Reform UK's 'masculine image' risks alienating female voters and is leaving Nigel Farage's party with a 'woman problem', warns one of its senior board members

By GREG HEFFER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT Published: 14:55, 21 June 2026 | Updated: 15:03, 21 June 2026 Reform UK's 'masculine image' risks alienating female voters and is leaving Nigel Farage's party with a 'woman problem', according to one of its top board members. Gawain Towler, Reform's former head of communications who is now on the party's governing board, issued the warning following the Makerfield by-election result. Despite Reform's hopes of running Andy Burnham close in Thursday's contest, the Labour politician beat Reform candidate Robert Kenyon by more than 9,000 votes. During the by-election campaign, Mr Kenyon came under fire for his past social media comments, including an offensive post about Welsh broadcaster Carole Vorderman. But Mr Farage dismissed the previous remarks of Mr Kenyon, a local plumber, as 'a few laddish things', which were 'posted a decade ago'. In a post on his Substack after the by-election result was announced, Mr Towler decried Mr Kenyon and Reform's decision not to issue an apology. He also said Makerfield 'must be the wake-up call' as he warned Reform was 'addressing one half of the electorate as though the other half were not in the room'. 'The woman problem has a number attached now, and a lost seat behind it,' he wrote, as he described how Reform-friendly female voters had failed to back the party in Makerfield due to Mr Kenyon's past comments. Reform UK leader Nigel Farage pictured with the party's Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon on polling day Your browser does not support iframes. Mr Towler added: 'Robert Kenyon arrived carrying a decade of online remarks about women, including the now-notorious line in which he allowed that he was sexist and sorry only in the rhetorical sense. '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. 'They have brothers, fathers and sons, they understand working class language, they were not necessarily demanding Kenyon's head on a stake, but, as he moves from one place, his white van, to another a seat in the House of Commons, then he has to act different. 'A proper apology would have been enough, but it was not forthcoming. They did not need a leaflet to tell them how to feel. They needed an apology that never came.' Mr Towler went on to note how Reform has 'built a communication style in its own image, and its own image is conspicuously masculine'. He added: 'Nigel Farage's personal brand compounds this. The pints. The blokey conviviality. The confrontational television manner. 'The rallies filled with men in their fifties lining up for selfies. That is him, and it works, but it needs a leavening. 'Reform recognised this during the 2025 local elections and made a deliberate effort to put women candidates and supporters on camera. 'But optics alone cannot do the work that architecture must do. Yet there is little point in repainting the facade if the floor plan is wrong.' Mr Towler called for Reform to focus on 'sustained, authentic engagement with women's communities' and said the election of Reform-led councils presented 'an opportunity' to overcome its difficulties with female voters. 'Reform's public persona, shaped heavily by Farage, by its online ecosystem, by its most visible supporters, carries connotations of a certain kind of masculinity that some women find simply alienating, regardless of policy,' he wrote. 'That is a brand problem as much as a message problem, and it requires sustained, authentic engagement with women's communities: schools, healthcare, local government, the voluntary sector. 'The councils Reform now controls are an opportunity. What those councils do for women, for domestic abuse services, for maternity provision, for social care, will matter more than any press release.' A Reform spokesman said: 'We do not recognise Mr Towler's claims, and nor does the British public. 'A More in Common poll published this week shows Reform UK is the most popular party in the country among women. 'The party is proud to have introduced policies and protections specifically designed to support women, including the Women's and Motherhood Protection Act, which would strengthen maternity rights, ensure equal pay and introduce new safeguards for pregnant women and new mothers. 'We are determined to be the most pro-woman government this country has ever seen.' 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