Reform UK, the political party headed by Nigel Farage MP, has today been named the 2025 recipient of the “Rusty Razor” award, the prize given by The Skeptic to the year’s worst promoters of pseudoscience
Reform UK have publicly stated their opposition to Net Zero and climate change mitigation policies, based on their belief that CO2 from human activity does not contribute to climate change – a claim made explicitly by their Deputy leader, Richard Tice. Meanwhile, Reform’s Greater Lincolnshire mayor, Andrea Jenkyns, claimed that climate change does not exist, but is being used as a “money-making racket” for industries, while other Reform councillors have called climate change a hoax and that “there is no climate crisis”.
As a result, Reform have claimed they would oppose Net Zero policies and cut all subsidies for renewable energy. Research from climate change group DeSmog found in 2024 that Reform UK has received £2.3m in donations from oil and gas interests, highly polluting industries, and climate science deniers since December 2019, amounting to 92 percent of the party’s donations, including significant donations from Terence Mordaunt – a trustee and donor to climate change denialist charity the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
Reform UK’s party conference last month also featured a speech from Dr Aseem Malhotra, in which he claimed “mRNA jabs have likely killed or seriously harmed millions of people” because the World Health Organization had been “captured” by Bill Gates, and that it was “highly likely that the Covid vaccines have been a significant factor in the cancer of members of the royal family”. Reform’s 2024 party conference saw Richard Tice calling for a full inquiry into the “serious problem” of thousands of people dying from the side-effects of the Covid vaccine.
Most recently, in an LBC interview in September Nigel Farage compared bogus autism and paracetamol claims to the thalidomide scandal, questioning the safety of the drug, while also making false claims that Eastern European migrants were kidnapping and eating swans from London parks.
The Skeptic Editor Michael Marshall said: “While the political positions Reform UK put forward are outside of the scope and remit of The Skeptic and our awards, their positions on science are not. On current polling, Reform UK is the party with the most support in the country, yet they have shown that they have no problem with spreading pseudoscientific misinformation that aligns with the interests of their donors, no interest in vetting their members and candidates for holding dangerously misguided views about science and health, and no issue with fostering and indulging all manner of conspiracy theories if they think there’s a vote in it.
“All of which makes them a threat to science and reason, and deserving of being singled out as winners of our 2025 Rusty Razor award.”
The ‘Rusty Razor’ award was announced as part of The Skeptic’s annual Ockham Awards at a ceremony that took place during Saturday’s QED conference on science and skepticism, in Manchester. Also recognised during the event was Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, who won the 2025 award for Skeptical Activism.
.jpg){kind=link}