not a consensus amongst the reliable sources over this we cannot invent our own compromise. We can discuss the range of views, with due weight, in the article body and possibly summarise the lack of consensus in the lead, but leave that infobox field blank.
WP:NPOV says: "Articles must not take sides, but should explain the sides, fairly and without editorial bias." and "The neutral point of view does not mean the exclusion of certain points of view; rather, it means including all verifiable points of view which have sufficient due weight."
Which of these options best summarises what the reliable sources (even just those mentioned above) are saying:
  1. The sources say that the political position of the party is "right-wing".
  2. The sources say that the political position of the party is "radical right".
  3. The sources say that the political position of the party is "far-right".
  4. The sources say that the political position of the party is "populist".
  5. The sources say that the political position of the party is "far-right populist".
  6. The sources say that the political position of the party is "right-wing populist".
  7. The sources say that the political position of the party is "populist radical right".
  8. The sources say that the political position of the party is "right-wing to far-right".
  9. There is no consensus amongst the sources as to the political position of the party.
-- DeFacto (talk). 11:56, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
It’s conventional on-wiki if sources vary to put [something] to [something] in the spectrum parameter, but really we should be deprecating that parameter. It causes so many disputes and scholars usually avoid classifying parties because it’s reductionistic and very far from an exact science. I’ve seen Simonm223 say something similar, but I don’t think there’s been wider discussion? I wouldn’t be opposed to leaving the parameter blank and giving the various terms scholars use in the lead. Kowal2701 (talk) 12:19, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
I'm not picky about the wording precisely, if in the lead and body we use the phrase "described as right-wing [or/and/as well as] far-right" I think that would be a decent way to solve this, however, as Kowal said, en.wiki convention tends to use the "X to Y" format as a way to depict the range of how it's described in sources (i.e. "Centre-left to left-wing" being shorthand for "multiple sources have placed X Party as being anywhere from the centre-left to the left-wing"). – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:07, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Also, I'll note that the options you've detailed aren't all mutually exclusive.
Populism, right-wing populism, and far-right populism can easily be understood as simply some sources being more specific than others (as far-right populism is a subset of right-wing populism is a subset of populism)
Radical right (and by extension populist radical right) is also a label that often refers to a subset of far-right politics that usually falls short of genuine fascism (however, Radical right (Europe) points out that it can include neo-fascist and Third Positionist ideologies) – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
But the article already takes a position by calling them right wing(a status quo you supported above.) And its not synth to have a range between right wing to far right as we are not combining sources we are just describing the range which the sources are saying the party GothicGolem29 (Talk) 14:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
And as to how many the number of sources for both have been set out here and in the previous discussion. GothicGolem29 (Talk) 14:20, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
For the lead maybe we could label them as “right wing populist” as we currently do, and then say “Scholars have described them as being part of the radical right” in a later paragraph Kowal2701 (talk) 00:18, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
To clarify are you suggesting the lead be different to the infobox with the infobox saying right wing- far right and the lead saying right wing populist then adding the next part? And if so why the difference? GothicGolem29 (Talk) 01:17, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Seems more encyclopedic, assuming my survey was representative of the literature. But we could do “Scholars have described them as being part of the radical right (a subset of the far-right).” Kowal2701 (talk) 10:40, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
The subset thing seems to be a recentish innovation, but not universally adopted, as academics are not aligned. Halbared (talk) 10:45, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Thanks for clarifying GothicGolem29 (Talk) 10:54, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
There are a few issues here, one oi that academics do not align on what 'far-right' is, it's part of why there is so much debate, there's also the the commonname of far-right means to the public. I went through the first lot of 'sources', they are not all kosher, and then here's the view that the far-left see anything outside of heir bubble as so called 'far-right.' Halbared (talk) 10:43, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Can you please be more specific about your issues with the sources? I also don't see how your academics do not align on what 'far-right' is remark can substantiated based on the sources I've provided or how it's relevant to the discussion. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 10:47, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
Sure GU, I'll get to it when I have time. I went through the first lot, and did a brief skim on what academics mean by all the different terms they use. Clearly academics using different terms is relevant as a descriptor as that is what this discussion is about, especially commonname and what the public mean by 'far-right.' Halbared (talk) 10:57, 13 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support. While news sources may refer to them as "right-wing populist" (among other things), GlowstoneUnknown has posted many academic sources that call them "far right" explicitly. I am convinced that the label is appropriate.
TurboSuperA+[talk] 19:02, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+, on what Wiki policy basis do you think we should ignore the body of sources (academic and otherwise) describing them differently? -- DeFacto (talk). 19:11, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
GlowstoneUnknown has provided many academic sources, including recent ones, that label them as such. TurboSuperA+[talk] 19:15, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+, yes, and also many labelling them as something else, so on what basis policy are you ignoring those others? -- DeFacto (talk). 19:19, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
From what I could see, there is consensus among academic sources that they are far right. If someone were to do a source review and that review showed that no such consensus exists, then I would reevaluate my !vote. TurboSuperA+[talk] 19:28, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+, what do you mean by consensus? A simple majority? The WP:NPOV policy says, "Neutrality assigns weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources". -- DeFacto (talk). 20:05, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
Yes, and the viewpoint that Reform is far right seems to be the most prominent among academic sources. TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:13, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+, so you're using a simple majority which goes against WP:NPOV. If 55% of sources said they thought Marmite was loved and 45% said they thought it was hated, you wouldn't assert that it was loved - would you? -- DeFacto (talk). 20:28, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
so you're using a simple majority
Where did I say that? TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:45, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
It was based on your previous comments, but if it was a misunderstanding then please explain how you chose that single option when the sources aren't unanimous. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:55, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
Where do the P&Gs say that sources must be unanimous for there to be consensus? TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:56, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
If the sources are not unanimous, then policy requires that we assign weight to viewpoints in proportion to their prominence. That is, we do not simply pick the one viewpoint that we think is the most prominent and assert only that one as if a fact; but that we explain that views on this vary between sources. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:06, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
That is true. But if for example we have ten sources, and five of them agree on one viewepoint, and the other five each have a different viewpoint, then the consensus is with the viewpoint supported by the five sources. A sourcw review would really come in handy here. I might work on one later, or if someone else begins one I'd contribute. TurboSuperA+[talk] 21:33, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
If five say one thing and five others say something else you have a simple majority, but not necessarily a consensus, so we should be describing the views by weight, not selecting only one of them. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:45, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
Sure, but a single source saying something, while five others say another thing, then that single source may not be due for inclusion, per WP:DUE. It is late now, but if no one else does it by tomorrow, I'll make a table of sources in my userspace and hopefully then we'll get a clearer picture. As I said, I am willing to reevaluate my !vote depending on what the source review tells us. TurboSuperA+[talk] 21:51, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
I agree with your 1:5 point, but that isn't the case here. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:57, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
Oppose The key argument being used in favour of adding this descriptor is that academic sources are generally preferred over news/media sources, but we have to remember that context matters. In particular, note the following: "Information provided in passing by an otherwise reliable source or information that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible." As I mentioned above, one academic source that is being proposed for evidence of this descriptor is so unreliable in this particular context that it confuses Reform UK with UKIP, while several others mention Reform UK only in passing. Conversely, while a news source may be less reliable for a claim that is only reported once, news organisations like the BBC with strict neutrality standards are likely to deeply scrutinise contentious claims that will affect how many news stories are reported over many years. "In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication." With this in mind, I believe this is an exception to the general rule of giving preference to academic sources over news sources, and we should therefore be inclined towards using labels that are more prevalent in reliable news sources compared to academic articles that are not specifically about Reform UK. TWM03 (talk) 21:01, 15 January 2026 (UTC)
It’s worth pointing out that Reform UK, previously The Brexit Party, has lineage in UKIP though. Farage lead UKIP between 2006-2016. Many party members of UKIP and party officials have left UKIP and have joined Reform UK. Farage has previously said that Reform UK as the same policies as UKIP, but new personal. ~2026-25658-8 (talk) 00:07, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
So much so, that I believe a new article section, detailing the relationship between Reform UK and UKIP, is warranted. ~2026-25658-8 (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Below, I've provided several news sources referring to Reform as far-right:
The Guardian: "Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform party also scooped up 13 seats after outperforming the Tories in the north-east."
Le Monde: "For over two decades, Nigel Farage, the prominent figure of the far-right party Reform UK, has captivated the British media"
Euronews: "Immigration has overtaken the economy as voters' top concern in the UK, according to polls, with the far-right Reform UK party making the issue central to political debate and pressuring the government to take a tougher stance."
Deutsche Welle: "No other country in Europe is considering such a ban to contain the ascendant far right. In some countries, in fact, similar parties are part of the government or, in some cases, even lead it. DW looks at where far-right parties stand in several European countries. [...]", Reform UK is listed as one of said far-right parties.
ABC News: "In his first interview since formally joining One Nation, Barnaby Joyce says he sees comparisons between his new party and Britain's far-right Reform UK party under populist leader Nigel Farage."
The Australian: "The far-right populist Reform UK party led by Nigel Farage is attracting significant support from voters"
The New Yorker: A month before the election, Nigel Farage, seeing an opening, slipped into the race as the head of the far-right, anti-immigration Reform U.K. Party."
Al Jazeera: "The far-right, nationalist Reform UK party would be Britain’s largest political party if a general election were held now, a major new poll shows"
Arab News: "Far-right Reform UK becoming a serious contender for power"
Future UAE: "Reform UK, the far-right party led by Nigel Farage, emerged as a significant force, securing 677 of the 1,600 contested seats."
Peoples Dispatch: "Nigel Farage’s far-right Reform UK secured hundreds of council seats in England’s local elections, dealing heavy blows to both Labour and the Conservatives"
GZERO Media: "After months of rumors, Nigel Farage has reportedly said the quiet part out loud: the Reform UK leader told donors that he plans for his far-right party to join forces with the center-right Conservative Party, according to the Financial Times." – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 01:11, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
It is worth noting that these sources are all international (i.e. non-UK) news sources (including the Guardian article, which is from the Australian edition although it is originally a British newspaper). Since British politics is less likely to be a major focus of such news sources in general, I feel that my argument about editorial stances being deeply scrutinised is less likely to hold in this case. And as above, my argument is strengthened by the fact that there is a mistake in the Guardian article which would not have appeared in the more reliable British version (it incorrectly states that Reform UK got 13 seats when in fact this was just a projection and they ended up with 6). The British version of the article instead describes Reform UK as "hard-right". TWM03 (talk) 02:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I will say that the Le Monde article looks like the sort of authoritative source that we should be using to justify a contentious descriptor like "far-right" (and I seem to remember some other Le Monde articles describing Reform as far-right from a previous RFC), but I have yet to be convinced that this one high quality news source consistently describing Reform as far-right outweighs all the other reliable news sources that seem to be deliberately avoiding it. TWM03 (talk) 02:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
If that Guardian article isn't suitable, there are UK articles from them supporting the label:
Stunned silence, hugs and a very big kiss: at home with the Starmers on election night: "Not only has the far-right Reform party been given a foothold in parliament for the first time, but the success of independent pro-Palestine candidates and the Greens suggests a changing battlefield on which the Labour government will have to face attacks across several fronts in the years to come."
As for Le Monde, there are many articles supporting the label:
Far-right Reform UK party hopes to capitalize on Conservatives' weakness: "The far-right Reform UK party has taken advantage of the media lull at the start of the year to launch its campaign, a few months ahead of the UK general election, which is due to be held in 2024, most likely in the fall."
In the UK, Nigel Farage hopes to win back disappointed Conservatives: "The British far-right Reform UK party is running a bizarre campaign."
UK government worried by the popularity of far-right Reform UK party: "On the opposition benches, the five MPs from the far-right Reform UK party laughed heartily at the attacks by the Liberal Democrats [...]"
Musk drops UK's Nigel Farage in favor of far-right figure Tommy Robinson: "The American billionaire, who had promised to invest $100 million in the far-right Reform UK party, said Farage 'doesn't have what it takes' to be its leader."
Quarrels at the top of the British far right: "Reform UK, the British far-right party led by Nigel Farage, which overtook the Conservatives and even the ruling Labour Party in the polls at the start of 2025, [...]"
British far right leader Nigel Farage urged to clarify party's ties with Russia: "Problems continue to mount for Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK party, who is leading in the polls in the United Kingdom."
Britain's far right is hoping to strengthen its national presence: "The tone was set right from first entry to the conference hall near Birmingham, host to the annual conference of the far-right Reform UK party, on Friday, September 20."
Nigel Farage emerges as the new champion of UK's working-class voters: "Ending the cap on child benefits, nationalizing companies and abandoning the country's carbon neutrality goal are among the latest policy pledges from the leader of the far-right Reform UK party." – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 02:55, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Upon a quick search, I've found another two UK sources supporting the descriptor of Reform UK as far-right:
The far right loves AI slop, The first sentence after that headline is: "What is real these days? Who cares? Reform UK doesn't seem to."
The Far Right Are Another Arm of the Establishment: "Like most far-right parties, Reform claims to be anti-establishment, but it's led by a millionaire ex-banker, bankrolled by aristocrats, and pushes the agenda of landlords and fossil fuel giants." – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 03:14, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Also, I don't think it's appropriate to exclude non-UK sources here. Template:Globalise exists for a reason, it's important on Wikipedia that global perspectives that are reasonably believed to exist aren't left out. I wouldn't be opposed to a solution similar to the one thought up for the Democratic Party (United States) wherein it's mentioned that local news sources and foreign news sources differ in their descriptions of the party's political position, perhaps something along the lines of "UK news sources generally prefer to describe the party as right-wing, whilst internationally, they're often described as far-right". However, I am of the opinion that the non-UK sources should still be counted for the purposes of determining consensus. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 03:24, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Before I case my !vote from the looks of it there seems to be a decent amount of coverage in academic sources (granted I haven't scrutinsed the sources if they mention the party in passing or not). However, there seems be an absence of the label in British RSs (with the BBC previously having to apologise for using the term "far-right" to describe them) with "right wing" / populist being vastly more common for the descriptor. And doing a sample of academic sources provided a number do not call them "far right" directly and often if they do it is in passing. This leads me to believe it should not be included in the lead section / infobox but discussed in the main body.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 18:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC) Upon further consideration and reading some of the further arguments I Oppose this proposal. Halbared brings out very fair points, and the almost complete absence of the use of the label in British RSs (including the fact BBC News had to apologise and redact using the term) makes me to come to the conclusion the descriptor is not approriate for the lead section nor infobox. Furthermore, a lot of the academic sourcing linked in the discussion were brief/trivial mentions or did not explictly use the term to describe the party. I am not strictly opposed of discussing the term in the main body however. 00:57, 23 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support the tables provided by TurboSuperA+ show that the descriptor "far-right" is very commonly used by sources based outside the UK and by academic sources. While others have correctly pointed out that this descriptor is rarely used by the British media, the fact it is frequently used by non-British sources means that it should definitely be added to the infobox in addition to "right-wing". If we can only have one, it would be "right-wing", as that is accepted by everyone and also encompasses "far-right".
I have personal concerns about this descriptor, as I feel that Reform is to the left of mainstream "right-wing" parties in some other countries on economics, foreign policy and social issues, and even in some cases, immigration. However, sources do not need to be consistent across topics and neither do we.Boynamedsue (talk) 21:41, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Hiya boynamedsue, as you can see, some academic sources use 'far-right' for Reform as an "umbrella term" unwilling to place it next to Reform UK itself, some don't, academics are in disagreement as to the benefit and accuracy of such a term, as it is not in alignment with the common usage. Those academics who also use it as an umbrella term for Reform will not label Reform far-right itself, but as a label under the large umbrella that they wish to be far right. UK media is held to high accounts by the law, and so do not wish to be taken to curt for defamation and libel, whereas foreign media has no such restraints and can lie and smear as much as they like. As you can see in some of the links I have provided below, academia acknowledges the 'far right' label can be misleading, unhelpful and a pejorative, as well as in the case of Cas Mudde, a reaction against right wing beliefs which are in opposition to their own left/academic beliefs. Halbared (talk) 15:30, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I get what you are saying, and I recognise that many people feel that "far-right" is not an accurate descriptor for Reform. However, many people, and there is very strong evidence for this, feel that it is appropriate. I'm not arguing for the exclusion of the former viewpoint, but for the inclusion of the latter. "Far-right" (alongside "centre-right", "left-wing", "libertarian", "anarchist" etc.) on its own doesn't mean anything, it's not really an objective category, and even if it were, we would be doing WP:OR if we tried to police it.--Boynamedsue (talk) 18:52, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Even when the 'strong evidence' is contradictory and doesn't agree with each other? The academics who want the umbrella term place everything outside of centre-right in it, that's not how the Man on the Clapham omnibus knows the term, or how other academic sources use it. It would require wiki tying to explain the terminology when the academic sphere doesn't understand the terminology they use. When a user reads wiki, it ought be using the commonname terms that are understood and not the contradictory competing terms that the academic bubble is sill struggling over. Halbared (talk) 21:02, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support alongside right-wing populist per sourcing. I haven't seen sourcing on the party not being far-right, only a wealth of sources clearly defining the party as being far-right. After a very brief look at google scholar, it seems like the best balance is to identify as both far-right and right-wing populist as they are consistency identified as such. I'm also less uninterested in what news orgs have to say when we have scholarship available. CNC (talk) 22:07, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
    Sourcing on the party explicitly not being far right has been shown before in previous chats, Tim Bale essay is one example. I listed another today. A problem is some academics use the term 'far right' as an "umbrella term" which groups many disparate groups together, the likes of Patriotic Alterative with Reform. Even with the academics that use the umbrella version of he term, they do not group these two together. The amount of academics who actually do label Reform as real far right alongside the BNP, AfD and the rest is much smaller. There are some pieces I posted today which elucidate on the weakness/unreliability of 'far-right' as a descriptor, especially when the source doesn't clarify what is meant in relation to other parties. Halbared (talk) 17:27, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
    Tim Bale says a lot of things. Well, in some ways, Nigel Farage is far-right politics in the UK. There is no one, really, at least electorally competitive to the right of RUKP, and he is very much the undisputed leader of that party. (original emphasis) Oh, so he/his party is possibly far-right after all then? In some ways, Farage is more like the populists seen in other Scandinavian countries, which don’t necessarily have roots in the anti-democratic, sometimes violent, fascist underground. This places him on the more moderate side of far-right parties in Europe. (emphasis included) Saying it's a mistake to call them far-right apparently doesn't disqualify RUKP from being 'moderately far-right' either, with it's leader as the poster boy for far-rights politics in the uk (turns out, it's not a concidence). I didn't add this source to the table as it's describing RUKP as an extension of Farage, rather than describing RUKP explicitly, but it's clear Bale doesn't disagree with the description either based on his diverse approach to analysing things. CNC (talk) 18:05, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
    Yes, it's nuanced and as clear as mud to anyone who tries to read all of these sources (I've attempted...a few..). Halbared (talk) 21:07, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support "right-wing to far-right - From the numerous sources presented, this descriptor appears to be well supported. I also don't believe a source being local or international should significantly factor into the weight we give them here. If the preponderance of reliable sources describe them as far-right, that should be the deciding factor. Discrepancies between how local & international sources describe them can then be noted in the body of the article (if specifically discussed by reliable sources of course). - Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 02:08, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support The sourcing seems quite clear in this regard. Even disregarding the issue of legal threats against news outlets using the term, the usage of the descriptor by academic sources outweighs the consideration of news sources anyways, along with the whole point of other sources not using the term does not act in any way as a counter argument in the first place. SilverserenC 01:55, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Note for closer: After the above !vote, the discussion was posted on Reddit to a Reform UK community. Also noting that some editors were already part of the discussion before voting below. CNC (talk) 20:51, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose. From the sources in the opener:
Hayton (2025) tries to say Reform is under the "umbrella term" far-right. It isn't happy about simply saying far-right Reform, it says populist radical right, but for Tommy Robinson, it says 'far-right activist Tommy,' acknowledging it can't just say far-right Reform, but the umbrella term is not universal across academia. As we shall see. Quoting Tim Ble here when he says Reform isn't far-right also doesn't support the descriptor.
Meuth doesn’t seem to open for me today, but when I checked last week, it referenced Heath when it claims far-right, when I check :Heath, it does not state this.
Pate says, 'Content Not Found.'
Joseph Choonara (2024), I cannot see where it says Reform are far right.
Barker (2024), cannot access.
Academics saying the umbrella term ought not be used.
In Political Studies, A Tale of Two Rights: Distinguishing European Radical and Extreme Right Parties via Ideology, Political Behavior, and Computational Analysis, Federico Taddei PhD argues that radical-right parties (RRPs) and extreme-right parties (ERPs) should be treated as distinct political families rather than collapsed into a single "far-right" umbrella term. Taddei has also reviewed works like Movement Parties of the Far Right (Gattinara & Pirro, 2024), critiquing tendencies to overlook the radical/extreme divide under the "far-right" label, which weakens analytical clarity.
Another academic, Mattia Zulianello emphasises that radical right parties often undergo "negative integration"—entering government coalitions without moderating—whereas extreme right parties remain "anti-system" outsiders, here.
Other academics who write on the invalidity of the umbrella term 'far right' are Giovanni Sartori and Tim Bale.
Sources for alternative labels including explicitly not 'far-right.'
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13691481251352325
"Patriotic Alternative, a British far right" and Reform UK "right-wing populist minor political parties." The distinction is clear here, no umbrella term utilisation.
The BBC concurs, here noticing how actual far-right sorts wan to hijack Reform with far-right infiltrators.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41293-025-00277-6, Reform UK on the "authoritarian populist Right."
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-923X.13482, "populist rivals Reform UK."
Far right as a polemic/pejorative, since the man of thee street knows the COMMONNAME meaning.
"In that sense, 'far right' becomes less a scientific term and more a polemical weapon," by  Federico.
https://theloop.ecpr.eu/hard-right-far-right-or-just-wrong-why-terminology-matters/
https://www.europinion.uk/post/are-reform-uk-really-far-right
""Their policy platform is certainly right-wing, but to describe them as ‘far-right’ is ludicrous." "The distance between a far-right group like the British National Party, who called for the expulsion of all non-whites from the UK and global racial segregation, and Reform UK, who simply want to put an end to unsustainable levels of migration through a net-zero approach, is considerable." "The ‘far-right’ label is not borne out by their manifesto." "The ‘far-right’ label given to them is wholly inaccurate."
"The term “far right” is used very often in the media and in public discourse as a pejorative description of groups or individuals."
https://thecritic.co.uk/who-exactly-is-far-right/
More of the same
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/11/04/why-are-schools-telling-children-that-reform-is-far-right/
Mattia Zulianello; "challenges the utility of the “far right” label, which groups together the extreme right and the (populist) radical right."
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/italian-political-science-review-rivista-italiana-di-scienza-politica/article/far-right-label-and-the-study-of-party-systems-problems-limitations-and-a-way-out/04EAFBB0186CD99101E529365E5C495B
"Why The Term Far Right Has Become Corrupted By Media Fantasists."
https://frankfuredi.substack.com/p/why-the-term-far-right-has-become
"Why is the BBC smearing Reform as ‘far right’?"
https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/03/20/why-is-the-bbc-smearing-reform-as-far-right/?
"The trouble with calling everyone ‘far right’."
https://spectator.com/article/the-trouble-with-calling-everyone-far-right/?
"The 'Far-Right' Corporate Media Smear Loses Its Luster."
https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2023/04/05/the-far-right-corporate-media-smear-loses-its-luster-n1684830
"The Misuse of the Term “Far-Right” in European Politics: Obscuring Distinctions and Hindering Understanding."
"The term “far-right” has become a catch-all phrase in contemporary political discourse, often used by the media to describe a wide array of political parties and movements across Europe. However, this broad application dilutes the term’s meaning and can obscure significant differences between various political groups. It is crucial to recognize that the sound of jackboots is not echoing through the streets, despite the recent electoral gains of right-of-centre parties."
https://medium.com/news-and-narrative/the-misuse-of-the-term-far-right-in-european-politics-obscuring-distinctions-and-hindering-0720fe101583
BBC apologised for describing Reform as "far-right" because they said that particular label as it "fell short of our usual editorial standards," an acknowledgement that Reform is not far-fight. Tice had called the statement "defamatory and libellous". Defamatory allegations are untrue statements presented as facts that harm reputations, and are pushed by sorts for reasons, like we see for the push to label Reform as "far-right". One doesn't get taken to court for libel for stating the truth or facts. The British media are held to account by the law where they cannot use smear tactics to attack those they dislike.
Then here is the far-left world of academia reacting to public thought and opinions, as Cas "Mudde has also noted, some scholars may define Right-Wing extremism in opposition to their own values, as “an antithesis to their own beliefs."
https://rsis.edu.sg/rsis-publication/rsis/rise-of-the-far-right-too-broad-a-category/
So we academic not agreeing on the umbrella term far-right, even those that try to use it hold off sometimes on smearing Reform as far right. Academics have no problems in saying Reform are populists. We have the acknowledgement that 'far right' is a pejorative/attack in both media and academia, and an acknowledgement that "scholars may define Right-Wing extremism in opposition to their own values, as “an antithesis to their own beliefs." Halbared (talk) 13:56, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
The vast majority of those sources you've provided (in particular the ones claiming that the term "far-right" is a pejorative or otherwise doesn't have a set meaning) are either opinion pieces, WP:SPS, or both, the thecritic.co.uk source also has a blatant conflict of interest, as its owner is a financier to Reform UK, pjmedia.com has been known to publish false and misleading claims repeatedly, and spiked-online.com is a magazine that has in its ranks staff members who were part of the Brexit Party's campaigns.
Importantly, this rfc is not a WP:FORUM to discuss whether "far-right" is a term that should be used in political science, but to discuss whether the amount of sources using the label to describe Reform UK warrants the label's inclusion on this article.
The three sources you've provided that refer to Reform UK that don't explicitly describe them as far-right (Newton (2025): "right-wing populist", Dorey (2025): "authoritarian populist Right", Wraight; Green (2024): "[...] the threat on the [Conservative] party's right from populist rivals such as [...] Reform UK") may be taken into account whilst determining academic consensus. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:35, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
There are three points; 1. Academia is not unified on what far-right means, those are shown by academic, this relates to how we view these sources. 2, 'far-right' is a pejorative as people understand, that doesn't require academic sources and is pertinent to why it is incorrect to smear Reform as this, and 3, Academics react to anything outside their own values as far right.
There is no academic agreed value to 'far-right' according to academia, and it makes it an unusable descriptor, which is quite separate to the acknowledgement it's also a smear. Halbared (talk) 15:39, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
You have not supported claims 2 and 3 with reliable sources, and claim 1 is tangential at best to this rfc. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:41, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
When you are trying to force through a change based on sources that not only do not agree on what to label a party, but on what the label means in the broad, that is certainly not "tangential." Halbared (talk) 15:50, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I've provided roughly 20 academic sources describing the party as far-right, using that term specifically. A couple of sources provided by you stating that "far-right" isn't a term with a very precise definition does not dispute the sources that I've provided. It's not up to us as Wikipedia editors to decide that the academics who chose to characterise Reform UK as far-right in their publications disagree on the definition of "far-right" due to the existence of the sources you've provided, that would be a case of textbook original research. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:55, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
The first lot, some were not accurate as presented (as I laid out), I've listed them. This was a problem last time with the sock, sources would be offered and misrepresented. Saying 'x' = 'y' so we can just claim 'y' isn't used on wiki, it's synth/OR. Hence why the now pushed term 'umbrella term' is weasel words, as it claims all ranges of the right, and of course, Academia isn't even agreed on the fact that the 'umbrella term' is useful/accurate. There are as many other sources stating different terms to 'far right', and of course those pushing for a particular view, 'but that doesn't mean they're not FR', when by the very fact some academic sources do not wish wish to use that descriptor does show that. I've posted a good academic source stating explicitly why Patriotic Alterative actually is genuine far right, and Reform are not ("Patriotic Alternative, a British far right" and Reform UK "right-wing populist minor political parties."). Halbared (talk) 16:12, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
The proposal is to add far-right, not supplant right-wing. There are clearly a multitude of sources supporting both labels, so we shouldn't be excluding either.
Once again, this is not a WP:forum to discuss the term "far-right" and whether academics agree on its definition or whether it's a useful term in political science, and any conclusions drawn from the sources you've provided on the topic cannot be connected back to the other sources provided by myself and others that describe Reform UK as far-right without engaging in original research. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 16:24, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
We ought to exclude when it is no appropriate.
By continually referencing academic sources which support a label, which is then shown to be not universally accepted by and within academic circles and thus, not reliable as a label, then clearly that is not a discussion of what the label is, but how reliable the source is using a common term which is not agreed upon and has several different meanings.
Right wing alone covers all bases, is a commonly accepted term, is reliable, universal and uncontested. Halbared (talk) 17:22, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Take for example National Rally. The lede of that article says a French far-right political party, described as right-wing populist and nationalist. I can find English newspapers calling them Right-wing nationalist and populist (but not far-right) So the fact that sources disagree on a label, or a label is disputed, is not reason enough to drop it. There's no reason we can't include something similar in the lede of this article. Same with Reconquête, Party for Freedom, Vox (political party). I'm sure if we were to look at sources mentioning those parties we also wouldn't find "universal acceptance" or unanimity regarding the far-right label. TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:49, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I am not familiar with the ins and outs of National Rally, I see the BBC has no problemo calling them far right, which is perhaps why I thought they were far right. but other wiki pages are not to dictate how we format this page, if it was the Labour party and Tory party would affect this page and they don't, all three are different on their own merits. Sources disagreeing on how we view parties is not new, it's normal, but disagreeing on what the terms themselves mean as some academics try to stretch the far right meaning to anything outside of centre right by calling it an 'umbrella' term is new. There were no arguments over whether the BNP or the National Front were far right. Halbared (talk) 21:15, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I think the problem with this type of thinking, is that it would not be possible to categorise any modern party as ‘far-right’ if we accepted all 3 points to be true. That would narrow the range of discussion significantly… However, there are numerous modern poltical parties (and organisations) that have been described as ‘far-right’ on Wikipedia. ~2026-25658-8 (talk) 00:13, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
Regarding the spiked-online article, it is written by Fraser Myers, who also wrote an article for The American Conservative, titled Wokeness Has Brought Britain’s Second City Bankruptcy and Crime . That's who is saying the BBC "smeared" Reform as far-right.
Regarding The Spectator article, the author, Douglas "Europeans invented everything" Murray, writes Still, in recent days the media have described all the following parties as being ‘far right’: Giorgia Meloni’s party in Italy, both Éric Zemmour’s Reconquête and the National Rally in France, the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, Vox in Spain, the governing party in Hungary, Matteo Salvini’s Lega Nord in Italy and (until an apology was offered by the BBC) the Reform party in this country. Wikipedia describes Reconquête, National Rally, Party for Freedom as "far-right" in the lede, and for Vox (political party) it says that it has been described as far-right and radical right. TurboSuperA+[talk] 16:14, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Yeah douglas murray is tremendously biased and undue. His views on immigration and islam are widely known and widely criticized. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 02:28, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
Strong oppose giving any weight to Spiked online (a right-wing contrarian opinion site), the Substack blog of its guru Frank Furedi, The Critic (a right-wing opinion magazine, the fascist-adjacent Douglas Murray in the Spectator opinion outlet, Robert Thompson's Medium blog (whoever he is), or a Bangkok-based conservative journalist writing in the far right PJ Media. None of these are close to reliable sources, and we have plenty of reliable sources to chose from. BobFromBrockley (talk) 16:40, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
  • I would support some mention of far right, based on the weight of sourcing. Non-UK sources can't be ignored and neither can the UK ones, both are reliable for the description. I suggest "Right-wing to far right" with discussion of how the party's position is described by different groups in the article's body (maybe with a note in the infobox pointing to that section). -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 14:48, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
    There is already a description of the labels applied to Reform in the body, including 'far-right.' Halbared (talk) 15:31, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
    It's should be expanded to include the discussed sources included commonly labelled the party, and the discrepancy between these sources and the UK's media. Then that should be linked from the infobox and lead to exainhow the position is described. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 16:45, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
    Partly done to Ideology and platform, work in progress. CNC (talk) 23:41, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Weak support. I think the far-right descriptor should be mentioned due to the not insignificant number of sources discussed above describing it as so. A number of descriptors of the party, including far-right, are already mentioned under Ideology and platform, and perhaps more can be added there using the sources added above. I would also support adding "right-wing to far-right" in the infobox.
Looking at the coverage of Thursday's news, some sources described Reform as a right-wing populist party: FT Economist; but many didn't directly attribute any descriptor for the party: BBC Guardian Times. So for now, I oppose changing this wording in the lead sentence. As an aside, I have to wonder whether this article's use of the term "right-wing populist" is feeding back into its usage by the media. Edited per later reply Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 18:42, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
The 'right wing populist' is a fairly popular term for Reform in the academic sources, as it's uncontested and easy to understand. Halbared (talk) 21:06, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
I think your suggestion that the opening sentence should remain the same is appropriate, as it seems RWP is by far the least controversial label for the party. However, I would like to clarify, do you also support adding "far-right" to the penultimate sentence in the lead section?
For instance, some variation of the example below:
−
It is [[right-wing]] and to the right of the Conservative Party.
+
It is described as [[right-wing]] to [[far-right]] and it is to the right of the Conservative Party.
– GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 23:31, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Yes, I didn't notice that at first, I'd be in support of that change. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 23:49, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
It would be against policy to say they are "described as right-wing to far-right" anywhere in the article because that implies they are somewhere in-between the two, and neither camp asserts that. NPOV requires we give all views (duly weighted), not that we average them out - that would fail WP:SYNTH. We should say something like "sources disagree on Reform's position in the political spectrum, with a split between right-wing and far-right". -- DeFacto (talk). 23:57, 17 January 2026 (UTC)
Saying "sources disagree" is a case of MOS:DOUBT, it would be more neutral to say "It is described as right-wing [or/and/as well as] far-right [...]", as I said before, I'm not picky about the wording here. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 00:02, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
I would prefer the "and" wording per DeFacto. The sources I've seen very much either describe it as either or, aside from Tim Bale who acknowledges the existence of both right-wing populism and far right, but that was a rare find. I realise others might prefer "from to" wording, but using "and" with a note would make sense here. CNC (talk) 00:09, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
From the variety of sources I added yesterday, there was this one which labels the actual far right parties in the UK alongside the others who are not as extreme. "Britain First, the British National Party, the English Democrats, and the British Democrats are far-right minor political parties consistently engaged in anti-migration activism in the form of political campaigns, local protests, and disseminating anti-migration information online and directly to members. Reform UK and UKIP are right-wing populist minor political parties actively engaged in anti-migration activism similarly in the form of political campaigns, local protests, and disseminating anti-migration information online and directly to members." Halbared (talk) 10:30, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Please refrain from replying unnecessarily to comments in talk page threads, as it could be seen as WP:BLUDGEONing, the source you've provided has already been added to the source review alongside all the other sources brought up in this discussion, it's not necessary to repeat the information you've presented already. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 10:37, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Those in glass houses etc, stop projecting. I saw something referenced where I thought I could help, it's not for you to control or bully people here. Halbared (talk) 10:48, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
It's fine, I don't feel bludgeoned at least. The point you are making is different point that those before, hence I'm happy to respond to it. We've nearly got to the end of this RfC without throwing civility out the window, so let's keep it that way! :) CNC (talk) 11:00, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
The same source also identified those far-right parties, alongside Reform & UK, as using "RRP ideology strategically". I think the point is those examples (BF/BNP/ED/BD) are groups that are predominately far-right above all else; they are further right than the populism of Reform & UK, but not that far-right like National Action and Patriotic Alternative to start attracting the label of fascist or neo-Nazi. However this doesn't come at the exemption of far-right still being an accurate term to use. This is a reminder that we are dealing with a label that is a scale of a spectrum, rather than more of a fixed position like RRP/RWP; this ranges from moderately far-right (as Tim Bale identifies for Reform UK) to outright fascist. We aren't proposing to drop the RWP that is well sourced, but to include the contextual framework which this type of RWP operates in. This is ultimately about the opening paragrpah, which is intended to provide such context for notability. Their role and involvement in UK far-right politics is certainly a part of that. CNC (talk) 10:57, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Thanks for that CNC, I am appreciating your thorough and sober analysis, it is assisting me in understanding this situation. What are your thoughts on the pertinence of the academics who question the umbrella term “far right” which collapses all groups into a single group, (Taddei, Zulianello etc). I wouldn't place Mudde in there as he does use the all-in-one meaning, but Mudde is aware of the inherent bias, "Mudde has also noted, some scholars may define Right-Wing extremism in opposition to their own values, as “an antithesis to their own beliefs”, as he puts it and some politicians use the label to smear their opponents."
I appreciate your thoughts on this. Halbared (talk) 11:16, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Check out Far-right_politics#cite_note-27 for another Mudde source which I thought was interesting context when checking coverage (I can't access, but I'll take the quote at face value). It's from 2002, which shows how outdated coverage is, but effectively not long ago RWP was considered synonymous with right-wing extremism by many authors with few making any distinctions. 20+ years later, after it's growth in recent years, academics either appear to describe it synonymously with far-right, or have begun making distinctions. Either way we can't assert that RWP is or isn't far-right given the diversity of sourcing, similar to how the article on the term is written, only that in this case Reform UK have acquired both descriptions by weight of sourcing. There is a broader discussion in play and I acknowledge that, but I think that involves improving content in articles like far-right politics as well as the UK subtopic on the intersection with RWP/RRP. This really comes back around to the "right-wing populist and far-right" argument as a descriptor, to avoid synthesis and full-blown conclusions that aren't available. CNC (talk) 11:46, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
I see, yes, it comes from practically a different time, an ice age ago. I think the window of this in the real world has moved on, but the academic world is catching on, the latest Mudde thing I read was from this accessible source, Rise of the Far-Right: Too Broad a Category? from 2022, not about Reform but part of that larger discussion which may belong on the far-right politics article. You're doing some solid work sorting out the ideology paragraph, I'd hate to stop the flow, but the bylinetimes is seen as unreliable in the RS archives. There must be a RS Mudde? Halbared (talk) 22:42, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Have swapped the soruce for Hope not Hate. That might not be to everyone's liking, but per RSP, it's expert opinion that is attributed. Unless I need to attribute the attribution: "Cas Mudde, a leading social scientist on the subject, according to Hope not Hate,...", but I think that'd be somewhat unnecessary. CNC (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Hope not Hate are totally anti-Reform UK though, and actively campaign against them, so they can't be trusted to provide any usable info on Reform. -- DeFacto (talk). 23:27, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
They aren't per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS and WP:INTEXT. CNC (talk) 23:29, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, I can't tell whether you are agreeing with me, or not. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:24, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
MOS:DOUBT is about using words that can introduce bias - saying that sources disagree or contradict each other isn't doing that, it is giving the actual facts to the readers. That is what WP:BALANCE addresses, which says, "this involves describing the opposing views clearly". -- DeFacto (talk). 00:13, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Will the fact that 'far-right' is being used by some academics as an 'umbrella term' which encompasses all of that which is not centre right be explained? Halbared (talk) 10:32, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
It's simply not for this article to explain, the scope of such is a political party not a political ideology; that is for articles like far-right politics in the United Kingdom to explain for those who want to know. I'd recommend linking to that article rather than far-right, for specifically this reason of providing historical context, but I know that's always a bit of a touchy subject (MOS:EGG v a refined target). CNC (talk) 11:09, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Thanks for that, this is basically my question above, feel free to ignore or answer, as you see fit. Halbared (talk) 11:17, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
Ended up adding some more context from Cas Mudde, also umbrella term and "moderate side of far-right" referenced per Bale source earlier in paragraph. Hopefully that helps to explain things to the reader better. CNC (talk) 16:27, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
@Halbared, that's a good question. My instinct (as mentioned elsewhere in this too-long-to-read discussion) is that passing mentions of "far-right", and single-sentence-mentions of Reform UK in an article about something else, are not adequate as sources for the use of a term with its own complex variety of meanings, including pejorative. I would only use sources that present their justification/rationale for using the term, and that should be included in the section discussing this contentious subject wrt Reform UK. That seems to me to be the only WP:NPOV-compliant way of dealing with this. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:08, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
This is indeed an issue with most of the WP:NEWSORG sources whether they are RSP listed or not, this is one of the reasons why academic bias exists. A lot of them are not discussing the description like the academic and subject matter sources which are vastly superior in quality and thus weight, they are mainly as passing reference. I was curious what more of our most used GREL sources are saying and it's really a mixed bag. On the one side we have far-right; Los Angeles Times, Politico, CBS News, AFP, ABC News, as well as right-wing; USA Today, Reuters, Politico, AFP, AP. There is right-wing populist as we know; NYT, WaPo, Politico, CNN, as well as hard-right; LA Times, CNN, CBS News, AFP, AP. There isn't much consistency within such orgs who use a variety of descriptors, nor among them as an RS group. Notably AP shifted from right-wing in 2024 to hard-right in 2025, while others avoid right-wing and favour hard-right or far-right (LA Times, CBS News). Whereas from the academic side, it's about half far-right and otherwise right-wing, right-wing populist, radical right, and radical right populist. If we were giving the academic sourcing the weight it deserves, we'd probably be leading with far-right followed by right-wing populist and radical right, so even the due weight of NPOV of merely including far-right is arguably not going far enough here, but it is an improvement nonetheless. CNC (talk) 12:49, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
While I'm against the RfC's proposal I would say that, if it is added, we could probably remove the bit about them being to the right of the Conservatives as it's redundant. — Czello (music) 00:23, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
I've just checked back in on this discussion and I've realised that I somewhat misunderstood the opening question. To be clear, I support adding "right-wing to far-right" (or similar variations with and/or/from) in the lead and infobox. It's clear from the immense discussion here that there is no clear consensus amongst the public, academics, or the media on whether Reform UK is best labelled as right-wing or far-right. However, I think it is clear that there are a considerable number of reliable sources that argue for each, and hence both should be concluded. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 17:49, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
@Pretzel Quetzal Out of interest do you believe the word “populist” should also remain if “far right” is also added? ~2026-19602-0 (talk) 20:47, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
I think the opening sentence with right-wing populist should remain the same, with the new information added later in the opening paragraph, as shown below:
−
Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It has eight members of Parliament in the House of Commons, two members of the London Assembly; and one member of the House of Lords, the Senedd, and the Scottish Parliament, with one police and crime commissioner. It controls twelve local councils and is to the right of the Conservative Party. Nigel Farage has been Leader of Reform UK since June 2024.
+
Reform UK is a right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. It has eight members of Parliament in the House of Commons, two members of the London Assembly; and one member of the House of Lords, the Senedd, and the Scottish Parliament, with one police and crime commissioner. It also controls twelve local councils. It is described as right-wing to far-right and it is to the right of the Conservative Party. Nigel Farage has been Leader of Reform UK since June 2024.
Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 21:45, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
Thanks you and my apologies I’ve just noticed you had already noticed you had answered that on Jan 17. This RfC has become so long, I thought I had read all of it but obviously I missed it
I cautiously agree with you but still have some apprehension on its inclusion and how it is worded. ~2026-19602-0 (talk) 01:27, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support per Glowstone and some analysis by hemiauchenia- enough said,t he source analysis is convincing. User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 01:51, 18 January 2026 (UTC)
    I can't see any comments by hemiauchenia, are they on another page? Halbared (talk) 10:16, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
    whoops. CNC+turbo made the analysis here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Reform_UK/Source_review , which gets linked in the discussion below. Hemiauchenia isn't on here. got confused, whoops.
    the analysis seems to indicate far-right, populist, or right wing as all valid descriptors User:Bluethricecreamman (Talk·Contribs) 22:21, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose per Halbared. — Czello (music) 10:21, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
    What changed your mind from the last non RFC discussion on this? GothicGolem29 (Talk) 01:04, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    I believe I was against it then, too; I just observed that a consensus was forming in the opposite direction. — Czello (music) 08:41, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:CONTEXTMATTERS (many/most of the sources are not about Reform UK and the information was provided in passing) as I said just above and per TWM03 and per Halbared. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:16, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
    What do you not mean not about Reform UK? Plenty of the academic sourcing is discussing Reform UK specifically within the context of right-wing populism and the radical right in the UK. Having checked the peer-review statuses the balance is pretty clear among the most used descriptors:
    Academic sources (38): Far-right (19), radical right (5) right-wing populist (4), right-wing (3)
    Peer reviewed (18): Far-right (10), radical right (4), right-wing populist (2), right-wing (0)
    Baring in mind some academics will describe as more than one (most commonly radical right within subset of far-right), but otherwise that's over 50% describing as far-right, which goes to 55% for peer-reviewed. Right-wing populism doesn't have the representation in sources to grant such exclusive weight as a descriptor. Ironically based on these sources, far-right would. The subject matter experts found all agree on far-right, it's only the magazine sources based on political professors that are split 50/50, but also don't acknowledge right-wing populism either. CNC (talk) 19:13, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
    @CommunityNotesContributor, you asked, What do you not mean not about Reform UK? I mean that those sources are mainly about something other than Reform UK, and just mention Reform UK in passing without contextualising why they define them that way. Take the 'academic source' by West, Wolfe and Yaghi, for example. It is a book chapter about school governance in England and changes between 2010 and 2024, and mentions Reform UK in two sentences, in both as "far-right Reform...". It doesn't add any context or substantiate the label. The same happens in van der Brug, Hobolt, and Popa, Reform are mentioned in just one sentence in a 26-page paper, as a far-right conservative party in Britain, with no more context. Meuth mentions them in just one sentence in the introduction of their 33-page paper on anti-Muslim narratives and practices in urban governance in England and Germany. Does that help? -- DeFacto (talk). 22:10, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
    Yeh that makes more sense, at the moment I'm trying to focus on the strongest sourcing, with "radical right as a subset of far-right" being a notable part of that so far. Ideally another column for depth of coverage in the academic sources table would be useful here, but I intend to get what I can out of the best sources so it hopefully represents itself better in the body. In hindsight this RfC would of been better initiated after sources had already been worked in the body, so that we know what we are summarising per mos:lead, but here we are. CNC (talk) 22:18, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose for now, partly on the grounds that BBC News apologised for describing the party as "far-right" and stated that the description did not meet their editorial standards. It doesn't seem long ago since the last RFC resulted in a "No Consensus" for change. Until more UK mainstream media sources describe the party as "far-right", I think "right-wing populist" should remain. I've even seen a description of the party as "left-wing" (in terms of their economic policies), but to describe the party's ideology as "left-wing to far-right" seems a bit ridiculous in my view. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 23:56, 19 January 2026 (UTC)
    I doubt Reform UK would ever describe themselves as 'left-wing'. It is difficult to find any policies of theirs, that could be described as 'left-wing' - they are notably not a socialist aligned party! However, Farage as party leader, has said in the past that he would like to replace the Conservative Party. In 2019, when the Brexit Party launched, he also said that the party has the same policies as UKIP (but different personnel).
    You can also look at policies that Reform UK has opposed, such as the Labour Party's Employment Rights Act 2025. They have also advocated abolishing Labour's Human Rights Act (1998). They have attacked Labour's policies on welfare also, including the abolition of the 2 child cap (in recent times, adopting a more nuanced view that the removal of the cap should only apply to 'British born' families).
    In 2025, Reform UK had to make changes to some of their tax plans (originally the party focused heavily on low taxes), but I think there was some concern about fiscal creditability. They now advocate significant cuts to public services, which would be unusual for a left wing party. ~2026-34307-6 (talk) 15:25, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
    Correction - creditability credibility. ~2026-34307-6 (talk) 15:28, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose article is written in British English which tends to save "far right" for pretty extreme groups hence most British sources not using the term. Things may change in future but for the time being they haven't yet.©Geni (talk) 02:37, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    What are you basing the tends to save "far right" for pretty extreme groups remark upon? (side note: "pretty extreme groups" is rather subjective) UKIP and the English Democrats come to mind as far-right parties in the UK that share a lot of their DNA with Reform. What's the distinction here? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 03:18, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    I think UKIP is actually a good example here – they notably shifted to the far-right after Farage left the party. The UKIP of today is very different to the UKIP of 2014, and there's a reason why Farage condemned them. — Czello (music) 07:44, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    Sources on the page were describing it as far-right as early as November 2014, and it's described as "right-wing to far-right" under "historical", whilst Farage was still the party leader. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 07:56, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    I see sources have retroactively been added in stating that recently. By and large, they weren't described that way at the time on our article. The majority of the time they were only described as "right-wing"; this was the consensus at the time. — Czello (music) 08:03, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    I think that over time, the similarities between the political positioning of UKIP and Reform UK have grown. It’s just that for some reason, this has been discussed little on Wikipedia. One exception has been policies related to the EU, which UKIP seems to have changed little since the UK left the EU, but I think their policies simply aren’t as up to date as Reform UK’s, which seems to change rapidly with each local or general election. However, both parties remain deeply eurosceptic. Many UKIP politicians have left the party, and joined Reform instead. Paul Nuttall (past UKIP lewder) for example. The policies of UKIP and Reform UK on immigration are very similar, with both parties advocating strict immigration control for both legal and illegal/ undocumented migration. UKIP and Reform have both advocated for reducing ‘net migration to zero’, drastically reducing skilled and unskilled migration, deportation of migrants who commit crimes. Policies differ on treatment of asylum seekers and EU citizens with right to remain, with Reform’s policies being stricter:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2017-40042669
    Both parties want strict controls on illegal immigration, with both parties advocating policies such as:
    1. ’Exit UN Refugee Convention and European Convention on Human Rights’. 2.
    2. ‘Repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and support a UK Bill of Rights’
    3. ‘Wanted criminals identified during processing will be deported immediately’.
    And the use of the military to assist with deportation:
    ‘ Military planes to be on standby. Repatriation flights will start from secure UK military airport.
    Taken from a list of UKIP immigration policies, listed in 2022:
    https://www.ukip.org/illegal-immigration-what-we-d-do
    There are many striking similarities in policy. ~2026-25658-8 (talk) 04:17, 22 January 2026 (UTC)
    I'm a native British English speaker. The English Democrats reckoned around a 10th of their membership was former BNP members. They fit well into the established British far right. Reform and pre-2016 era UKIP at least in theory don't and didn't allow former BNP members.©Geni (talk) 05:55, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
    What criteria are you basing it upon then? There are numerous scholarly sources written by British subject matter experts and published in British publications explicitly using far-right to describe Reform that are listed in the source analysis tables below. On what basis did you determine that "far-right" isn't used in British English to describe groups like Reform UK? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 07:11, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
    With google scholar producing 839 results for reform nigel farage in 2025 alone the table doesn't exit the noise floor. The big british media companies mostly not using the term for reform and at least pre 2016 ukip where they will for groups like the BNP indicates a clear difference.©Geni (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
    There aren't very many 'mainstream', national political parties on the right of the political spectrum in Great Britain. It's basically just the Conservative Party and Reform UK. So, naturally, you aren't going to find political parties described as far-right, or right-wing to far-right in GB.
    There was UKIP, but they have now fallen out of favour, especially since the EU referendum in 2016 - they had achieved their main goal as a political party, the UK left the EU.
    In it's long history, the Conservative Party has never been described as far-right by the media, I think largely because of their policies. They are (generally) not considered to be 'extreme' by the public, either.
    So, I am a bit puzzled by your statement that 'far-right' isn't a term that is typically used, aside from extreme groups. It's not clear who you think it could or should be applied to. ~2026-34307-6 (talk) 15:40, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
    Well to start with of course it could be applied to the conservative party pre 2001 when they had those links to the Monday club. Then both the UUP and DUP have seats in parliament. In terms of who it does get applied to you originally see BUF and related groups (although weirdly we describe the British Empire Party as right wing despite being founded by former a member of the Imperial Fascist League) followed by NF and derivative groups.©Geni (talk) 16:19, 21 January 2026 (UTC)
    I think to also ignore parties described as far-right in Europe (Like Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, France and Italy) is being quite selective with the available information. There’s not much to go on, when it comes to modern British parties (that are actually competitive in national elections), so it seems sensible to make comparisons with political movements and parties in Europe. ~2026-25658-8 (talk) 07:57, 22 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support per Glowstone's remarkable analysis on scholar literature (which I think it's the golden standard for writing about these issues, whereas newspapers, even established ones, tend to use labels far less carefully). Moreover I really don't see how all the sources brought by Glowstone can simply be discarded per CONTEXTMATTERS. Let's take for example Hayton 2025: it's a chapter called "Populist conservatism: the ideological interrelationships on the right" where he is exlplicitly discussing the different ideological profiles of right-wing parties in the UK. How can you say that it's an "Information provided in passing" or a "information that is not related to the principal topics of the publication"? It's the main subject of that part of the article!--Friniate ✉ 17:30, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
    As for the arguments about the "umbrella term", there is an article by Pirro 2022 that states: The majority of scholars use the term ‘far right’ as a step up in the ‘ladder of abstraction’ (Sartori, 1970), that is, a more general concept to capture both (populist) radical and extremist variants of right-wing politics So, yes, it's probably true that there is no universal consensus about this definition, but it's nevertheless the most used in academia. Again, probably not the most used by newspapers, but we have an WP:ACADEMICBIAS. --Friniate ✉ 17:51, 20 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support right-wing to far-right, there is now overwhelming support for this. Shadow4dark (talk) 19:05, 22 January 2026 (UTC)
    Comment: Please can you clarify what you meant by "overwhelming support for this". If you meant overwhelming support from editors on this RFC, I would disagree. There have been different viewpoints expressed. If you meant overwhelming support from academic sources, I'm not sure that's entirely true. Some academic sources do not describe the party as "far-right". I think Geni made a valid point earlier about the article being written in British English. The majority of mainstream British media sources, such as the BBC, do not describe the party as "far-right" and in the UK the description of "far-right" may have a different connotation to that in other countries. I do though welcome the fact that, so far, this RFC has been conducted with a more civil tone than the previous one about this issue. In the previous RFC, which resulted in a "No Consensus" for change, some sockpuppets were pushing very aggressively for Reform UK to be called "far-right" and making personal attacks against others who disagreed. The more civil tone in this RFC is appreciated. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 23:42, 23 January 2026 (UTC)
    What British media describe Reform has nothing to do with being written in British English. Far-right does not have a different meaning in BE, it just has it's own history and thus different connotations. But we are also not writing for the British public given it's a global project with a broad readership. So if the focus here is on news orgs rather than academic sourcing then it's best left in the past now we have better, credible sourcing. As for some academics not calling the party far-right, that's fine. We aren't describing the party as solely far-right that would require more of a consensus among academics, but instead as the due weight of 50% of the academic sourcing (regardless of the newsorgs). Why we are giving so much weight to right-wing populist when the academic literature (as well as the body of the article) strongly establishes radical right as the subset is the bigger question here. It turns out there's not much depth of coverage of RWP aside from news orgs, and only a couple of peer-reviewed journals in the source review. I assume we are just trying to compromise given that's a key to consensus, but I feel like I'm betraying NPOV while I do it given the lack of sourcing for RWP that comes worryingly mainly from news orgs. CNC (talk) 00:20, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
    The description of "far-right" having a different connotation in Britain to that in other countries was my intended point in relation to British mainstream media sources, but I may not have worded this point well. Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 00:55, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
    I still fail to see how it's been determined that "far-right" has a different connotation in BrE. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 01:09, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
    Connotation isn't based on language, it's only a social response to it. My point was the connotation with the ideology in Britain is no doubt different than elsewhere, but not the linguistic term in BE. Respectfully, I think Kind Tennis Fan mistook my point for their own as it's not how I implied it. If British sources are reporting differently due to this connotation - which remains to be seen based on other news orgs with similar inconsistencies - then it would be even more of a reason to give them less weight if not reflecting a global viewpoint. But in this case, it's simply the academic view that is at odds with the news orgs, which is the reason to use academic sources. CNC (talk) 01:30, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
    In scholar literature, "right-wing populist" and "far-right" are not actually contradicting labels. "Right-wing populist" parties are normally classified by scholars as part of the "radical-right" (see Mudde for example). As per Pinto 2022 above, the mainstream definition in academia it's that the "radical right" constitutes the "far-right" together with the "extreme right". So the controversy inside the academia is more about the label (the more generic "far-right" vs the more specific "radical right") than an actual controversy over the collocation of the party.
    At the very least, even following scholars as Zulianello who are critical towards the "far right" label, we should use "right-wing to radical right". "Right-wing" alone is IMHO just indefensible if we take into account the academic literature. --Friniate ✉ 18:21, 24 January 2026 (UTC) EDIT: My bad, I had misunderstood the source, Zulianello apparently didn't consider Reform niether a far-right party nor a RRP party, at least in 2021.--Friniate ✉ 18:30, 11 February 2026 (UTC)
    Quite, if academia says 'decimate' means to reduce by one tenth and and the real world uses it to mean to destroy utterly, then we ought to go by common meaning/name, and not an obscure historical academic one. Halbared (talk) 16:46, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared
    1. WP:SOURCETYPES
    2. "far-right" and "radical right" are neither "obscure" nor "historical", the vast majority of present academia uses one or the other to describe Reform;
    3. Do you have an actual source proving that "radical right" has a common meaning in reliable mainstream press different from the meaning that it has in scholar literature?
    --Friniate ✉ 13:06, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    By definition 'far-right' is an historical term, obviously. When I looked into Cas Mudde and his writing on far-right (thanks to CNC I think), they come from the 90's early noughties. A glacial political age away. when the UK had real undisputed far-right parties (all mentioned in comments throughout this thread). parties which Reform UK consistently and persistently cease all connexion with if and when a real far right person is outed. In my skims though Mudde, I see his criteria on what far-right is doesn't fit Reform UK, he has also said that labelling groups might be an academic bias towards that which is in opposition to academics biases. I tried to find some up to date stuff, but he seems to have stepped away from this for the nonce. I found a reference to a tweet (in the archives here noticed by Brat) that Mudde's opinions label the Cons as far-right...Mudde has since deleted his twitter, I can't read the tweet. Radical right seems to be a recent-ish term, I have no opinion on it, and I do not object to it. But it's interesting to note that all of these different terms for talking about what is to the right of the centre right are now catching on because the umbrella term doesn't fit modern politics, and all groups use different terms for different meanings.
    In the academics I looked at, there were enough scholars disputing the usefulness and validity of the 'far-right' label for it to not be used in this misleading way. Halbared (talk) 20:01, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Ok, I wouldn't object to "right-wing to radical right". Maybe that could be a good compromise to suggest once this RfC will be closed.
    As a side note though, RRP (radical right-wing populist) parties may be something new for the UK, but are not something new in European continental politics. The first examples of such parties were born in the 1980's. In fact, terms and definitions like "far right", "radical right", etc, came into use in the 1990's to describe exactly this new kind of parties, which didn't exist before. --Friniate ✉ 10:45, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    Thank you for the extra info. As the great man says, "There are no solutions, only trade-offs." :D Halbared (talk) 10:53, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    We typically don't include adjectives like "radical" in the political position (not ideology) field. In fact, I can't think of any other articles that do that. It's normally simply, far-right, right-wing, centre-right, and then all of the left-wing equivalents plus centrist, and of course any of these joined by "to".
    If there are any other articles you know of that do include other adjectives like that, I'd be interested in seeing them. — Czello (music) 11:56, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    @Czello I'm new on en.wiki, so I don't doubt it. But then, if "radical right" is not acceptable, there is really no other option than "right-wing to far right", we can't just decide to ignore the vast majority of scholar literature on the subject which uses either the more general label ("far right") or the more specific one ("radical right"), as I showed above even the scholars critical towards "far right" generally use "radical right" instead, not simply "right-wing". --Friniate ✉ 17:57, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    The table below gives a good summary of the sources. We should count all these sources not just BBC or British linked sources. I must also say that right-wing populism is a ideology and right-wing to far-right are political spectrum. Shadow4dark (talk) 03:22, 24 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support Fully and unconditionally support this. It has been pointed out multiple times, there is no point in stalling any further -- academic sources back the far-right label. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 20:31, 23 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    Will a moderator conclude this topic and change the party's ideology accordingly? Consensus has FINALLY been reached. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 12:35, 25 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    Typically RfCs will continue until participation has died down, or a month has passed, rather than during an active discussion. Then an uninvolved but experience editor can close the discussion. I was going to add to closure requests when the time is right, but I don't think we're there yet. Patience is a virtue. CNC (talk) 12:43, 25 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Nearly twenty years ago when I started contributing to Wikipedia, the far right in the UK was called the British National Party led by the unrelentingly godawful Nick Griffin. The BNP is (or was, since it's largely defunct and continues only as a zombie) rather extreme, and in many respects cryptofascist. It then reincarnated itself as the English Defence League which Tommy Robinson led for several years, before quitting on the pretext that it was too extreme. Nowadays, that ecosystem is occupied by Tommy Robinson's follower group, which is for the moment aligned with Advance UK, and also separately by Britain First. The BBC is not afraid to call Britain First or Tommy Robinson "far right".
    I don't love Nigel Farage but I do give him credit for refusing to associate with any of those people. Farage's autocratic control over Reform UK means that he calls the shots, and therefore Reform UK doesn't include any of the cryptofascist leadership. There's likely some entryism from the cryptofascist element, but if they out themselves, Farage will see to it that they're summarily ejected from Reform UK.
    The basic problem with calling Reform UK "Far right" is that it puts them in the same bracket with Britain First, Tommy Robinson, Jim Dowson, Jayda Fransen, the EDL, the BNP, the Christian Nationalist Party, Combat 18, and whatever those people call themselves next week. And they're not. I put it to you that this is the real reason why the BBC won't call Reform UK "Far right". It's not that they're scared of speaking truth to power, so much as they're scared of speaking mistruth to power.
    I think the real situation is that Reform UK occupies a space to the right of the Conservative Party but to the left of the ecosystem that I've just described. Being to the right of the Tories is definitely a long way out in the right field. But to call them "far right" is to lump them in with a grossly antisemitic, openly racist, cryptofascist element that does properly deserve that label. It's too strong and it's POV.
    If I was ruling tyrant of Wikipedia, we'd call Reform UK "populist right" in the infobox and make it clear in text that they're to the right of the Conservative Party and to the left of Britain First. And this is why I oppose calling Reform UK "Far right".—S Marshall T/C 09:51, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Just in case it wasn't clear, the proposal isn't to describe Reform as solely "far-right", but to add "far-right" as a descriptor alongside "right-wing". I also don't understand how it can be described as WP:POV when over a dozen scholarly sources support the label. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 09:57, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Wow. You could’ve saved yourself all that typing and just gone with the classic “trust me, bro” — it’d have landed the same. Academic sources don’t care about the chat, and they definitely don’t care about your past. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 09:58, 26 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    They don't, but we don't need to crib wording from academic sources. Our articles don't have to say what the sources say. They have to mean what the sources mean. We're encyclopaedists, so our job is to sum up what the sources say in WP:OUROWNWORDS. And, relevantly in this case: sources have points of view. They're allowed to. You can't be an academic expert in this field without having a point of view. So we have to construct a neutral article from biased sources, and that means re-thinking the sources' wording. There are many people above who don't grasp this. They are mistaken.
    I can see that you care a lot that this article uses the words "far right" about Reform UK, but I do join issue with you about whether those are the best words..—S Marshall T/C 10:52, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    TLDR. We go by what the vast majority of academic sources say. Not what your past has taught you about the present, no what your definition about POV is, not what your gut feeling says on the matter. Cheerio. ~2026-55144-8 (talk) 12:32, 26 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:42, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    Heh. TLDR? If my two paragraphs is too much for your attention span, then you might want to think about whether Wikipedia is the right hobby for you.—S Marshall T/C 14:50, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Gut feeling, the "great" past" and vibes. As I said, we go by what the sources say. The rest is completely irrelevant and unnecessary. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 15:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    It would be a case of original research to exclude the label on the basis that you personally believe that "far-right" should refer only to BF/BNP/NF-esque politics, when both scholarly and journalistic sourcing from multiple countries explicitly describes Reform using that label. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 12:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    It would be, if my argument was just about my personal beliefs. It's not. It's about the mandatory WP:NPOV rule that we have to construct an unbiased article from sources that don't have to be unbiased, in the context of the BBC's editorial policy. The BBC is happy to call Britain First "Far Right" (evidence: paragraph 4 just below the photo). It'll also call the Patriotic Alternative "Extreme Far Right" (evidence), and the French National Rally "Far Right" (evidence), so it's not afraid of using that label. But when it writes about Reform UK it doesn't (evidence). The people above who want to say that this is because the BBC is scared of lawsuits and only foreign sources can be trusted to be neutral: that's original research.—S Marshall T/C 13:50, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    The BBC isn't the be-all, end-all of sources, though. As provided below, many other news orgs use the term, all of whom have their own editorial policies. And political scientists and academic papers are considered more generally reliable than news sources in the first place, over a dozen sources of that ilk have been provided below. I don't see why the BBC's reluctance to use the term to describe Reform is being used as an argument for why all the other sources provided that do use the term should be given less weight or discounted entirely. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 13:56, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    GlowstoneUnknown, it's not about who uses that exact turn of phrase. I've explained why. The question is what's the NPOV way of saying it. Highly reliable sources have a point of view. The BBC is an exception because it does have a specific duty under its charter to be impartial (BBC Charter, paragraph 6(1)). No other source has that duty. So the BBC occupies a special and authoritative position when it comes to disputes about NPOV in UK politics.—S Marshall T/C 14:50, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    That is a primary source, simply because they claim to be impartial doesn't mean that is in fact the case, and at no point have you demonstrated how they have a special and authoritative position about NPOV in UK Politics, nor how they deserve to have exponentially more WP:WEIGHT than reliable, peer-reviewed studies written and published by subject matter experts. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:57, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    The people above who want to say that this is because the BBC is scared of lawsuits and only foreign sources can be trusted to be neutral: that's original research. It's not OR as was specifically questioned and raised in the Journal of Contemporary European Studies; Despite both UKIP and Reform UK’s clear credentials as far-right parties, they were and are often excluded from the category in academic and public discourse, whether on account of UKIP’s emergence as a single-issue ‘eurosceptic’ group (Tournier-Sol 2015, 134) or Reform UK’s protestations about the label, seeing the BBC apologise for referring to them as such (Naughtie 2024). This was August 2024, and per the article, a handful of peer-reviewed journals have categorised the party as far-right since then. One thing that becomes clear to me is that the tide has turned considerably since the March 2024 BBC apology. Academics took note, studied, and released their findings; it's really as simple as that, not overly complicated I don't think when to analyse the sources. The irony being that if we'd taken the subject matter experts seriously in 2024, radical right/far-right would of already been a full gone conclusion. Now the academics have caught up, maybe the news orgs will to but that's not our concern. CNC (talk) 14:59, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    All right. Well, that source bases its claim on a reference to Naughtie 2024 (a news source). Naughtie 2024 claims that the BBC was threatened with litigation and gives a hyperlink to The Guardian here. I think it's probably true that Richard Tice's lawyers wrote to the BBC; that sounds very Tice. But I don't see a basis for saying that the BBC chickened out. I think they did exactly what they said they did: reviewed their choice of words and decided it fell short of their editorial standards. I think that if they thought their choice of words was the right one, they'd have gone to court. The BBC is richer and better-lawyered than Reform UK.
    I have two questions for those who think that Reform UK is far right.
    1) Do you think Reform UK and Britain First occupy the same spot on the political spectrum?
    2) Are Britain First far right? Or would you use another descriptor for them such as "extreme right"?
    I think this is a productive question.—S Marshall T/C 16:27, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Yes, we've gone through the BBC/lawsuit argument extensively below. We cannot disregard the BBC's description of Reform based on speculation that they were cowed out of the far-right label. — Czello (music) 16:31, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Moving on from speculating over the BBC's wealth, power, and influence; extreme right and radical right are subsets of far-right and yes that wasn't a widely accepted academic opinion 10 years go, but it is now. The media otherwise conflate extreme right with far-right, therefore the assumption is that Reform UK not being extreme right means they are not far-right, but that's not how it works. While they share the share political spectrum as Britain First (far-right) they don't share the exact same ideologies (extreme right vs radical right). The main distinction being based on whether the party works within democratic structures or not. Reform opposes liberal democracy but works within democratic structures so is not extreme right, Britain First don't support democratic structures (aside from the facade), so are categorised as extreme right. Hope that helps. CNC (talk) 17:26, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    "Reform opposes liberal democracy." Does it? From that article (it quotes Mudde, from where?)
    *"The radical right which “accepts the essence of democracy, but opposes fundamental elements of liberal democracy”. This describes Nigel Farage and Reform UK, as the party rejects key elements of liberal democracy, most notably the concept that every human being has inherent dignity and universal rights." Halbared (talk) 20:16, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    The original "accepts the essence of democracy, but opposes fundamental elements of liberal democracy" (which has done the rounds) is from The Far Right Today (2019), also published here. Based on that I've removed the Mudde sentence as HnH synthesis. I'm surprised this didn't come up in the discussion below, but without searching for the original I guess this wasn't obvious. CNC (talk) 21:59, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Aha, nice spot. I hadn't had chance to really look at the hatenothope or bylines stuff (until now), which was amiss of me since they're known not to be reliable, but there are so many sources out there, it's slow going, and this is a a big topic. Halbared (talk) 22:23, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Hope Not Hate reports are also published by the UK government's Commission for Countering Extremism, I don't think they can be dismissed so easily. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:31, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    RS archives doesn't think they are reliable. Halbared (talk) 22:33, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Can you link the relevant thread? I didn't find any discussion where the consensus was that they are not reliable. If it is a point of contention, I don't mind starting an RFC about them at WP:RSN so we can put the matter to rest. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:38, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    They are listed at WP:RSP. CNC (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Their entry says: Most commenters declined to make a general statement about publications from Hope not Hate. Reliability should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, while taking context into account. Because they are an advocacy group, they are a biased and opinionated source and their statements should be attributed. That doesn't mean they're unreliable. As I've shown below, Joe Mulhall is an SME, and both the HNH and Byline Times articles are written by him. He could have written it on a personal blog, and it'd still be due for inclusion per WP:SPS. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:46, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Ahh thanks for that, I was trawling through the archives.
    RfC: Should Hope not Hate publications be considered reliable sources? NOT GENERALLY.
    here and here. Advocacy organisation/activist organization etc. Halbared (talk) 22:49, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Now you're misrepresenting the discussion. It doesn't say "Not generally", it says Most commenters declined to make a general statement about this source. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:59, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Shame I can't post pics...shift your eyes over to the right where I copied the words,'NOT GENERALLY.' In fact, just above the bit you copied. Halbared (talk) 23:02, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Those are the words of the closer and I don't see any editor saying that in the discussion. In the most recent discussion you linked, February 2025, it seems to me that most people said they are reliable, although they should be attributed. I started a formal RFC, in hopes of getting a definitive answer and consensus on their reliability. TurboSuperA+[talk] 23:25, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Jolly good! Halbared (talk) 23:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    The Hope Not Hate and the Byline Times articles are written by Dr Joe Mulhall, a subject matter expert in his own right: Joe Mulhall is director of research at the anti-fascism organisation Hope not Hate. He is the author of numerous books on postwar fascism, including Drums in the Distance: Journeys into the Global Far Right The Guardian Dr Joe Mulhall is a researcher and historian of postwar and contemporary fascism and is currently Senior Researcher at HOPE not hate, the UK’s largest anti-fascism and anti-racism organisation. He has published extensively on the domestic and international far right including reports such as Rewriting History: Lying, Denying and Revising the Holocaust; The International Alternative Right: From Charlottesville to the Whitehouse and From Banners to Bullets: The International Identitarian Movement. In 2020 he has two forthcoming academic books, British Fascist Traditions: Continuities in Interwar and Postwar Fascism and the co-authored, The International Alternative Right: Fascism for the 20th Century? He has given talks around the world on his research and written for a range of print media including The Guardian, the New Statesman and The Independent, and discussed his work on a range of broadcast media including the BBC News at Ten, Radio 4’s Today Program, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Sky News and the Christiane Amanpour Show on CNN. He also sits on the Board of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in the UK. His reports are published on the official UK government website. He's widely published and recognised as an expert on fascism and far-right politics. I think what he says is WP:DUE for inclusion in the article. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Do you know where the "In the words of Cas Mudde, the leading social scientist in the field: “Reform UK is far right! That is not an opinion, that is a fact!” quote comes from? All I can see it a source spiral that just leads back to hatenothope or byline times. Halbared (talk) 22:34, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    The article for Byline Times is written by Dr Joe Mulhall, a senior researcher for Hope Not Hate, a recognised expert in fascism and far-right politics, who has published numerous books, and his work has been published on the gov.uk website. You can read about him and his credentials above. He is an SME. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:36, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Thank you, I'll add more hours to the day, but it doesn't help me with my question. Halbared (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    You asked me where "In the words of Cas Mudde, the leading social scientist in the field: “Reform UK is far right! That is not an opinion, that is a fact!” comes from, and I answered: It comes from Joe Mulhall, a widely published and recognised subject matter expert on fascism and far-right politics. TurboSuperA+[talk] 22:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    So this is from a private conversation? Halbared (talk) 22:51, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    The supposed quote from Cad Mudde “Reform UK is far right! That is not an opinion, that is a fact!” seems to originate in the far left hatenothope website, does it exist outside of this? Halbared (talk) 15:39, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    That HopeNotHate article is written by a subject matter expert. Why do you keep ignoring that fact? TurboSuperA+[talk] 15:44, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    Hi Joe...I mean TB, "a subject matter expert?" Haha, right, I've looked at him, he's a self-styled hack who seems to have made his abode at the far left loony bin that is hatenothope, who are known liars and misrepresent anybody they don't like, Nick Lowles lied about the acid attack, about a far right list, and it seems the regulator was investigating the hatenothope Charitable Trust, though malfeasance/corruption or incompetence (Following regulatory engagement, the charity made progress with steps to address concerns. It changed its name, recruited three new independent trustees to diversify its board and reviewed its website to remove unclear references to Hope Not Hate Limited, and requested the company updates its website with regards to references to the charity.
    The trustees have also appointed a new charity secretary and have assured the regulator of their intention to appoint a paid administrator and a paid grants manager with no existing role at Hope Not Hate Limited – further reducing connections between the management of both entities." Nice!) I looked at Joe, his name is clearly not on the same level as Mudde, hence he name drops Mudde...from what? A secret chat, a cheese driven dream? The website has a history of lying and misrepresenting, I wouldn't be surprised if Joe just made it up. So I am trying to find where the quote (if it's actually real) comes from. You don need to wave the Joe fan club card when I do. I see Joe was involved with Prevent, but I don't think he was one of the morons who tried to make connexions between The Lord of the Rings, 1984, the Secret Agents, works by Lewis, Shakespeare, and Chaucer, Yes Minister and \The Bridge on the River Kwai. The 'fact' as I can see it, is he is a far left grifter who's main home is a nest of liars. Halbared (talk) 19:00, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    I posted his credentials with sources, and all you have is conjecture. HopeNotHate, along with being published by the UK government, is also cited by WP:RS, like Independent, The Guardian, etc. There's an RfC on them at WP:RSN. You haven't provided a single source and your comment comes close to being a BLP violation, he's a self-styled hack who seems to have made his abode at the far left loony bin that is hatenothope. I will also ignore you implying that I am Mulhall, because I am going to assume it was in jest. Mullhall "has given talks around the world on his research and written for a range of print media including The Guardian, the New Statesman and The Independent, and discussed his work on a range of broadcast media including the BBC News at Ten, Radio 4’s Today Program, Channel 4 News, ITV News, Sky News and the Christiane Amanpour Show on CNN. He also sits on the Board of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust in the UK." You don't get to decide who is an SME based on your feelings. Please provide a source for your "analysis" of Mulhall. I can see he is not popular among literal British neo-nazis and Hope Not Hate has been criticised by Douglas Murray. So I'm really interested where you get your information from. TurboSuperA+[talk] 20:16, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    Conjecture on where the quote comes from, yes, as I can't find it anywhere (anyway it's moot as I found Cas calling his fellow scohlar, Goodwin a far-right). Not conjecure on being found out doing naughty things that the govenrment told them not to. Hatenothope is referenced by the mainstream yes, sometime it's on the struggles they have, like this lie by its owner. Yes it was in jest TB. ;)
    A blp violation in my opinion of a hack for hire? Don't be daft.
    I am working my way through Independent Review of Prevent (accessible) By William Shawcross CVO who comments on the sort of twaddle espoused by Joe and his type, he may be a scholar (of sorts) but his stance of slinging loose terminology willynilly isn't universally lauded. I'm not going off feelings, I looked at hatnothope and their history, and the stuff Joe then wrote about Shawcross. Ahh, so Joe pee'd off some actual real far-right types?! Wow, a stopped clock is right twice a day. I'll be off to read that "tory rag", the BBC, and that man of sound virtue, Douggy Murray. :D Halbared (talk) 21:17, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    Not conjecure on being found out doing naughty things that the govenrment told them not to. Are you talking about the Charity Commission telling them to be more transparent in their cooperation with non-charitable organisations? Because that was sorted: The charity regulator for England and Wales has concluded its regulatory compliance case into HOPE Unlimited Charitable Trust (Charity Number: 1013880), formerly known as Hope Not Hate Charitable Trust. This comes as the regulator is now satisfied the charity has sufficiently responded to directions for there to be greater transparency for the public about its activities.(emphasis mine) gov.uk Besides, that has nothing to do with their reliability. TurboSuperA+[talk] 21:26, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    1) Do you think Reform UK and Britain First occupy the same spot on the political spectrum?
    Yes.
    Reform UK’s Exeter branch is under growing pressure to explain itself as some its most prominent local figures are associating – both online and on the ground – with the openly fascist Britain First.
    It was the latest episode in an anti-migrant campaign which has been building locally for the last few months, but it revealed growing mutual support and admiration between local Reform UK members and activists of Britain First. source
    Furthermore, UKIP is described as "far-right" on Wikipedia.
    Both parties [UKIP and Reform] were led by Nigel Farage, both parties mobilised anti-immigration sentiment,
    Overall, the similarities between the two parties are not merely reflected in their leadership and performance – they also share many of the same voters. source
    This is their own vision, from the Reform UK website: Reform UK exists to restore Britain's power, reward hard work, defend our culture, and put the British people first.(emphases mine) source They're obvious far-right dog whistles. Trump is described as far-right regularly on Wikipedia and he also says things like "Make America great again" and "America first". What is the difference? TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:42, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    What's the difference between Reform UK and Britain First? I'm somewhat taken aback by the question, but ok, let's take it seriously and answer it. Reform UK is the British wing of the Republican Party. It's largely funded by, and largely takes its ideology from, the US right. Britain First are antisemitic, white nationalist cryptofascists. They're the British wing of the Nazi party.—S Marshall T/C 18:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    I was asking how is Trump, a far-right figure/politician, saying things like "Make America great again" and "America first" different from Reform UK and Nigel Farage saying things like "restore Britain's power" and "put British people first"? You also ignored the rest of my post, where I showed how Reform UK politicians work with Britain First, and linked to an analysis about policies and voters of UKIP (a far-right party) being very similar to those of Reform UK.
    Reform UK is the British wing of the Republican Party. It's largely funded by, and largely takes its ideology from, the US right.
    Interesting you should say that, because the Wikipedia article about the Republican Party has this to say about its current politics: The election of Trump in 2016 saw the Republican Party shift to embrace and bring far-right. If Reform UK takes its politics from the Republican Party, then they are far-right. TurboSuperA+[talk] 18:56, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    And yet we do not call the Republicans far-right in the infobox. — Czello (music) 20:12, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    I don't think you can get a cigarette paper between Trump and Farage. They're buddies, at least to the rather limited extent that Trump has any buddies, and they think the same things on many subjects. But how can it possibly make sense to put Farage in the same bucket as openly racist Nick Griffin and Tommy Robinson and Jayda Fransen? There are Black republican leaders, and Jewish ones. There are Muslim leaders in Reform. They're just not the same.—S Marshall T/C 20:21, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    On the question of whether reform UK can be called “far right”.. perhaps there is no definitive answer.
    But I want to second and agree with what you’ve posted above. I’ve been following this RfC over the last week and wanted to chime in. As you say Reform do you have spokespeople and party members who are from ethnic minorities .. I could be wrong but I think it would be highly unlikely for the BNP ever have a black or brown person speaking for the party. ~2026-19602-0 (talk) 21:23, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    That's a silly "How can I be racist? I have black friends!"-style argument. Alice Weidel, leader of the AfD, is a lesbian who has a brown, immigrant wife. Hitler's chauffeur and one of the founding members of the SS, Emil Maurice, had Jewish ancestry. Then there's Morenazis, does that mean National-Socialism isn't a racist ideology? By your logic, all Britain First would have to do to prove they are not fascist or far-right is to get a few Muslim members. Besides, who says that black, Jewish and Muslim people can't be far-right? TurboSuperA+[talk] 21:40, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Calm down I’m responding to similar remarks that were made above. I’m mixed race myself and I understand the points you make on how belonging to any race doesn’t discount you from supporting or aligning with a political persuasion. ~2026-19602-0 (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    They can, of course, and for example Bezalel Smotrich is. That's not my point.—S Marshall T/C 21:48, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    What is your point? TurboSuperA+[talk] 21:58, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    It's that one of the diagnostic features of "Far Right" is an ethnonationalist component. Reform UK's policies don't have that. (NB: Some people who're ethnic nationalists may be members of Reform; and in some places Reform might have worked with ethnic nationalists without agreeing with everything they say; and some people who're ethnic nationalists might have given money to Reform.) The black letter of Reform's policies are anti-immigration without being ethnic nationalist, and Nigel Farage to his credit won't allow xenophobes like Tommy Robinson in his party.
    I'm saying that there's a clear stretch of open water between Reform UK and, say, Britain First/the BNP/the EDL/the Christian Nationalist Party/Advance UK ecosystem, and that those parties are some way to the right of Reform UK, and therefore if we call Reform UK "far right", then we'll need to coin new phrases such as "extreme right" to mean the people we used to call "the far right". Alternatively, we could call those people "far right" and use some other term such as "radical right" for Reform UK.
    You can identify this, err, farther right group because they start putting people's names in (((triple brackets))) and saying things like "our race is our nation".—S Marshall T/C 22:45, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Ethno-nationalism isn't a diagnostic feature of the far-right at all. Based on the The Oxford handbook of the radical right, Tamir Bar-on (2018), it is associated with the radical right, but not as a diagnostic feature either.
    Radical rights groups are more often than not nativist rather than ethno-nationalist, given it's a key characteristic of radical right ideology (if anything, one might argue as a determining factor of RRP or a key distinction from the extreme right, if you consider racism as an extreme ideology that is, which is debatable). As our article also describes: Far-right politics encompass a range of ideologies that are marked by ..., again not diagnosed by. Some far-right groups are otherwise ultra-nationalist and not ethno-nationalist for example.
    We also agree that there is a clear divide between Reform UK and the "extreme right" groups; that's the usual divide between radical right/far-right populists and the extreme right (which seems to be ever growing these days, it's not the same as in the past when the far-right was more unified). I therefore don't understand this pigeon holing argument that they must tick these certain boxes to be far-right, irrespective of the sourcing. I can't read this any other way than conflating the extreme right with the radical right to be honest, which is a common issue.
    Academics also don't need to coin new phrases, they've been doing this for decades already, and I really recommend you read some of the sources on this as it's clear as day. We have them, we just need to use them. While "radical right" is more accurate in academic terms, it doesn't hold the same weight as right-wing or far-right based on diversity of sourcing, even if it certainly has the depth of coverage. In an ideal world, radical right would be more commonly used and understood as a term, and we'd be using it, but we're not there yet. It's only been in the past year or two that academics have developed a consensus over the term. 20 years ago, it was described considerably differently and even in the past decade a lot has changed with the literature. CNC (talk) 14:26, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    Is it your position that our article on Far-right politics is wrong, then? It's pretty clear that exclusivism and ethnonationalism are the central components of far right politics. It cites credible-looking sources and coincides with my understanding of the terminology.—S Marshall T/C 12:48, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    No it's not wrong, it has an entire section on radical right for starters. I take "range of ideologies" at face value, as a well crafted phrase to mean a set of different things of the same general type. The subsets broadly encompass extreme right, fascist, radical right, etc, with the type as the common ground between these subsets. The opening sentence of the second paragraph sums it up well: Key to the far-right worldview is the notion of societal purity, often invoking ideas of a homogeneous "national" or "ethnic" community. Ie this society purity doesn't have to be along ethnic lines, even if granted it usually is (and historically always has been).
    It's not that the definition of far-right has changed, it's that movements have evolved within the framework and thus appear different then previous groups or parties (because they are distinctly different). Far-right groups and their politics since the start of the 20th century have always evolved, with many attempting to appear more moderate as society changes around them, so this is also nothing new tbf. CNC (talk) 13:32, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    Then I think this reduces to a simple table.
    Reform UKBritain First etc.
    S MarshallPopulist rightFar right
    CommunityNotesContributorFar rightExtreme right
    I think my version might align better with Wikipedia's articles on populist right and far right.—S Marshall T/C 14:31, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    The fact a party has ethnic minorities in it does not mean it can't be far-right. Advance UK, which is commonly described as far-right, is lead by Ben Habib, who was born in Karachi and has a Pakistani father. Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 15:10, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
That's not what I'm implying no, this is what I mean:
Party Ideology Spectrum
Britain FirstFascist / extreme rightFar-right
Reform UKRight-wing populist / Populist radical rightRight-wing to far-right
The article on populist right covers the association/overlap with the radical right in the uk btw. The RfC is about including far-right that's well sourced, not removing right-wing, which is what I'm agreeing with here. CNC (talk) 15:20, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
  • No - fails WP:V and simple logic I said in a prior rejection (see archive 3) “No - partly just a preference for continuation of existing content, and partly for showing restraint, especially about declaring a judgement in wikivoice when there are sources on both sides and objections by them. The existing content shows there are several on both sides and that the organization denies this label which seems good.” Now let me try to be more clear about a couple ways this is off. First - to stake the most extreme or pejorative of the numerous alternative descriptions (such as the 9 choices listed above) using cites to New York Times for wikivoice (but not *London Times*) is simply failing V and/or VOICE. Mention all of them in DUE weight, or keep it to simpler and less objectionable terms. Second - is simply logic or English that when something is polling the numbers this party is, as arguably the largest subgroup, the term “far” or “extreme” is just no longer appropriate to use, it would be misleading. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:29, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    Vibes, gut feeling, rejection of academic consensus and cute statements. Bring it on. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 14:33, 26 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    I made no rejection or mention of such a thing, and there seems no academic body making a consensus statement. I note an earlier editor made comments that various academics view it various ways. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 08:47, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    NOPE. There is consensus and you are simply lying. There is LITERALLY a table below, buster! ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 17:23, 31 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    Markbassett is right, there is no consensus statement from an academic body (this is different than determining consensus from available sources). Please remember to assume good faith and don't accuse others of lying, especially when it is you who may have misunderstood what Markbassett means. TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:32, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    There have been many more sources, both academic/scholarly and journalistic, added since the discussion in archive 3, as shown in the source analysis table below. As for the due weight remark, the proposal is to add "far-right" alongside the current descriptors, since I don't think anybody here would argue that the "right-wing" label can reasonably be removed given the amount of sourcing that still supports the label. And about the "this party is polling very high, they can't be extreme" argument, I don't think it holds any water, the Freedom Party of Austria is described as "far-right" because of the weight of its sourcing, and its high polling numbers don't discount those sources, same goes for National Rally, Alternative for Germany, Brothers of Italy, Flemish Interest, and many more. I think it's irresponsible to suggest that extremist parties cannot be popular or vice versa, and excluding reliable sources explicitly supporting the extremist description on that basis is a violation of WP:WEIGHT. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:42, 26 January 2026 (UTC)
    No, the proposal text reads “should the label be included in the article's lead section and infobox”, not “add"far-right" alongside the current descriptors”. Though a few later discussions mention adding it, that is not the proposal and even if it was that doesn’t suit DUE weight nor a good portrayal for how dominant a position it is in right-wing.
    DUE means text that ‘fairly represents *all* significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint’. Just adding the one label of the mix and ignoring others having greater weight is not WP:DUE weight. The generic “right-wing” seems a common thread among them, so suits a bit as a paraphrase or general theme. But “far” is just not a common thread nor something fitting to summarise most of those labels editors are mentioning above. Nor does it seem technically accurate to portray the large current polling as something not within the mainstream of right-wing. Better to mention any mix of labels in the body and let the lead and infobox stay as they are. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 09:25, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    It says be included, yes, I didn't think it was necessary to specify "alongside current descriptors" when writing the proposal given at no point in it is the word "remove" or "replace" used. This is splitting hairs at this point. And it is WP:DUE to include both, as demonstrated by the weight of reliable sourcing that supports each label included in the source analysis table below. And Nor does it seem technically accurate to portray the large current polling as something not within the mainstream of right-wing. is another reiteration of the "it's popular, so it can't be extremist/radical" argument, that is neither how political science nor how Wikipedia works, political analysis doesn't throw out all the evidence of extreme and radical positions held by politicians and political parties merely because they're popular, and we as Wikipedians can't throw out reliable sources that explicitly support the "far/radical/extreme/etc" label simply because the politician/party it's attached to has high polling numbers or popularity, that's a case of textbook original research and synthesis of published material, and frankly, I consider it an irresponsible position to take. José Antonio Kast and his Republican Party of Chile have been polling at about the same level as Reform has for a while, and even won an election with 58% of the popular vote last year, yet both himself and his party are described as "far-right" on their respective wikipages, as are the parties I listed above. I don't see what's compelling about the argument that popular parties/politicians cannot be described as (radical/far/extreme) purely on the basis of their popularity, and discounting the quantity and quality of sources that use those labels. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 09:47, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    I agree, it does not seem like a strong argument to state that a political party cannot be described as far-right (or some combination of far-right and other descriptors), just because the party has moderate support as shown in opinion polls (by the way, an average of 29% or 30% is not an especially high level of public support, nor is the UK due for a national election soon). As a reminder, UKIP received support of up-to 19-20% in some opinion polls before the UK EU referendum in 2016, and notably, before the murder of MP Jo Cox:
    Opinion polling for the 2017 United Kingdom general election#2016
    Or, the idea that they mustn’t be described as ‘far-right’ because it sounds objectionable / contains ‘hurty words’, or is considered controversial. ‘Far-right’ appears to be an acceptable description for political parties on Wikipedia, including for related political parties such as UKIP. My belief, is that Wikipedia makes decisions about the content of articles, based upon a variety of reliable academic sources. Is reliability of any of the sources in the source review still under dispute? ~2026-59896-9 (talk) 23:19, 27 January 2026 (UTC)
    Clearly yes.
    Getting the last word, in debates like this, doesn't mean you've persuaded your opponents, but that you've exhausted them. That's not a winning position.—S Marshall T/C 12:52, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    I am not aware of a "clear" dispute of the reliability of the sources in the source review. In fact, I think it's appropriate to say that the discussion has largely shifted away from whether the sources provided have any reliability issues. The only scholarly sources that have had a dispute about their reliability were those penned by Choonara, as there is an argument that he may have a conflict of interest on this topic specifically due to being officially affiliated with a competing political party. Apart from that, every relevant remark about the reliability of magazine and news sources has been included in the "notes" section in the source review below. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:21, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    No, focus on where DUE in NPOV says *all* significant viewpoints being fairly represented. To add only “far-right” to lead and infobox is highlighting only the more extreme and pejorative one and skipping others of greater WEIGHT so is giving UNDUE prominence to one viewpoint, as well as it being a bit misleading of their being a major portion of the polling populace.
    Leave the infobox with the current collective summary / paraphrase, and if various labels are discussed put it in the body - and if doing so, then discuss *all* significant viewpoints in proportion or prominence reflecting their external WEIGHT.
    Controversial and objectionable words are possible, but restraint and caution about it is what keeps articles away from just looking like a rant. Articles leading with a conclusion (especially a pejorative label in WIKIVOICE) casts the appearance of starting with a prejudice and the rest of the article being based or colored by that viewpoint.
    Cheers Markbassett (talk) 15:02, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    Both "right-wing" and "far-right" are definitely significant viewpoints, and currently only one of those is included in both the lead and infobox. Again, your framing of add[ing] only "far-right" [...] and skipping others of greater WEIGHT is a misrepresentation of the proposal. The sourcing shows that "far-right" is a significant viewpoint as well as "right-wing", they both are clearly WP:DUE to be included. And to clarify once again, at no point in the proposal was it specified that the addition of the label should cause the article to [lead] with a conclusion, just that the label be included in both the lead and the infobox. A qualified statement added to the lead section such as The party has been described as either right-wing or far-right on the political spectrum by both academics and journalists. is more than enough to satisfy that part of the proposal. As for the infobox, I am firmly of the opinion that there is certainly enough sourcing supporting both labels that they should both be included under the "position" parameter. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:14, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    Well clearly the objective fact is the proposal statement said and is for only one label, and that even in discussion there is no text or statements intending to have *all* viewpoints, which I say is where it fails DUE in NPOV.
    "Right-wing" I can read as a generic category or common theme of all the significant views - "populist right" and "radical right" etcetera. Adding just one of these in the info box and lead is off.
    As a phrasing, I think "far" is inappropriate VOICE use for infobox and lead locations. I think one might have body text on the various labels (*all* the various labels), if there's enough outside coverage of such to justify and provide material, if it is enough to be DUE including at all. If there's enough such content in the body then I think it gets some summary mention per WP:LEAD. But just throwing up the one name-calling label at the start in the high prominence of lead and infobox and WIKIVOICE without any of that gives a poor impression of the article neutrality. If the article was horribly biased, then I would say such a start is at least fair warning, but for this article I say don't do it.
    Feel free to ask if you need clarification of my input, but I think we've covered it enough. Over & out Markbassett (talk) 22:11, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    If there's enough such content in the body then I think it gets some summary mention per WP:LEAD. See, Reform UK#Ideology and platform, this isn't an "if". This is the proposal per MOS:SUMMARY based on such due weight. CNC (talk) 23:37, 28 January 2026 (UTC)
    Both ‘Right-Wing’ and ‘Far-right’ are valid descriptions of a UK political party on Wikipedia, and both have been applied to parties related to Reform UK such as UKIP, from December 2018:
    UK Independence Party
    So, using a description of ‘far-right’ for a political party, when backed by academic sources, would not be without precedent. ~2026-59896-9 (talk) 09:41, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    Suffice to say that the correct web archive link shows this (from December 2018), but I can’t post it here. This link works I think:
    https://web.archive.org/web/20181201205503/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_Independence_Party ~2026-59896-9 (talk) 09:47, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    In correction: the UKIP TALK (August2025 “Right-wing or far-right?” proposed the label "far" as no longer having significant political power, and the label does not cite to an WP:OR collection of low-weight academia, it links to major media pieces in Vox, the Washington Post, Financial Times, Independent, andGuardian. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 00:28, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose It's absolutely ridiculous that this is even a discussion. Far-right in the UK generally means parties that are Nazi or Fascist, which Reform UK isn't. Reform UK actually back reforming the voting system to a more proportional system, which isn't generally a far-right policy. I feel like this discussion is full of people who are ideologically opposed to reform and therefore want to mark it as far-right to get one over on them. They are objectively populist right, but to call them far right just does a disservice to the term, and will only serve to water down the definition and make the actual far right appear to not be far right as the term loses meaning. All mainstream UK publications do not use far-right - I don't think we should give much weight to foreign press in this case. As others have pointed out, UKIP has veered to the right since Farage left, but Reform UK are more akin to what UKIP was when Farage was at the helm. If wikipedia lists Reform UK as far right, it just makes (even more) of a mockery of this website. Icecold (talk) 21:24, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    As linked above by ~2026-59896-9, UKIP were labelled as far-right as early as December 2018. The infobox had "right-wing to far-right" and in the third paragraph of the lead having been described as far-right since 2018. 6 months later, it had moved to the first sentence with the description: hard Eurosceptic, right-wing to far-right political party. So yes, Reform is very much akin to UKIP with Farage at the healm, no arguments there. CNC (talk) 21:43, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    @CommunityNotesContributor using Wikipedia history as your source here isn't really a flex. Wikipedia generally has a left wing bias Icecold (talk) 23:19, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    @CommunityNotesContributor using Wikipedia history as your source here isn't really a flex. Wikipedia generally has a left wing bias Icecold (talk) 23:19, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    The point was more nuanced than that, apologies for not elaborating. The reference used for the claim that UKIP was far-right in December 2018 is from a book released in July 2016, when Farage was leader. I was countering your argument that UKIP wasn't described as far-right with Farage in charge, and instead was labelled after his departure, as this is inaccurate.
    • Lazaridis, Gabriella; Campani, Giovanna; Benveniste, Annie (2016-07-04). The Rise of the Far Right in Europe: Populist Shifts and 'Othering'. Springer. ISBN 978-1-137-55679-0.
    CNC (talk) 00:01, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    That is one publication.. opponents of UKIP/Reform have always tried to use the far-right label, just like opponents of the Greens and Jeremy Corbyn try and use the far-left label - I think both are equally absurd. If wikipedia is trying to be objective, then you cannot describe Reform UK as far-right, unless you're willing to describe the Greens as far-left (which as I said is absurd) Icecold (talk) 10:11, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    As mentioned previously, UKIP notably lurched to the right after Farage left the party. That would be 2018. — Czello (music) 10:03, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    And the source supporting the claim was written and published during his tenure as UKIP leader, as CNC has said. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 10:13, 30 January 2026 (UTC)Markbassett (talk) 23:38, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
    I went and looked, it seems it was common knowledge that Farage left UKiP citing a fundamental change in UKIP's direction under Gerard Batten, "
    But he said he did not "recognise" the party anymore and it was turning a blind eye to extremist politics." Showing Farage moves away from extremism and far-right stuff. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-46448299 Halbared (talk) 10:19, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    I fail to see how Far-right in the UK generally means Nazi or Fascist when it's been demonstrated that political scientists and journalists in the UK use the term to describe Reform AND that UKIP is currently described as "far-right", despite the fact that it generally isn't considered to be a fascist or Nazi party. I don't see how this is a compelling argument against the sourcing. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 23:34, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    @GlowstoneUnknown the mainstream journalists in the UK don't describe reform as far right, only journalists/newspapers that are quite left (like novara media), or parties that are quite left (like the greens) Icecold (talk) 23:45, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
    I'd consider The Guardian to be mainstream, but that's less important, scholarly sources on Wikipedia are preferred anyway, and a plethora scholarly sources have been provided supporting the label. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 23:48, 29 January 2026 (UTC)
For academics everything that's not left-wing is far-right, anyone who has been invited to a prestigious academy knows I'm right.
  • @GlowstoneUnknown I think scholarly sources are less relevant when it comes to current affairs personally, and like all sources, scholarly sources will have a bias. Personally I think using the term far right will be a mistake, and make Wikipedia even more of a laughing stock than it already is. If reform are far right, then it stands to reason that greens are far left, which I think is absurd. But do what you want Icecold (talk) 01:37, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    News articles may or may not be more reliable for current events, either way, this is not a current event we're documenting, this is a discussion about using an accurate label to describe a political party. Wikipedia has an academic bias, so scholarly sources are preferred in nearly every instance, and I don't think that your comments disparaging the reputation of this site are constructive or useful to this discussion. The reason why there is not currently a discussion about describing the Green Party as far-left is because there isn't a notable amount of academic studies that describe it as such, but there is a myriad of sources describing Reform as far-right, as shown in the source analysis below. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 01:51, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    I think pointing out the notable bias in wikipedia to the left and how it's losing credibility because of it's biases is quite relevant in this discussion, one of the founders of wikipedia Larry Sanger has stated this himself, along with various articles by reputable publications discussing wikipedia's left wing bias - so it's totally relevant when we're talking about hot button current affair topics. When it comes to current affairs, academics have a bias as most universities have a left wing bias, this has to be taken into account when reading academic sources. Focusing on how news publications (not single articles) describe Reform is much more relevant than academic sources in my opinion. Icecold (talk) 10:20, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    "Focusing on how news publications (not single articles) describe Reform is much more relevant than academic sources in my opinion." - I'm not so sure.
    Can news publications and UK media in general, be trusted to tell you candidly what they think or believe to be true, when Reform UK has made it clear that they will pursue legal action if they describe the party as anything more than a "right-wing" party? So, if they believe that Reform's policies on immigration and asylum are similar to other far-right parties (e.g. in Europe), they are restricted from putting this in print. Except for The Guardian (UK) ofc, who seem to be comfortable taking the risk (legal action does not equal a successful legal case). ~2026-66722-5 (talk) 14:57, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    @~2026-66722-5 you've kind of contradicted your own argument. You say that the press are restricted from saying reform are far right, but then say the guardian do it. If the BBC etc were absolutely confident that reform are far right they could say that, if they're absolutely confident in that claim then they could defend it in court in reform decide to take legal action. The fact that the BBC etc don't do that, implies that they don't feel that it would stand up in court. Also good for the guardian, but why does that source trump all other main stream publications that don't use far right for reform? Icecold (talk) 17:04, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    I think the absence of a label to describe the political position of a party used by a media source, doesn't necessarily favour the idea that an author believes a party is something else, like 'right-wing' or 'centre-right' for example. It just means that the author (or article editor) would rather play it safe, rather than risk legal action.
    The media and even institutions such as the University of Birmingham¹ have in the past, directly compared UKIP with Reform UK and their policies, especially since they have shared a prominent party leader (Nigel Farage, who has personally stated UKIP and The Brexit Party - as it was previously known - have very similar policies) and I think this is where the perception comes from, that Reform UK is influenced by far-right politics. And increasingly, some of the newer Reform UK candidates are attracting attention for their outspoken views on immigration and British identity.
    ¹ In an article about the general election written a few days after the general election on 04/07/2024, The University of Birmingham wrote the following:
    "While the Liberal Democrats secured 72 seats, making them third in terms of seats in Westminster, the far-right Reform UK party saw an even more significant increase in their vote share. Reform UK ranked third in overall votes secured and garnered half a million more votes than the Liberal Democrats. The distribution of the Reform UK vote share in 2024 is comparable to the UKIP vote share in the 2015 general election that preceded the 2016 Brexit Referendum. The rise in the vote share for far-right mirrors the trends observed in other European countries suggesting a persistent support for far-right policies amid continuing political and economic uncertainties."
    Weblink:
    https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/2024/general-election-2024-the-results-in-10-key-graphs ~2026-67540-9 (talk) 07:44, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    As discussed elsewhere, the argument that sources that don't call them far-right are doing so out of fear of legal action does not have merit. — Czello (music) 17:07, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    You have a point, I've just looked at how academia has been perceived over the years, and for the last 20-ish ears the lurch to the far left has been observed.
    "Most academics lean Left. This study found a Left:Right ratio of 7.5 to 1. I found ratios of 9:1 in Britain and 14:1 in the US and Canada. Studies using voter registration data for the US, which are more comprehensive, show a ratio of around 12:1." Halbared (talk) 10:22, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    Then you should propose to change our policies (specifically WP:SOURCETYPES: When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources.), otherwise all the comments that are suggesting to ignore all the scholar discussion about these issues fall under the first bullet point of WP:DISCARD. --Friniate ✉ 11:40, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    Wikipedia talk:RS is the place for that discussion in order to propose change to the content guidelines regarding source hierarchy. CNC (talk) 12:12, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    It's not across the board, but it's pertinent to this particular discussion, the surge to the left has not been seen in STEM, only some topics. It's especially germane to scholarship on the position of political parties. Halbared (talk) 13:47, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    It's still a general remark about the entire field of political science, not specific about Reform (as it would be for example objecting against the use of a scholar member of the Labour Party). You should propose to amend the existing policies in order to argue that we should disregard entire academic fields because they are allegedly inherently biased. --Friniate ✉ 14:33, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    @Friniate noone is saying they should be ignored, but take their input with a pinch of salt because all sources, have their own bias. A few academic articles shouldn't undo the vast majority of the British press in my opinion. Icecold (talk) 16:59, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    That's a gross misrepresentation of the source table. Half of the academics describe the party as far-right, not "a few academics". A few British publications does not undue the vast sourcing on this. CNC (talk) 17:05, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    It's a specific remark about academia to this subject, I didn't propose ignoring entire academic fields, but that the inherent bias within a specific field ought to be taken into account in the field of labelling political parties, especially with common-name/term pejoratives, academia is not the best source for this. Markbassett and S Marshal have covered this excellently. Wiki isn't an academic bubble meant for peer review with only academic meanings, it's for the common-man (Man on the Clapham omnibus). Encyclopaedists create neutral articles from biased sources, we remove the bias, and don't put undue weight in one highly disputed tag in the wikivoice. Halbared (talk) 17:29, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    Well, in this case "taking account the inherent bias" it practically means to ignore the vast majority of the academic works on the subject, or at least to confine them to the article's body.
    And again, that's not what the policy says. According to the policy, scholar works are usually the most reliable sources (with exceptions of course: some scholarly material may be outdated, in competition with alternative theories, controversial within the relevant field, or largely ignored by the mainstream academic discourse, but that's something different than talking about "inherent biases" of entire academic fields).
    Saying that we should prefer the British press over scholar literature is simply not a policy-based argument. In fact, it directly contradicts WP:NEWSORG (Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics). You can argue that the policy is wrong, but this talk would be the wrong venue to do so.
    As I said above, I'm not necessarily arguing in favour of the inclusion of "far right", in fact I think that adding "radical right" instead would still be a completely reasonable position (you should prove that the sources using "far-right" actually meant "radical right", I'm currently reviewing all the sources trying to adress this issue). But arguing that the source hierarchy shouldn't apply in this article and that therefore we should keep only "right-wing" it seems just indefensible to me, and I don't think that it's a coincidence that it has led to arguments that end up disqualifying an entire academic field. --Friniate ✉ 17:48, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    I am not saying anything should be ignored, they haven't been up till this point. The ideology section is pretty lively and full of the many labels that are placed on Reform. They run the full gamut, with citations aplenty, and discussion over the different hats. That's the place for the disputed terms, where a fairly vigorous, inclusive and expansive description of the different and competing terms. It has shown in full what everyone says, leaving the reader to follow the trail as they may.
    I am not sure how I could show one source means another, from what I've read (of the many different articles, some about Reform specifically and some just about the terms) these terms are used differently by different scholars, which is one of the underlying reasons why I believe not putting them in the lead/infobox is best practise. Halbared (talk) 18:19, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    Having RS with different opinions on the political position of a party is the rule, not the exception, so your's an argument against the fact of having a |political position= parameter in Template:Infobox political party and against using them in the lead.
    I showed above (with a peer-reviewed article) that there is a majority of scholars that accept the tripartition "far right = extreme right + radical right". The controversy in academic literature is between scholars that prefer the more specific term (radical right) and scholars which prefer the more general one (far right). This is why I think that there could be some merit in the argument made by @S Marshall above that Our articles don't have to say what the sources say. They have to mean what the sources mean. We need to review the sources and check what the scholars using "far right" mean. Then, if we are sure that this assumption is correct, since we have to take a side in this case, there would be good reasons for both options, choosing "far right" since it's the most used or "radical right" since it's the more specific and less controversial term.
    But there's simply no way that the sources using either "far right" or "radical right" could mean "mainstream right-wing" (unless if we understand "right wing" as "from Hitler to Adenauer" and start using only "right wing"-"center"-"left wing", but that would be even more controversial than using "far right"). And since these sources (I'm considering both the sources using far right and the sources using radical right) represent the vast majority of the scholar literature on the matter, it's no coincidence that you ended up with arguments about alleged systemic biases in entire academic fields that in practice would lead us to ignore these sources in the lead and in the infobox and to confine them to the body of the article, something that I don't think is compatible with the current policies. --Friniate ✉ 19:16, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    It's the rule that can be adequately demonstrated in an essay in the body (as it has been) including the nuance and arguments around it, reducing it to controversial terms in the lead and infobox is not good encyclopaedic practise.
    I had to go and see what "mainstream right" is, as that hasn't been used (I think on this page). I found one mention of it on the right wing article page which led to this essay, it looks like another vague term, which means the centre-right to Bale. And for the moment, no one is arguing to put centre-right in the infobox. I've listed various arguments as to why it's wrong, systemic bias is just one, and I hadn't considered it too much until, something mentioned recently...by whom, I'm not sure, this chat is long... I did post something way back at the start, called 'rise of the far right too broad a category' which touches on this.
    Can you please relink the "majority of scholars that accept the tripartition "far right = extreme right + radical right" for me. Halbared (talk) 22:35, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared Here it is (The majority of scholars use the term ‘far right’ as a step up in the ‘ladder of abstraction’ (Sartori, 1970), that is, a more general concept to capture both (populist) radical and extremist variants of right-wing politics).
    As for the mainstream right-wing, well I think that it's the implied meaning in all our infoboxes, or would you argue that we should use only "right-wing" for the National Fascist Party? (I'm NOT saying that Reform and the Fascist Party are the same, I'm only arguing that using "right-wing" for everything from Nazis to Christian Democrats would lead to very poor and misleading results). --Friniate ✉ 22:44, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    As for the rest, if you want to deprecate the usage of political positions in leads and infoboxes if there are multiple opinions over them, then go along and open a general discussion. Here's the wrong venue. If you'll find consensus then this whole discussion will become unnecessary. But as long as we'll keep showing them, then I don't see how we could exclude from leads and infoboxes the scholar literature on the subject and include only the press from one country. --Friniate ✉ 22:51, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
    Ta, I'll have a peek a that.
    Well, sometimes (in this chat), with all these titles/labels, I have to back and see what a term originally meant, as some labels are not the same in all places and they change, it's like when you stare at a word too long and you forget how to pronounce it.
    I wouldn't ague that for the National Fascist Party, as it's way beyond all reasonable doubt, I wouldn't argue that for any party where it is beyond all reasonable doubt, Reform are a long way from there. Reform are not where the NFP are, and they're not where the Conservatives are, but they're a lot closer to the Conservatives than they are to NFP/Patriotic Alternative and others. Halbared (talk) 09:29, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared That was not my point though. My point was simply that writing "right-wing" using sources that write "far-right" or "radical right" would at the very least have poor and misleading results (as it would be writing only "right-wing" for the Fascist Party or for the BNP), at the worst it would fail WP:V and the text-source integrity. So despite you saying that nothing should be ignored, we would in fact ignore these sources in the lead and in the infobox. We could do that if they depicted a minority viewpoint, but we've already seen that that's not the case, at least in academic literature and foreign press. So, unless you are claiming that we should ignore the policies and consider the news organizations (only the British ones btw) more generally reliable than the academic literature, do you have any policy-based argument that would allow us to use in the infobox only the sources that write "right-wing" but not the sources that write "radical right" or "far-right"? --Friniate ✉ 11:56, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared As for the "meainstream right" a definition is provided by Tim Bale: it’s fair to say that there exists a degree of consensus that, when it comes to the right – or at least the right in Europe – there are two important subtypes: on the one hand, the mainstream right, and on the other hand, the far right. We can then distinguish specific party families within each of these two subtypes or umbrella terms. While the Christian democrats, the Conservatives and the Liberals are normally seen as examples of the mainstream right, the far right tends to be represented by parties of, on the one hand, the populist radical right and, on the other, the extreme right. --Friniate ✉ 22:01, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
    When I look at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section and Far-right politics, I think putting 'far-right' in the lead would break NPOV. "Far-right politics encompass a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, radical anti-communism, ethnonationalism, and nativism." This is UKiP and a few others, it isn't Reform. Scholarship is in disagreement on the umbrella term 'far-right' and from at the above it is misapplied to Reform y those that use it. That's not the "basics in a nutshell" which can be explained thoroughly in the ideology section. Halbared (talk) 22:26, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
    It's already breaking NPOV to exclude it, the sourcing is clear, and to exclude it would be to unnecessarily discount reliable sources. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 22:30, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
    Classic oppose vote, because your imagination cannot really comprehend that if it BARKS like a dog, if it has a tail, if it actually SMELLS like a dog, it could actually be a damn dog. The Nazis are literally advancing their Aryan vision, and some of you are threatening to boycott Wikipedia, because... it will take scholarly consensus into account. You know so much more than the academic community, buddy. Well done, sNoWfLaKeS. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 19:16, 30 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    @~2025-42899-89 yes because reform are advocating eugenics and Aryanism.. 🤦 Maybe do some research on the Nazis, before accusing everything and everyone you don't like of being a Nazi Icecold (talk) 01:46, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    Come and teach me, big boy ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 12:35, 31 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    @~2025-42899-89 you seem to just be personally attacking people you don't agree with. I'd stop. Icecold (talk) 12:50, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    Cope ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 12:55, 31 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: Taking into account @DeFacto: and @TWM03: objections about the use of passing comments, I'm adding two columns with the topic of the article (or of the relevant part of the article) and if the label is the product of a passing comment or of a specific discussion. Taking into account S Marshall's remark about the fact that we should pay attention to what the sources mean, I'm adding another column with the definitions used for the labels by the sources. I'm also going to add Halbared's sources to the tables, if it hasn't been already done, and I'm also going to look for other reliable sources. It will take a while, at the end I'll write a comment with the synthetic results. If anyone disagrees with these methods feel free to revert.--Friniate ✉ 22:25, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Support, extensively described as such in high-quality academic sourcing. The arguments against including it seem to boil down to a few things; first, arguing that it isn't called such as frequently in the British press specifically. But this argument contradicts WP:GLOBAL; we're not supposed to rely heavily on sources from one country. Furthermore, another argument proffered undermines this - the fact that the BBC described them as such and faced successful legal pressure to make them back down is an argument against relying on British sources here, because it implies that the difference is a result of weaker free speech protections in Britain and restrictions inherent to its political climate. Beyond that, people have unsuccessfully argued that the academic sources are passing mentions - some of them are, but many more of them are are clearly in-depth, and across the spectrum they broadly agree that Reform UK is far-right. And this further undermines the argument for relying on the British press, which is much more lightweight in terms of the depth of its investigations overall; part of the reason WP:ACADEMICBIAS exists, especially for difficult or controversial assessments, is because news sources often have to rush to press and are therefore inherently cautious, especially (as has been established) when the subject is highly litigious. The final category of opposition isn't really presenting a policy-based argument at all, just saying "well of course it's not far-right because I don't think it's not far-right", making their own arguments for how they personally define the terms and how they think the sources ought to be using them, or presenting arguments that essentially say that we can never describe anything as far-right no matter how detailed or in-depth the academic sourcing may be; this can obviously be dismissed as a violation of WP:V, which requires us to reflect what the best available sources say. --Aquillion (talk) 03:34, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    "how they personally define the terms and how they think the sources ought to be using them, or presenting arguments that essentially say that we can never describe anything as far-right." This is not accurate, I don' believe anyone on this page has trouble with far-right groups like Patriot Alterative, Advance UK, UKiP and others mentioned being descried this way.
    With regards to the British press, the BBC specifically, they have no problem describing the above groups and others as far-right and face no legal action, because it's true beyond doubt, free speech is there to allow to state the truth, so with this regards there's no implication of restriction, this shows the BBC and all the rest have no problem with calling many groups far-right, as is their right and they routinely do, and yet magically not call Reform far-right this, why would that be if it was not so? Or to put it the opposing way, if the BBC was to write an article callinng the Torys far-right for policy changes, they would face the same issue, recant or face a legaj challenge. Halbared (talk) 09:21, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    Bro, we really get it. You are a Reform voter. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 12:37, 31 January 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    To clarify, are you supporting changing the descriptor in the first sentence and infobox to "far-right", or simply adding it alongside "right-wing" in first paragraph (e.g. ) and in the infobox? Pretzel Quetzal (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose - I've never thought it a good idea, to add such labels to political party articles. They only create disputes. GoodDay (talk) 17:47, 31 January 2026 (UTC)
    What I really don't understand with this line of arguments is how can it be an argument for leaving only "right-wing"? So, ok, there's a dispute. For this reason it is being argued that "far-right" is controversial, ok, I get it. But how can it be argued that the other label is not controversial? If there's a controversy it means that both the labels are controversial, not just one of them (unless it could be demonstrated that one of them is representing only a minority viewpoint). So, letting aside the fact that AFAIK all parties have in infoboxes and leads their political positions, you should be proposing an option C ("deleting all political positions from the infobox and the lead"), not leaving things as they are... --Friniate ✉ 14:17, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Friniate, isn't "far-right" a subset of "right-wing", meaning that "right-wing" includes the "far-right"? -- DeFacto (talk). 14:37, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
    @DeFacto Ok, but as I said above, that would mean using "right-wing" for everything from Nazis to Christian Democrats, deprecating the use of "far-right", "far-left", "center-right", "center-left" and leaving only "right", "center", "left". I think that that would be even more controversial and confusing, and it's definitely not the standard use on any major wiki (it's sufficient to take a look to Template:Political spectrum). Usually "right-wing" is used for parties between center-right and far-right (the Tories are actually a good example). --Friniate ✉ 17:06, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
    Presumably there is a consensus amongst the reliable sources that they do occupy that very specific space in the right-wing spectrum. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:10, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
    @DeFacto Yes, I agree, something that we are seeing is not true for Reform (and excluding the passing comments it's going to be even more evident, I'm still working on that).
    By the way, according to MOS:LEAD we should summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. I can't find anywhere a policy that says that we should exclude controversial elements altogether from leads and infoboxes, so, again, this doesn't seem to me to be a policy-based argument. --Friniate ✉ 17:17, 1 February 2026 (UTC)
    "Far right", doesn't add much to the lead, IMHO. GoodDay (talk) 16:21, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
    Yeah, Mussolini did as well. ~2025-42899-89 (talk) 17:23, 1 February 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 09:30, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
    I don’t see how there’s any grounds to ignore the concept of ‘far-right’ on the political spectrum, when Wikipedia has already described parties such as UKIP, as ‘far-right’ in December 2018.
    I agree with comments suggesting that only having labels such ‘left-wing’, ‘centre’ (and variations of) and ‘right-wing’ is far too narrow and uninformative. Describing Reform UK as ‘centre-right’ or ‘right-wing’ would place them politically closer to the Conservative Party, than parties such as UKIP. However, Reform UK’s policies are demonstrably further to the right than these labels would suggest, especially in areas such as human rights law, immigration and asylum.
    The elephant in the room that some seem reluctant to discuss, is UKIP. Many academic sources suggest Reform UK occupies similar political territory and policies to UKIP, and many ex UKIP politicians have moved over to Reform UK. Nigel Farage said that the Brexit Party (Now Reform UK) has the same policies as UKIP. Reform UK would simply not exist, without parties such as UKIP, and the 2016 EU referendum and the vote for the UK to leave the EU. The EU referendum created a schism on the right of UK politics, that is still heavily impacting politics today. ~2026-59896-9 (talk) 08:44, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
    That's true, but as has been noted, UKIP was mostly considered on the hard right of the right-wing - and made distinct efforts to distance itself from the far-right - before Farage left and the party veered to the extreme right in the wake of his departure. In any case, I definitely Oppose the idea that Reform is a far-right party. I would certainly class it as right-wing populist, and I think that the amount of Conservatives who are defecting (which far outweighs the number of UKIP politicians defecting, not that there are many left) shows their position on most stuff is really not that different to what Conservative MPs are saying. I don't think Reform capture the same ethnonationalist, terroristic, authoritarian niche that the far-right and modern UKIP does. As Professor Tim Bale at the London School of Economics has stated in his article helpfully titled It's a mistake to call Reform UK "far right", just because they are a 'disruptive' force on the right does not make them radical. They are firmly right-wing. (Though notably not, as Farage continually and erroneously bleats, a "centre-right" party. Lol. Nice try!) Howtomedia72 (talk) 22:35, 2 February 2026 (UTC)
    You're using "far-right" as a synonim of "extreme right", something that contradicts the definition of "far-right" given by Mudde and the majority of scholars.
    Anyway, letting aside the fact that Time Bale is one scholar and not the only one, first of all he puts them in the radical right and secondly he has used the "far-right label" for Farage and its parties himself (noting that they were "moderate far-right", which is the radical right). So if we want to follow Tim Bale's approach we should write "radical right" instead of "right-wing". --Friniate ✉ 00:24, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
    I concede I used the terms extreme and radical a bit too freely considering they were actual terms in the article, that's my bad. Happy to clarify my position on "extreme right", though; if we're continuing Bale quotes he stated explicitly that the extreme right discriminates on ethnic/racial lines, while the "populist radical right" (which is what he properly terms them) does not. UKIP have done this by explicitly advocating remigration including for legal migrant populations of ethnic minority. Reform, for what it's worth, seem to be at pains to distance themselves from this line of thinking.
    Upon reflection I think there's a decent case for radical right, insofar as it is distinguished as much less radical than modern UKIP, as I generally agree with Bale that "far-right" muddies the waters. But maybe that's is a wider problem than just Wikipedia... Howtomedia72 (talk) 04:47, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
    It's not the more moderate MPs who've left the Conservative Party, to join Reform UK though.
    MPs espousing tolerance for migrants or asylum seekers would not be welcomed by Reform UK, because that would directly contrast with the party's policies.
    Robert Jenrick has been welcomed to Reform UK because of his willingness to heavily criticise his previous party, and his strict views on immigration. ~2026-80150-3 (talk) 16:04, 5 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose - After recent Tory defections, it is no longer credible to describe Reform as far-right. Also, Farage left UKIP precisely because it was becoming far-right. Philosopher Spock (talk) 20:17, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
    After recent Tory defections, it is no longer credible to describe Reform as far-right. do you have a source to back up that claim? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 22:28, 6 February 2026 (UTC)
    The Conservative Party has lurched to the right since the general election in 2024 (Partly to combat Reform UK, especially on immigration) and I think a good number of MPs don't fancy there chances with the Tory Party anymore. So they are acting out of political survival.
    A lot of the more moderate MPs in the party lost their seats at the 2024 election, when the party saw it's number of MPs by 251, which was a record in British history. So, what were left with is a Conservative Party that is definitely a right wing party, with some elements still towards the centre. Their leader Kemi Badenoch reflects this.
    MPs such as Jenrick and Braverman can feel at home in Reform UK, because they were some of the most right wing politicians within the Tory Party. A bit of background on Danny Kruger "co-founder and co-chair of the "New Conservatives" group alongside Miriam Cates. This parliamentary caucus was specifically described as a "socially conservative, right-wing" group that aimed to push the party toward more robust policies on immigration, national identity, and traditional values." A744774 (talk) 17:15, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
    Support for UKIP reduced reduced significantly after the UK had committed to leave the EU, since their main goal as a party had been achieved.
    After the referendum, Farage said that "he wanted his life back". He left as interim party leader in November 2026, and by this point, UKIPs support had already begun to fall:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election
    Falling further to around 4-5% by June 2017. A744774 (talk) 17:28, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Comment: Sorry for making another bullet point, I just wanted to point out that I've created a synthesis to sum up the long source review. I think that we can draw some conclusions:
  1. Far-right has more sources than right-wing in every category, except passing comments in the British press;
  2. If we exclude passing comments (as advocated by many users above per WP:CONTEXT), then we end up with only one source for "right-wing", and if we take into account only the sources more focused Reform's political position then we end up with none (I'm excluding from this conclusion the occurrences of "right-wing populist", even though I included them in the tables, since, as explained above, right-wing populism is an ideology, not a political position: there are many authors that identify Reform as being right-wing populist and at the same time they label its political position as "radical right" for example);
  3. "Radical right" seems to be the most used label among the scholarly sources most focused on Reform's political position (but the majority of the authors that uses this label sees this category as a subset of "far right");
  4. The hypothesis that I made above (that we could assume that the authors using "far-right" meant "radical right") was wrong.
I'm going to add more sources in the next days, but I think that looking at the tables we can safely conclude that if our goal here is representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. (and not the Wikipedia editors' views on the matter) then the possibilities are either "right-wing to far-right" (if we take into account all the sources, even the passing comments) or "radical right" alone (if we decide to privilege the most used label in the scholar literature more focused on the subject).--Friniate ✉ 21:39, 7 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Support. Extensive high-quality sourcing has been provided that supports the inclusion of this descriptor. Opposing arguments boil down to source consensus not being unanimous (which is not required), suggesting to rely entirely on domestic news media as sources or even just BBC News, or personal disagreement that Reform should be described as such i.e. original research. None of these are policy-based arguments. Cortador (talk) 11:30, 10 February 2026 (UTC)
  • Oppose This is not the BNP by any stretch of the imagination. Its a right wing populist party created out of the failings of the Tories and those left behind by Labour. Its essentially a large portion of Leave voters, and saying effectively half the country is far right (and more currently a third) is straight silly. Really, these RFCs are why we should dispense with labelling anything far left or far right, as its highly subjective and contentious. ← Metallurgist (talk) 07:40, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
    Sure, we shall ignore the scholarly literature because the far-right Zionists have said so. ~2026-95697-6 (talk) 14:11, 12 February 2026 (UTC) Blocked sock. Halbared (talk) 22:27, 16 February 2026 (UTC)— Suspected sockpuppet Suspected sockpuppet of NikolaosFanaris, see investigation.
    Do you have any policy or sourcing-based arguments to discount the plethora of reliable sources describing the party as "far-right"? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 22:35, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
    The most obvious comparison, is with parties such as UKIP, which was considered to be a right-wing to far-right party by Wikipedia, in December 2018. And is now described as a far-right party.
    They share many of the same policies, and the same prominent leader. Many supporters and officials of UKIP, have since joined Reform UK, as well as some past UKIP leaders.
    Reform UK has used similar language regarding immigrants to UKIP, describing illegal immigrants as ‘an invasion’ and more recently, Farage has agreed with comments about the UK being ‘colonised by immigrants’:
    Nigel Farage - 'I think it's probably in the dictionary definition, correct, but perhaps people aren't quite ready for it,'.
    https://news.sky.com/video/nigel-farage-jim-ratcliffes-colonisation-comments-were-correct-13506811 A744774 (talk) 23:20, 12 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Mettalurgist could you explain why the "far" labels would be somehow more contentious than all the other labels? It's sufficient to take a look to Talk:Democratic Party (United States) to verify that the political position of a party is practically always a contentious topic. Again, this is a case for eliminating the labels from the infoboxes and leads altogether, not for leaving only "right-wing". --Friniate ✉ 13:16, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Metallurgist wrong ping. --Friniate ✉ 13:16, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
    I honestly would be sympathetic to that as well, its always subjective and relative, but far in particular is often meant disparagingly, which is why more respectable media do not use it. Left and right, however, have stronger agreement, and are not as charged. But I certainly would not be opposed to removing directional labels entirely to be more neutral and encyclopedic. Not to mention, in some cases, its difficult to place a person or party. Welfare policy is seen as a left thing, immigration restriction as a right thing. What do you label a party that supports more welfare and less immigration: left, right, far? I need to propose this on village pump or something. I just havent had the time to write up a good post about it. ← Metallurgist (talk) 22:42, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
    Your rhetorical question What do you label a party that [...] misses the reasoning behind this RfC, this isn't about our own personal opinions on what labels correspond to which policies, this is a discussion about the weight of sources. The sources listed below show that there is enough WP:WEIGHT for the label to be used to describe the party. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 03:03, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Metallurgist I don't think that the scholarly sources listed below use the label "disparagingly", and I don't think that all the foreign respectable media use it with that aim either, while we have some RS that say that the reason why the British press doesn't use it is the fear of legal controversies.
    Anyway, let's have this discussion at the Village Pump, so we'll able to verify if the community thinks that using the same label for everything from the Fascist to the Christian Democrats is really a good idea... --Friniate ✉ 10:21, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    UKIP then was a different party than later. It was principally focused on a referendum. Farage left leadership in 2016, and the party in 2018 because he felt it had gotten too extreme. That many of the same characters were in both doesnt mean anything. They could have left because they were discomforted by that. If Reform is far right, then what is BNP or anything like that? super mega far right? Its an absurdity. Its subjective. Its entirely disparaging, not encyclopedic. You have people on the right calling people on the left far left loons and people on the left calling people on the right far right nutters. It is not an objective qualifier. If a third of an entire country with a diverse gamut of people and views takes a position or supports a party, calling them far left or right is self-evidently silly. ← Metallurgist (talk) 22:52, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
    Okay, but we’re not talking opinion polls or public support for a party, which vary from week to week.
    We’re talking about the party itself, their personnel, their political views and their policies.
    So, the purpose is not to cast judgement on any anyone, it is to try to provide an accurate description of the party as it exists today. Additionally, a further national UK election isn’t due until 2029, and the party is probably due a review after the last election in 2024.
    And that should include an honest view of their policies on issues such as immigration and asylum, which have featured so prominently in the media in 2025. Reform UK say they are a centre right or right wing party, but the academic sources should be considered, rather thsn just taking their word for it. ~2026-99821-8 (talk) 02:03, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    Polls do vary from week to week, but within margins. The polls have still have Reform at their weakest winning the most seats by a huge margin, though not enough to govern alone - to at their strongest winning the largest supermajority since 1931. The last possible time for the next election is 2029, there could be a snap election tomorrow, and the odds are that Reform will be making the next government of the United Kingdom.
    Looking at the party as it exists today, they are not adherents or proponents of "ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, radical anti-communism, ethnonationalism, and nativism," the foundation stones of the 'far-right.' Academic sources should be considered, and they are and have been, in the idealogical section, they are not being taken away. But as Brat pointed out some time ago, when academics (like Mudde) seem to think the Conservative party is far-right, the highly acute position of these people need to be weighed against the real world. If Wiki breaks NPOV and puts far-right in the lead in wiki voice, it'll be picking a fight with the (most likely) next government of the UK. Halbared (talk) 11:16, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    it'll be picking a fight with the (most likely) next government of the UK.
    But that isn't a problem, since Reform aren't authoritarian, right? TurboSuperA+[talk] 11:30, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    Correct they are not, but they have been shown willingness to defend their reputation legally in the courts, when they are smeared as 'far-right.' Halbared (talk) 12:02, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    Wikipedia reflects what reliable sources say, so we're not actually "smearing" anyone. TurboSuperA+[talk] 12:09, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    In British politics, 'far-right' is seen as a smear, and we know Reform considers it "defamatory", which is why the BBC stopping doing it. Halbared (talk) 12:17, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    OK, and? Wikipedia is written for a global audience by editors from all over the world. We don't have to follow the norms of British politics nor give extra weight to the BBC. TurboSuperA+[talk] 12:26, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared WP:NPOV means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.
    You are arguing that presenting the view of the vast majority of the scholarly articles (28 against 1) and the majority of the foreign mainstream press and of a significant minority of the British press would break NPOV.
    So what are arguing? That all these sources are not reliable? How is this compatible with WP:NEWSORG (Scholarly sources and high-quality non-scholarly sources are generally better than news reports for academic topics)?
    If you don't want to include "far-right" the solution is to be more specific and include only "radical right", embracing the view of the majority of the scholars. But no, you're just saying in practice that the view of (so far) 96% of the scholars (I'm excluding passing comments) is a fringe theory that shouldn't be found in the lead. --Friniate ✉ 12:30, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    By the way, Mudde in his work about the far-right in Europe doesn't include the Conservatives, so I think that we could stop using this argument. --Friniate ✉ 12:34, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    It relates to a twitter found by Brat, now since gone. Halbared (talk) 16:48, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared Ok, but I'd say that we should evaluate what a scholar writes in his books and articles, not in a random (deleted?) tweet. As I was reviewing the sources I found some articles saying that the Conservatives have taken some radical right narratives into their political communication and platform, but that was it, I haven't done a specific review about the Tories, but I'm pretty sure that the scholar consensus is to define them as a right-wing/center-right party. --Friniate ✉ 17:24, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    Yes, you are most likely right on books versus twitter . I spent some time (too much) trying to track down Mudde's opinions on things a few weeks ago, as some elements seemed contradictory to me (he's been around for a while), but I found him on 'bluesky' and was satisfied he's still pretty much where he was vis-a-vis Reform, though I did not search for any content on the Tories as that wasn't my quest at the time. Halbared (talk) 21:25, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    I appreciate that you reason from good faith Frinate. I thank you for that.
    I think in this situation, it does break NPOV, it doesn't reflect Britain. There has been a new party today I gather, one that is to the right of Reform, British politics is not European politics is not American politics. The different views, which come from different opinions have always been in this article. I see that the academic page pretty much admits that when the academia is wrong by being behind the times it still takes precedent, I don' believe that a hammer should be used in all problems. From what I see, Radical right isn't used or recognised too much, and I've said before I don't have a problem with that, as I do with 'far-right.' Halbared (talk) 16:56, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    I see I said, "Radical right seems to be a recent-ish term, I have no opinion on it, and I do not object to it." Halbared (talk) 16:58, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    @Halbared I thank you for your remark, and I see the point in not wanting to have an heterogenous label including everyone from Hitler to Farage, I was mainly answering to your (and others') arguments: the fact that the "academia is wrong by being behind the times" is just your opinion (second bullet point of WP:DISCARD), but IMHO there is simply no wiggle room in the policies that would let us to ignore the entire academic discussion on the matter. We can't have a productive discussion and find a common ground if most of the people opposing the proposal continue to say that we should just ignore the policies and the consensus among RS. The other argument suggesting to deprecate all the labels different than right, center or left is IMHO just self-contradicting: it would mean to have even more heterogenous labels and therefore it'd make the whole starting problem worse by having the same label for everyone from Hitler to Adenauer, with an obviously even more controversial result. Anyway I see that I'm just repeating myself, so I'm going back to search for other sources. --Friniate ✉ 17:48, 14 February 2026 (UTC)
    It was an example. Halbared (talk) 16:47, 14 February 2026 (UTC)

Havent caught up, but just saw this article from the Guardian which says Rupert Lowes movement is "far right" and by implication and omission that Reform is not (and afaict does not label reform as far right). This makes my point above that its absurd to call a party a third of the voter base far right. Far implies extreme, which would align more with a party that only earns a few percent at most. I still maintain my dislike for far labels in either direction, but at least it would be less improper with Lowes movement than Farages. ← Metallurgist (talk) 20:07, 16 February 2026 (UTC)

A single article that doesn't support (note: not even actually disputing the label, just not explicitly supporting it) the label cannot be used to throw out over a dozen scholarly sources that do explicitly support the label. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 22:16, 16 February 2026 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I think it’s a nonsense argument, because many other articles published by The Guardian have described Reform UK as ‘far-right’ in the past, or used similar descriptions such as ‘hard-right’, including an article from past UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/11/reform-nigel-farage-hard-right-politics-gordon-brown-labour A744774 (talk) 22:22, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
"many other articles published by The Guardian have described Reform UK as ‘far-right’ in the past." Which ones? That one by Brown (labour) is an opinion piece. Halbared (talk) 22:29, 17 February 2026 (UTC)
(although I'm not really sure why this should be relevant). --Friniate ✉ 11:23, 18 February 2026 (UTC)
Ta for that, that second one is a clear example. Halbared (talk) 11:38, 18 February 2026 (UTC)

Source review tables

Synthesis

Academic sources
Label Passing comments Sources not about Reform's political position[1] Sources about a political family[2] Databases[3] Sources on topic Total Tot. excl. pass. comm. Tot. on topic + datab. Tot. on topic
Peer reviewed Not peer reviewed Peer reviewed Not peer reviewed Peer reviewed Not peer reviewed Peer reviewed Peer reviewed Not peer reviewed
Right-wing 2[4] 2[5] - - - - - - - 4 0 0 0
Right-wing populist[6] 2[7] 1[8] - - 1[9] 1[10] 2[11] - 1[12] 8 5 3 1
hard-right - 2[13] - - - - - - - 2 0 0 0
radical right 3[14] 3[15] 1[16] 2[17] 5[18] 1[19] 1[20] 7[21] + Tim Bale (SME)[22] 23 17 8 7
far-right 2[23] 2[24] - - 7[25] 5[26] 1[27] - 2[28] + Cas Mudde (SME) 19 15 3 2
extreme right - 1[29] - - - - - - - 1 0 0 0
Expert surveys
Survey Num. of experts Year Score[30]
Chapel Hill 21 2024 9.2
Populism and political parties expert survey 8 2023 9
News organisations and non-academic books
Label Passing comments Sources not about Reform's political position[31] Sources about a political family[32] Sources on topic
British Not British Magazines Magazines British Not British Books British Not British Magazines
right-wing BBC (4), Independent (2), Reuters (2) ABC News (1), Associated Press (3), CNN (1)[33], France-Presse (1), USA Today (3), Politico (2) NYT Company (1)[34], Conversation (1)[35] - - - - - - -
right-wing populist Guardian (4), Independent (4) CNN (2), Green Left (1)[36], New York Times (1), Politico (2), Times of Israel (1), Washington Post (1) - - - - - - - -
hard-right Guardian (1) Associated Press (9), CNN (2), CBS (1), France-Presse (3), Los Angeles Times (4) - - - - - - - -
radical right Guardian (2) Aljazeera (1)[37] Conversation (3)[38] Conversation (1)[39] - - Trilling 2025 - Euronews (1) International Socialism (1)[40]
far-right Guardian (3) ABC News-Australia (1), ABC News-USA (2), Aljazeera (1), Arab News (1), Australian (1), CBS (1), Deutsche Welle (1), Euronews (2), France-Presse (1), Guardian-Australia (1), Guardian-US (2), Le Monde (8), Los Angeles Times (2) New Yorker (1), International Socialism (1)[41] - - Pais (1), Politico (1) - 2 against[42] Deutsche Welle (1) Tribune (1)[43], Conversation (1)[44], International Socialism (1)
extreme right - - - - - - - Yorkshire Bylines (1)[45] - -
  1. ↑ Sources that whilst talking lengthy about Reform deal with its political position only in passing
  2. ↑ Sources that whilst talking about for ex. the Far-right in Europe include Reform UK in passing with a simple mention
  3. ↑ Sources whose main goal is to provide a classification of different features of a number of parties. These sources do not specifically discuss Reform's political position, but it's among the studied features
  4. ↑ Ansari; Quinn et al. 2025
  5. ↑ both by Green and Miori
  6. ↑ In cases where there is a multiple label, for ex. "right-wing populist" as an ideology and "radical right" as political position, the source is counted under the political position. The sources listed in this row use only the "right-wing populist" label.
  7. ↑ Dorey; Prosser
  8. ↑ Laverty and Hopkinson
  9. ↑ Bourne
  10. ↑ Wraight-Green
  11. ↑ Zulianello; Zulianello and Gahner Larsen: Zulianello explicitly excludes the party from the "radical right"
  12. ↑ Zhang and Luo (ambiguous: in a part of the article it talks about "radical right-wing populism" and they cite Mudde for the definition)
  13. ↑ Lester; Kippin 2024 (as a synonim of "far-right" and implicitly of "radical right")
  14. ↑ Martin et al.; Quinn 2023; Baldini et al.
  15. ↑ Turnbull-Dugarte et al.; Hennig (as part of the far-right); Ford
  16. ↑ Grainger (quoting Mudde for the definition, so as part of the far-right)
  17. ↑ Ford and Bale; Bale
  18. ↑ Giudici (as part of the far-right); Newton; O'Brien; Vampa et al.; Turnbull-Dugarte and Ortega
  19. ↑ Claassen-Paxton (he seems to use the label interchangeably with "far-right")
  20. ↑ Zaslove et al.
  21. ↑ Hayton (as part of the far-right); Taggart and Pirro (quoting Mudde for the definition, so as part of the far-right); Bennie and Widfeldt (as part of the far-right); Tournier-Sol; Whiteley; Sánchez-Marañón (as part of the far-right); Soborski et al. - Politics (as part of the far-right)
  22. ↑ As part of the far-right
  23. ↑ Schmidtke; Wheatley
  24. ↑ Dorling; West et al.
  25. ↑ Bhatt; Soborski et al. - Nation and Nationalism; Kippin 2025 (he seems to use the label interchangeably with "radical right"); Shuttleworth et al.; van der Brug et al. (he seems to use the label interchangeably with "radical right"); Bourgeron; Newth et al. I'm not including Baele since it seems unclear to me.
  26. ↑ Meuth; Luger; van der Tol; Kim; Mudde
  27. ↑ Rodujin et al.
  28. ↑ Brown; Bortun and Reeves
  29. ↑ Consterdine
  30. ↑ Score on a left-right scale where 0 is extreme left and 10 is extreme right
  31. ↑ Sources that whilst talking lengthy about Reform deal with its political position only in passing
  32. ↑ Sources that whilst talking about for ex. the Far-right in Europe include Reform UK in passing with a simple mention
  33. ↑ But it labels the policies as "far-right"
  34. ↑ "fringe right-wing"
  35. ↑ Written by William Allchorn, Honorary Visiting Senior Fellow, Policing Institute for the Eastern Region, Anglia Ruskin University
  36. ↑ But it labels Farage as "far-right"
  37. ↑ the label is used interchangeably with "far-right"
  38. ↑ 2 written by Ben Wellings, professor in Politics and International Relations at the Monash University; 1 by Jonathan Parker, Lecturer in Politics, University of Glasgow
  39. ↑ Written by Matthew Barnfield, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Queen Mary University of London
  40. ↑ Written by Joseph Choonara
  41. ↑ Written by Joseph Choonara, lecturer in political economy at the Licester University
  42. ↑ the Telegraph argues against this label without suggesting an alternative, the BBC has openly apologised for having used it
  43. ↑ Written by the political scientist Vladimir Bortun
  44. ↑ Written by Aurelien Mondon, Professor of Politics at the University of Bath
  45. ↑ Written by sociologist Russel Jackson

Discussion

I have now done a source review of all the sources provided in this discussion. I don't consider it complete, because I am sure that more sources can be found. I welcome comments, additions and corrections.

If I have made a mistake, please don't assume it was on purpose, but feel free to correct it. I have included the table as a template, the source can be found here: User:TurboSuperA+/sandbox/Reform source review, in case you want to make edits to the table. TurboSuperA+[talk] 10:34, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Just noticed one mistake, in the ABC article, it's not Joyce's opinion, it's the journalists writing the article who are using that descriptor. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 11:30, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Thank you, it has been edited. You could have also made the edit yourself. Even though it is in my userspace, I have given explicit permission that other editors can edit the table's source, as edits are expected and/or will be helpful, per WP:USERTALKSTOP. TurboSuperA+[talk] 11:38, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+ It would be better to omit CounterPunch as it is considered generally unreliable per WP:COUNTERPUNCH. Brat Forelli🦊 11:44, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
WP:COUNTERPUNCH says that each piece/author should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, because CounterPunch publishes opinions it is not suitable for notability requirements, and it should be treated as a WP:SPS. That said, Michael Barker, the author of the linked article, is described as Michael Barker has been writing for alternative media outlets since 2006, and at present is a regular contributor to Swans Commentary. His work has been published by many media organizations, including Corporate Watch (UK), Countercurrents, CounterPunch, GreenLeft Weekly, and Znet. He is a contributor to Corporate Watch's forthcoming book Managing Dissent: Capitalism, Democracy and the Organisation of Consent. He has also self-published two books: . Personally I would say his opinion should be allowed, but I do recognise that his credentials may be seen as falling short of the kind of high quality publishing standards Wikipedia editors expect. I have removed the CounterPunch entry from the table. TurboSuperA+[talk] 12:05, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I understand, I am sorry for being nitpicky, it was just the use of CounterPunch that stood out to me. I would be inclined to agree that Michael Barker appears credible on his own, but as you said, with the amount of work you've put into this table, there is no need to get into that anyway. Brat Forelli🦊 12:25, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
It seems weird to me that although we are talking about a British political party, that none hardly any of the news sources included are from British publications and they all use the term far-right. Are we to conclude that there no British news sources have published articles about Reform UK and all non-British sources characterise them as far-right? Or is there something about the search criteria used that has not been disclosed? -- DeFacto (talk). 12:54, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
New Statesman is British, but looking at the article it isn't explicit in calling Reform far-right, and in any case it's all opinion pieces and so isn't reliable for the same reasons as the Spectator. — Czello (music) 12:57, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Thanks, there's the BBC and Guardian too at the bottom. I've re-worded, -- DeFacto (talk). 13:04, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
The BBC doesn't call them far-right, so that just leaves the Guardian. — Czello (music) 13:08, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that there are two British publications listed under "news sources" that describe them as far-right included in the table, The Guardian and The New Statesman. The New Statesman's description is less explicit, but the title mentioning "far-right" is immediately followed by a few sentences specifically about Reform UK, and it talks about Reform and its prominent members throughout. I think your question: Are we to conclude that there no British news sources have published articles about Reform UK and all non-British sources characterise them as far-right? Or is there something about the search criteria used that has not been disclosed? is the wrong thing to be asking, given the multitude of non-British sources describing the party as far-right, my question would be: why are so many British publications not using the term to describe the party? Purely to speculate, I suspect there may be some extra degree of caution amongst them due to the legal threat lobbed at the BBC.
Either way, I consider the vast amount of news media from outside the UK (as well as some stragglers within it) alongside the plethora of academic sources describing the party as "far-right" to show that the descriptor is suitable to be included in this article's description of the party. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 13:18, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
See my comment above re: New Statesman.
Purely to speculate, I suspect there may be some extra degree of caution amongst them due to the legal threat lobbed at the BBC. As you say, this is speculation. We cannot make assumptions that otherwise reliable sources have been cowed into silence; this applies to the BBC also. — Czello (music) 13:22, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I'm aware it was speculation, hence why I prefaced it as such, I was just positing a hypothetical answer to my hypothetical question. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 13:23, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Also, I don't believe that the New Statesman's article is an opinion piece, or if it is, it hasn't been clearly labelled as such, how is it that you've determined it to be an opinion piece? – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 13:28, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
The New Statesman is an opinion magazine - all of its articles are opinion pieces, the same as the Spectator. — Czello (music) 13:33, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
It seems weird to me that although we are talking about a British political party, that none hardly any of the news sources included are from British publications
Where do the P&Gs say that sources about a political party should be from the same country as that political party? TurboSuperA+[talk] 13:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
That's not the point. Wouldn't you expect that the party would have been mentioned in 10s, even 100s, of thousands of UK news articles since the 2024 general election? -- DeFacto (talk). 14:12, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Sure, but I would actually expect news articles from Britain to censor themselves and choose their words more carefully. Feel free to link/include news publishers who call them something else or omit the label altogether (as I have done by including the BBC). TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:16, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Do you think they've been deliberately omitted then? -- DeFacto (talk). 14:34, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Perhaps. For example, the BBC's editors exercise strict editorial control over the words and phrasing their journalists use. TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
And given that the BBC is considered very reliable that should indicate their editorial control helps maintain their status of reliability. Ultimately, we cannot speculate like this - the BBC is reliable. — Czello (music) 14:45, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
The logical outcome of this line of thinking is that foreign sources would therefore be more reliable than domestic ones, which is obviously not the case.
This is all a roundabout way of explaining why domestic sources typically don't call them far-right. It's speculation and working backwards, when there's a far more reasonable answer: domestic sources know the topic best and have largely not determined the party to be far-right. — Czello (music) 14:38, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
That far more reasonable answer is just as speculative as the alternative. We cannot make assumptions about why the label is used less frequently in British media. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Sorry, but no. It is a far bigger leap to assume, as has been suggested, that domestic sources decline to use phrases out of fear of legal action than it is to say "reliable sources know what they're talking about". That's the whole point of why we call a source reliable. — Czello (music) 14:44, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Any assumption is still an assumption, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, especially when there are a plethora of academic sources from both within and outside of the UK, and a large amount of journalistic sources from outside of the UK that support the label. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 14:48, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
My assumption being "reliable sources know what they're talking about"? That's simply not how Wikipedia works. If a reliable source is saying something (or indeed, not saying something), we trust them for a reason. If someone wants to say that they're not saying something for speculative reasons, they need to demonstrate that. — Czello (music) 14:53, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I've only just now noticed that I misread your original statement as domestic sources know the topic best and have largely determined the party to not be far-right., however, I still don't see why such a specific subset of sources (journalistic, from Britain) is being granted exponentially more WP:WEIGHT than all other sources. I've said above that I'd be more than willing to include a mention of how British and non-British news sources differ in their descriptions of the party, but the idea that the 20+ academic papers describing them as far-right as well as the dozen or so non-British news sources are outweighed by a tendency amongst most (but not all) British news sources to exclude the label. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:09, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
It is precisely because of fear of legal action.
The BBC has apologised for referring to Reform UK as “far right” in a news report.
Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, said: “There are very significant implications of calling a political party, and by implication, its leader and senior leadership team far right. It is that which is defamatory and libellous. That is why they have apologised immediately.” He also said he expected the BBC to change its editorial guidelines.
Tice said the label of being “far right” would have “huge implications”, if other media outlets used it and suggested that he and others could lose their bank accounts or the ability to get a mortgage. He said his lawyers had also been in touch with other organisations.
Because the party doesn't call itself "far-right", British news companies can be sued for libel if they call them "far-right". TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:52, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
This is still speculation. — Czello (music) 14:53, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
"It is that which is defamatory and libellous." ... He said his lawyers had also been in touch with other organisations.
Unless we have reason to believe that Tice is not telling the truth about his lawyers threatening British organisations with legal action over "defamatory and libellous" labels, then I don't see what is speculative about it. TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:59, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Because you're assuming any time an otherwise reliable source doesn't say "far-right", it's for these reasons. That is speculation. Plenty of groups or individuals threaten the BBC (and other sources) with legal action; that's almost a standard part of journalism in controversial areas. I seem to recall the BNP trying similar things in the past, but that still didn't prevent the BBC calling them far-right.
Ultimately, unless you have a source that explicitly demonstrates that the absence of a far-right label is done out of legal fear, then this line of reasoning will have to be disregarded. — Czello (music) 15:04, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
you're assuming any time an otherwise reliable source doesn't say "far-right", it's for these reasons.
Not all reliable sources, only British news organisations.
I seem to recall the BNP trying similar things in the past, but that still didn't prevent the BBC calling them far-right.
Can you link an article where the BBC called the BNP a "far-right" party? TurboSuperA+[talk] 15:10, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
— Czello (music) 15:25, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
First link: They call the Patriotic Alternative and certain individuals far-right, but not the BNP.
Second link: The BNP is included in a list of "far-right individuals and organisations", so the label is implied, but not directly stated.
Third link: Here they do label them "far-right" directly. The article is from 2009, however. TurboSuperA+[talk] 15:38, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
First link says a veteran member of the far-right who'd had many previous guises, including in the British National Party (BNP), which is a clear indication of the BNP being far-right. Second link, sure, but again the implication seems to be clear-cut.
Third link, which is the real crux here - okay, but what's your point exactly? That's when the BNP were at their most active.
All of this seems to be an odd distraction and doesn't change the overarching point - it's still an assumption that the lack of a far-right label is down to legal threats. — Czello (music) 15:48, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
which is a clear indication of the BNP being far-right
Guilt by association is not how works on Wikipedia, labels are not transitive. You're combining things to form a conclusion.
That's when the BNP were at their most active.
Yes, and one could argue that the political landscape was different then. Far-right parties were not as popular as they are today. The Overton Window has shifted further to the right since 2009. TurboSuperA+[talk] 16:21, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Again, this is all speculative (I would say the Overton window is more to the left since then) and kind of beside the point. — Czello (music) 16:59, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
The Guardian details the legal threats Reform has put out against news publications.
The National Union of Journalists talks specifically about Reform "bullying" media outlet Nation.Cymru with legal threats following their publication of an article detailing bigoted comments made by a party member.
A UK Parliament committee report by a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament states the following:
"We received strong evidence that the combination of the high costs of legal action and uncertainty over the outcome of libel claims had led to a degree of defensive self-censorship, particularly by journalists, authors and scientists. The fact that some witnesses were only prepared to tell us their experiences on a confidential basis illustrates the extent to which people can feel intimidated. Furthermore, it was argued that the way in which the libel laws are used by some, particularly wealthy individuals and well-resourced businesses, serves to inhibit legitimate comment and, more fundamentally, undermines the right to freedom of speech.[17] We were persuaded that this financial inequality has allowed the wealthy to use bullying tactics in threatening costly legal action in disproportionate responses to innocuous or legitimate criticism. These are the components of the 'chilling effect', which our defamation laws sustain." – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:27, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
You're engaging in WP:SYNTH here. Yes, we know that Reform made legal threats. However, we cannot operate on the assumption that those threats led to the lack of a "far-right" label being applied by news sources. Again, it's speculation, it's conjecture, and it's a logical fallacy. Right now there is no evidence for it, only assumptions. — Czello (music) 15:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
HopeNotHate explicitly states the following: "Clearly, one of the reasons so many journalists and media outlets have refrained from describing Reform UK accurately is through fear of legal repercussions. The party is adamant that it is not far-right and is willing to litigate the point." – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:40, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Which is a matter of an opinion from HNH. — Czello (music) 15:49, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
WP:NOR (of which WP:SYNTH is a section) does not apply to talk pages, by the way. – GlowstoneUnknown (Talk) 15:54, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
No, but if you're going to make arguments that help formulate consensus then it's a good guideline to go by. Ignore the policy itself and pretend I said "you're combining things to form a conclusion". — Czello (music) 15:56, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Here is a source stating it directly:
The far right is threatening to stiffle state-owned media corporations or put them at its service if it comes to power
Also in the United Kingdom, Nigel Farage’s far-right party, Reform UK, has long targeted the BBC, which is historically renowned for its quality standards. El Pais TurboSuperA+[talk] 16:17, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
El Pais is a centre-left newspaper, like The Guardian, and they tend to use "far-right" as a pejorative adjective rather than as a political noun, to discredit parties on the right. Perhaps, the only sources we should be considering are the ones that are analysing Reform's position on the spectrum, and laying out their reasoning for arriving at their conclusion. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:42, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
El Pais is a centre-left newspaper
Their bias doesn't make them any less reliable, WP:ALLOWEDBIAS. If we're including the BBC (which I'm sure you would agree is at least centre-right), then a centre-left publication can also be included. TurboSuperA+[talk] 16:46, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I never said they were unreliable, I said that being centre-left they are likely to be using "far-right" as an insult adjective rather than as a noun describing a position in the political spectrum.
As for where the BBC sits in the spectrum, it is generally described as right wing by the left and as left wing by the right. That is usually interpreted (especially by the BBC) as a measure of their neutrality. -- DeFacto (talk). 17:01, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
and as left wing by the right.
Because people who describe the BBC as "left wing" think anyone left of Reagan and Thatcher is left-wing.
I said that being centre-left they are likely to be using "far-right" as an insult
Well, that's just your opinion. And if El Pais was the only one to use the label, then you might have a point, but not when so many academics and other publications call them "far-right". TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:14, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Again, still does not prove that this is why the BBC are not calling them far-right. — Czello (music) 17:00, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Sure. But the BBC isn't the end all and be all of reliable sources. It is not the arbiter of truth nor a source that trumps everything else, including academia. This fixation on BBC is strange and distracting. Honestly, who cares that the BBC doesn't call them far-right when so many other academics and publications do. TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:19, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+@Czello According to this article: Despite both UKIP and Reform UK’s clear credentials as far-right parties, they were and are often excluded from the category in academic and public discourse, whether on account of UKIP’s emergence as a single-issue ‘eurosceptic’ group (Tournier-Sol 2015, 134) or Reform UK’s protestations about the label, seeing the BBC apologise for referring to them as such (Naughtie 2024).
So we have at least one RS that says it was because of that. --Friniate ✉ 22:36, 30 January 2026 (UTC)
Though interesting, I think this line of discussion just encourages forumy comments and isn't relevant to PAGs. There are lots of British scholars listed above Kowal2701 (talk) 20:11, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
For the 'Academic sources', columns for the article title and authors are required please. -- DeFacto (talk). 13:17, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I mean, no such "requirement" exists, as source reviews are not mandatory nor required by P&Gs. They're done by editors to help others make an informed decision in an RfC and to collate the various sources given in the course of a discussion. You could have just said that you would like them to be included. I have done so now. TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:19, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Don't you think the title and authors would help make an informed decision? -- DeFacto (talk). 14:35, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
I've included the links to the articles in the first version of the table, so if anyone wanted to find out the author and title it was a click away. TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:37, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Just a quick point - There seems to be an assumption from some commenters that many British news sources consider Reform UK to be a right-wing or centre-right party. I believe that is speculation, unless it is explicitly stated in articles. Many articles have instead preferred to avoid labels altogether. And when this occurs, it does not act as a counter point to other articles, mentioning terms such as ‘far- right’, or ‘radical-right’.I think it is better to go with the available evidence as of now, which of course includes international sources.
In various articles in 2020-2021, British PM Keir Starmer (then just Labour’s leader’ has described Reform far-right aligned, or a party with extreme views on immigration, as well as a potential threat to UK democracy. I can provide sources if that’s of interest? ~2026-25658-8 (talk) 17:28, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Please do! The more sources the better, as it will make it easier to judge consensus among as many available sources as possible. TurboSuperA+[talk] 17:36, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Please ignore what I said here, it was inaccurate: In various articles in 2020-2021, British PM Keir Starmer (then just Labour’s leader’ has described Reform far-right aligned, or a party with extreme views on immigration, as well as a potential threat to UK democracy. I can provide sources if that’s of interest?
Keir Starmer has instead warned that he expects Reform UK to move further to the right if elected to government:
"“And my worry is, and this is how history tells us, is that a rightwing proposition like that, with fantastical ideas, leaning towards Russia, if it gets into power, it will find that its policies don’t work, and it won’t become more progressive, it won’t nudge towards the centre, it’ll be go to the right, to the right, to the right"
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/reform-uk-government-tear-britain-161801337.html
He has also described the politics of Reform UK as "dangerous"
"A dangerous right-wing politics - even here in Scotland - that will say they are the ones who can tilt politics towards the interests of working people."
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/keir-starmer-condemns-reform-uks-dangerous-right-wing-politics-5Hjczdj_2/
He has also described their immigration policies as immoral:
"The Prime Minister told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: “Well, I do think that it is a racist policy. I do think it is immoral. It needs to be called out for what it is.”"
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-keir-starmer-nigel-farage-shabana-mahmood-reform-uk-b1250067.html
But Keir Starmer has stopped short of calling Reform UK "far-right" in public, but apparently has done so at a press conference. ~2026-34307-6 (talk) 20:00, 16 January 2026 (UTC)
Ex reform UK MP said that Keir Starmer called Reform UK a "far-right" party, as reported by TalkTV's Youtube channel:
"MP Rupert Lowe lashes out at Keir Starmer saying 'these people don't understand anything' after the Prime Minister called Reform UK ‘far-right’ in a recent speech".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD7T2kB4gVw ~2026-34307-6 (talk) 20:13, 16 January 2026 (UTC)

Here's an article by subject expert Matt Goodwin, calling Reform, 'national populist.' If anyone wishes to add it to the expert table, that's fine, I don't have the concentration tonight. https://www.prosperity.com/media-publications/legatum-institute-briefing-paper-whos-voting-reform/. Halbared (talk) 23:28, 26 January 2026 (UTC)

I just realised that you are referring to a Reform UK candidate who has published articles in the past. Do you really want to add a source who is clearly playing an active role in Reform UK? And also a regular GB news presenter? He’s not exactly a neutral observer. Reform UK is actively looking to soften their image, so I think it’s to be expected that they will invent new descriptions for themselves.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/reform-pick-matt-goodwin-candidate-gorton-denton ~2026-59896-9 (talk) 09:20, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
Nice catch. TurboSuperA+[talk] 09:31, 4 February 2026 (UTC)

@CommunityNotesContributor: I've moved International Socialsm to the magazines, and I'm frankly inclined to do the same with the Green Left Journal, reading Green Left (newspaper) it just seems a political magazine like many others....--Friniate ✉ 13:55, 3 February 2026 (UTC)

Why did you move it to magazines when both the Wikipedia article and WorldCat call it a journal? TurboSuperA+[talk] 14:07, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
IS does appear to be a journal, Green Left should be moved to news sources as a newspaper. Good work on the source list btw, it's interesting to see how many reference Mudde and Bale as SME. I guess you no doubt came to your own conclusions, but there is certainly the depth and weight for the radical right / far-right categorisation in there. CNC (talk) 16:08, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
@CommunityNotesContributor@TurboSuperA+ Well, the wikipedia page is titled International Socialism (magazine)... I've also seen that it's published by the Socialist Workers Party (UK), so it didn't seem to be a scholar publication to me, but something more akin to a magazine with its own clear political editorial line... Anyway, if you want to put it back among the academic journals I'm not going to grieve over it (it doesn't change much on a practical level).
@CMC Yes, I agree, I still haven't finished, I'm going to create a synthetic table with all the results. I had to take some decisions on my own when deciding if the references where passing comments or not, I tagged as "partially" the cases which seemed borderline to me, of course I'm happy to discuss the rationale of these categorizations if something doesn't seem clear. --Friniate ✉ 20:38, 3 February 2026 (UTC)
@CommunityNotesContributor Answering to this edit summary, yes, I was going to do it for all news sources... For two reasons: on one side I don't think that articles whose entire topic is Reform's political position, as this one should have the same weight as a random label thrown in an article with a general topic such as the general political situation in the UK. On the other side I wanted to prove what you wrote here: I think that you were right, but I think that's better to prove it in a way that's evident to everyone. --Friniate ✉ 11:29, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
Fair enough makes sense, as I said feel free to revert. I imagine you'll find quite quickly the lack of depth in most of those sources, which is what you'd expect when the focus is on a news event, rather than a broader topic. CNC (talk) 11:33, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
Well, the wikipedia page is titled International Socialism (magazine)...
And International Socialism (journal) is a redirect to it. I have no idea why (journal) is a redirect when even the article describes it as a journal, not a magazine. TurboSuperA+[talk] 13:09, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+ My point was that it's not an academic journal, it's a publication by a political party, whose intended purpose is to propagate the party's views. Putting it together with all the other academic journals would be misleading IMHO. I've found this page on the differences between magazines and journals.
On a related note, I have many doubts about the inclusion of Future UAE, People's Dispatch and GZERO media in the newsorg table. I don't want to exclude all NEWSORGs not already assessed for reliability, since among them there are non-Anglophone mainstream media such as Le Monde or El Pais which are clearly relevant, but on the other side I think that it's at least doubtful that these three publications (on which we don't even have a Wikipedia article) fall among the high-quality mainstream publications cited by WP:SOURCETYPES. --Friniate ✉ 13:46, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
whose intended purpose is to propagate the party's views.
Do you have a source on that? TurboSuperA+[talk] 13:51, 4 February 2026 (UTC)
@TurboSuperA+ Ok, it's true that they say that their goal is to provide independent analysis (but within a clear ideological tendency, something that clearly puts them apart from the scholarly journals).
But I think it's sufficient to check this article:
  • Intent. Magazines: Report on general interest topics in a broad subject field. Scholarly Journals: Report original research or experiments in a specific field or discipline. IS: offering an independent analysis of the contemporary world and contributing to debates on the left in Britain and internationally. Areas where we have particular strengths include political economy, revolutionary strategy, imperialism and resistance, the history and politics of the workers’ movement, contemporary politics in the Middle East and the politics of oppression ().
  • Intended Audience. Magazines: Educated but non-expert reader. Scholarly Journals: Scholars and researchers. IS: we try to do so in a way that avoids falling into academic in-talk. Such jargon can make articles inaccessible not merely to a general socialist audience, but also to others not involved in the internecine debates that take place in narrow academic niches. ()
  • Authors. Magazines: Staff writers, freelance authors, guest scholars. Scholarly Journals: Scholars and researchers. It's true, Choonara is a scholar, but Ian Taylor a journalist.
  • The only aspect in which they are more similar to a scholarly journal than a magazine are the references, since the magazines usually do not cite the sources, whereas IS does that (and probably advertising, but without the paper version we can't verify that).
At the very least we should include only Choonara, but exclude Taylor. --Friniate ✉ 13:19, 6 February 2026 (UTC)

@CommunityNotesContributor: I've assessed the first source (West, Wolfe, Yaghi, School governance in England from 2010 to 2024) as a passing comment both for Reform and for far-right, but I couldn't access it, I classified it only following @DeFacto:'s opinion. If you two have access to it, please fix the classification as you please.--Friniate ✉ 22:58, 12 February 2026 (UTC)

It was initially added by @TurboSuperA+, maybe they can update if needed. CNC (talk) 00:08, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
The link comes from @GlowstoneUnknown's !vote in the RFC, with a quote and page number. It is the first link in the list. TurboSuperA+[talk] 06:48, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
@Friniate, I haven't got it to hand at the moment, but back on 19 January, in my reply to CommunityNotesContributor's questioning of my 'oppose' !vote, I said of that source that it is an analysis of school governance in England, and not of Reform UK, and that it only mentions Reform in passing in two sentences, referring to them as: far-right Reform... and that It doesn't add any context or substantiate the label. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:06, 13 February 2026 (UTC)
@DeFacto Yes, that's the comment I was referring to... --Friniate ✉ 10:45, 13 February 2026 (UTC)

Moratorium debate

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Reform_UK/Archive_6&oldid=1343687315#RfC_-_Should_"far-right"_be_added_as_a_descriptor_for_Reform_UK?"