Reform UK is investigating whether sexist comments by its candidate in the Makerfield byelection harmed the party's chances, after Nigel Farage admitted the result was 'disappointing'. The party had hoped for a tightly fought battle with Andy Burnham, who won 55% of the vote share, leaving Reform's candidate Robert Kenyon more than 9,000 votes behind.
Canvassers from different parties reported that voters highlighted sexist and lewd social media posts by Kenyon, which emerged during the campaign, with women in particular saying they were put off by them. The issue gained prominence when TV presenter Carol Vorderman demanded an apology from Kenyon after he joined in a graphic discussion about her in since-deleted posts. 'I will admit that the Vorderman stuff did not help us,' a Reform source said.
One Reform activist said the party had advised Kenyon not to apologise for the comments. 'That’s something that was not his fault, it was how he was advised,' they said. Kenyon did not apologise but sought to present the posts as showing he was an ordinary person rather than a professional politician.
Farage's party pointed to the scale of the task facing a well-known figure like Burnham, even in a seat demographically favourable to Reform. Kenyon increased his vote share from 2024 by 2.7 percentage points. The party was also buoyed by Rupert Lowe's far-right Restore UK taking just under 7% of the vote, less than some forecasts had predicted.
In a video message, Farage urged Restore voters to back Reform instead, calling it the only viable contender on the right. He said the result was 'a dramatic, emphatic win for Andy Burnham' and that Reform had been 'slightly hoist with our own petard' in taking on a Labour challenger whose implicit message was that a vote for him was a vote to remove Keir Starmer. Burnham's personal standing in Greater Manchester appeared to be a major factor.
Despite Restore's modest showing, Farage will be concerned to have lost votes to a party whose hard-right rhetoric has nudged Reform into taking a more nativist approach in recent weeks. Reform's migration policy has become more hardline, targeting EU nationals with settled status, who would be barred from social housing and made more expensive to employ under planned policies.
