Reform UK’s crushing defeat in Makerfield has led to recriminations behind the scenes, with a senior party member admitting publicly it has “a woman problem”.
The intervention from party board member and former director of communications Gawain Towler comes after Reform lost Makerfield with a candidate who was criticised for his crude social media remarks about women and proudly proclaimed himself to be a “sexist”.
But with an autopsy into the defeat already underway, Reform also turned down invitations to appear on the Sunday morning politics shows, even avoiding its preferred channel GB News.
There are also claims that pressure is being put on Mr Farage to reduce the role or sideline home affairs Zia Yusuf, whose “mass deportation” rhetoric is believed to be putting middle ground voters. Mr Yusuf has also become a hate figure for more rightwing voters who have turned to Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain.
A Reform spokesman told The Independent that they had decided not to go on the shows because they had not received an invite from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg show. Both Sky and GB News confirmed they had requested them to appear.
The party spokesman said: “We don’t usually do one unless there is a BBC bid”, with another adding: “our guys were on air all day Friday pretty much.”
But it comes as sources have told The Independent that “serious questions need to be asked” about the defeat in Makerfield, a constituency where they won all the council seats just a few weeks ago which is the sort they need to pick up if Mr Farage hopes to be prime minister.
Questions now are being asked about tactics, a lack of policies and a continued failure to pick good candidates for high profile by-elections.
There is still anger over the selection of Matt Goodwin for Gorton and Denton, while Makerfield candidate’s Robert Kenyon’s sexist social media history has led to accusations the party has a woman problem.
Mr Farage dismissed the criticism of Mr Kenyon during the campaign, claiming it was “pub talk.” Mr Kenyon was subsequently crushed by Labour’s Andy Burnham by almost 10,000 votes in a victory which appears to have paved his way to Downing Street.
In his substack, Mr Towler, a long term ally of Mr Farage, warned that Makerfield was a “wake-up call” and urged the party to broaden its appeal to female voters to grow.
In the essay titled “Speaking to half the country” he wrote: “The woman problem has a number attached now, and a lost seat behind it.
“Robert Kenyon arrived carrying a decade of online remarks about women.
“The party chose to wave this away as banter and to brief that the whole business was an establishment confection. It was no confection on the doorstep.
“I lost count of being told about Reform-minded women, women who wanted to vote for us, who would not in the end put a cross beside a man who had said those things and never honestly taken them back. A proper apology would have been enough, but it was not forthcoming”.
