Conspiracism – a way of thinking that sees present and historical world events in terms of secret conspiracies – is rife within Reform UK.
A week before the 2024 general election, I spoke with a Midlands-based Reform UK candidate. Instead of trying to convince me to support the party by discussing its manifesto policies and ability to govern, he took another approach: he told me that the UN were sneaking ‘military-aged’ migrants into asylum hotels and arming them with automatic weapons. He’d seen footage, he said. Fact-checking after our conversation, I found nothing from any news outlets that even mentioned let alone verified these claims. I did, however, find a video on Bitchute, an online video platform with a history of hosting extreme right and conspiratorial content, that made the exact same argument.
Reform UK candidates: endemic conspiracism with racist overtones
I can’t say for sure whether the candidate I spoke to watched this video. What I can say is that this experience wasn’t an aberration: Hope not hate, The Guardian, and Byline Times have all discussed the endemic nature of conspiracism among Reform candidates. Reports from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) have uncovered extensive networks of Facebook groups spreading far- right conspiracy theories and hate speech, set up by candidates between October 2023 and March 2024. TBIJ found 74 parliamentary candidates (over 10% of Reform’s total standing in the general election) participating in these groups, some even administrating them.
According to TBIJ, many of the conspiracy theories promoted on these sites took on an overtly racist and violent tone. Milton Keynes North Candidate Jane Duckworth reportedly liked a post predicting a civil war resulting from “pillage and rape” by migrants. Then candidate for Leeds West and Pudsey Andrea Whitehead liked a post from a member stating they would “rather see our historic churches demolished than be turned into mosques”. Implicit in many of these posts were references to the white supremacist Great Replacement theory, a longtime belief that ethnic outsiders are purposely aiming to replace the host country’s population.
Nigel Farage has repeatedly blamed poor vetting for Reform’s bad apples. Georgie Laming, Campaigns and Communications Director for Hope not hate, has instead called these Facebook communities part of a “concerted effort to recruit candidates via a network of groups containing extreme racism, hate speech and misinformation”. Conspiracism is central to this effort. Reform’s suspicion of chemtrails and vaccines can be read in line with the rise in conspiracy theories among the global far-right.
Conspiracism is nothing new, but is on the rise
Conspiracism has grown exponentially over the past few decades, with many seeing our time as a new ‘golden age‘ of conspiracy theories. Rob Brotherton, author of Suspicious Minds: Why We Believe Conspiracy Theories, points out that conspiracy theories have existed since at least the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD. But he sees a newer trend: the rise of grand conspiracy theories blaming seemingly unrelated events on specific all-powerful groups. In 1797, the priest Augustin Barruel argued that the French Revolution was orchestrated by the Illuminati and the Freemasons for the purpose of overthrowing Christianity. Political scientist Michael Barkun calls these ‘systemic conspiracies’, or, when they become particularly elaborate and absorb numerous theories, ‘superconspiracies’. Barkun argues that the latter have grown in popularity since the 1980s.
Francesco Farinelli, in the European Commission’s 2021 report on Conspiracy theories and right-wing extremism, defines conspiracy theories as “morality tales … based on a mix of facts and fiction that produce vicious circles of internally consistent explanations and analogies”. Conspiracy theories are partially defined by speculative reasoning, opposition to official information and a self-sealing logic that treats any counterargument as further proof of the theory.
Conspiracism as a weapon of the right
Many people are likely to agree with some form of conspiracy theory, and most are relatively harmless, be it the idea that the moon landing was faked, or that the CIA was involved in JFK’s assassination. What should concern us is conspiracism, or ‘conspiracist ideology’, the point at which a person unites several conspiracy theories into all-encompassing superconspiracies, through which they start to view all global events. Brotherton states that belief in one conspiracy theory can lead to belief in conspiracy theories generally, even ones that contradict each other. It is this style of thinking that contemporary right-wing populist movements, including Reform, are exploiting.
Across the globe, far-right movements are using conspiracy theories to consolidate power. Donald Trump has spent the past 12 years doing so, from undermining Barack Obama’s presidential legitimacy by perpetuating the birtherism theory in 2011 to falsely contesting the results of the 2020 election. In India, the ‘Love Jihad’ theory that Muslims are conspiring to seduce and convert Hindu women has emboldened the Hindu Nationalist movement. The ultra-nationalist Sanseitō party made great gains in Japan’s 20 June election by spreading far-right conspiracy theories including Covid misinformation on the campaign trail.
While conspiracy theories also exist on the left (Jacobin writer Branko Marcetic points to 2016’s Russiagate), it is right-wing populist parties that are using them specifically as methods of recruitment and radicalisation.
Economic instability and deprivation may account for conspiracist thought
The link between conspiracism and deprivation might offer an explanation for its relevance on the right. Investigative journalist Will Sommer has reported on QAnon’s theory that global governments are controlled by Satanist paedophiles who drink the blood of kidnapped children, and that Trump’s political career has been an elaborate attempt to stop them. Many rioters at the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol espoused this ideology, and Germany’s attempted coup by the Reichsbürger movement in 2022 was heavily inspired by QAnon.
Sommer sees many ‘Anons’ as being radicalised by acute material deprivation. Researchers Freeman and Bentall concur: “Conspiracy interpretations of the world would flourish in the context of marginalisation, poverty, adverse childhood experiences, lack of control, low self-esteem, and unhappiness.” Like support for far-right populist parties (as demonstrated by Giray Gozgor), conspiracism is symptomatic of economic uncertainty and a resultant sense of crisis.
How conspiracism undermines democracy
More and more researchers are pointing out conspiracist hostility towards politics, arguing not only that the populist employment of conspiracy theories undermines civic engagement, but that conspiracism is inherently anti-democratic. Academic Stefan Christoph outlined this argument in 2022, offering three means by which conspiracy theories undermine democracy:
- They promote prejudicial, absolutist ways of relating to others.
- They offer no means of problem-solving outside of the imprisonment or annihilation of their villains.
- They breed distrust for institutions.
Brotherton notes a person’s tendency to believe conspiracy theories correlates with lack of political participation. Hidalgo and Yendell agree: conspiracy theories offer an authoritarian certainty against the perennial uncertainty of democracy, with change dependent on the result of the next election.
The Great Replacement theory indicates the danger in this. It has spread rapidly throughout Europe and North America in the past few decades, with some polls suggesting that up to 30% of both the UK and US adhere to it. More alarmingly, great replacement ideology has inspired numerous terrorist attacks including New Zealand’s 2019 Christchurch massacre and the 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue.
The theory, however, is not only popular among individuals and the fringe-right. In Hungary, it has metastasized into a ‘state ideology‘. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and the illiberal far-right Fidesz party have used the Great Replacement theory to justify their brutal crackdown on immigration. This theory has even influenced the country’s legislature, with 2018 laws criminalising organisations and individuals that help undocumented migrants claim asylum.
Reform UK has conspiracism at its heart
Anti-migrant conspiracism has already led to violence across the UK. Last year’s Southport riots were partially incited by the spread of online conspiracy theories. As former counter-terror chief Neil Basu has noted, Farage bore his own responsibility for the misinformation; the Reform leader publicly voiced doubts as to “whether the truth is being withheld from us” regarding the killer’s identity, which couldn’t help but add legitimacy to conspiracist claims.
From Farage and the Reform candidates who established the network uncovered by TBIJ, the party’s conspiracism has filtered through its ranks at all levels. A 2024 survey by Hope not hate indicates that 52% of Reform responders agreed with the statement that “regardless of who is officially in charge of governments and other organisations, there is a single group of people who secretly control events and rule the world together”. Frighteningly, the same survey found 60% agreeing with the Great Replacement theory, over double the national average.
If Reform allows its conspiracy theorist elements to run rampant through the party and the party continues to make major gains in local and national elections, the state of our democracy looks bleak.
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