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Nigel Farage has said the UK’s birth rate needs to increase, as he launched a defence of family values that may alienate moderate voters his Reform UK party is hoping to attract from both Labour and the Conservatives.
The Reform leader said the family unit “matters enormously” and that the west has lost sight of its “Judeo-Christian” cultural underpinnings, during an appearance at the right-leaning Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference on Tuesday.
His comments signal a pivot by the rightwing populist party, which has overtaken Labour and the Conservatives in some opinion polls by focusing heavily on migration and net zero.
“Of course family matters enormously; of course we need higher birth rates,” Farage told the event, adding that the UK and wider west have “kind of forgotten that what underpins everything is our Judeo-Christian culture, and that’s where we need to start”.
Restoring a “sense of optimism” that was last afoot in the 1980s and 1990s is essential to reversing decreasing fertility rates in the UK, Farage said.
Calling for some “very, very big cultural changes” to persuade Britons to have children, he went on: “We’ve got to start telling young kids that hard work is good, that success is good, that there are no shortcuts in life, that making money is good.”
Farage also lamented the transition of more than a million extra working-age people on to welfare since the start of the pandemic, and warned young people were disincentivised by the system.
The issue of declining birth rates in the west has been highlighted by Elon Musk and several other Maga-related figures. It is unclear whether a shift to social conservatism would win Reform more backers in the UK.
Luke Tryl, executive director of the More in Common think-tank, told the Financial Times that the new supporters who have swung behind the party since the general election last July “are much more moderate than the people who voted for them last year”.
Speaking alongside Farage on Tuesday, controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson described divorcees, single mothers and gay people as “deviations from the norm”.
He asked Farage to comment on the thesis that “stable, committed . . . heterosexual, child-centred monogamy is the kind of long-term commitment to community, to sacrifice, and to future that’s the fundamental unit of civilised, organised . . . society”.
Farage responded: “I may not necessarily be the best advocate for monogamous heterosexuality or stable marriage, having been divorced twice.”
However, he said he had been motivated to return to politics last year by a duty towards “family, community and country”.
Farage has been credited with making inroads among young voters, building up a significant following on TikTok, the app beloved of Generation Z, where he has 1.2mn followers — far outstripping any Labour or Tory politicians.
Tryl warned that a focus on family matters was likely to be “a distraction” for Reform, which faces its biggest challenge in convincing voters it is more than a protest party and could run the government.
“Now Reform is in the big leagues, stuff like this which motivates a base and is very ‘US coded’ just washes over most of the public,” he said. “Everything now should be about addressing the credibility gap.”
Farage also used his platform at the Arc event, a three-day conference in east London attended by 4,000 people designed to regenerate ideas on the right, to criticise Rachel Reeves, and to speak about policies tackling climate change.
He claimed the chancellor makes “you want to reach for the cry tissues”, adding of her messaging: “It’s all so miserable, it’s all so declinist. Frankly, the Conservatives have been no better.”
Farage also claimed the UK government’s commitment to achieving net zero “is a complete and utter disaster” and said it drives him “absolutely potty” to “hear that carbon dioxide is a pollutant”, adding: “That’s what they tell us, that clearly is absolutely nuts.”
