Data analysed by The Fuller Project and openDemocracy reveal that British far-right political parties and influencers – including Reform UK – are taking inspiration from the United States and seeking to turn abortion into a new front in the culture wars.
At a time when Nigel Farage’s party has made sweeping gains in the local elections, our analysis of almost 80 Reform, Reform-supporting, and far-right X accounts found that between April 2024 and April 2026, mentions of abortion increased by 40% compared to the previous two years. This is despite a new law coming into force at the end of April 2026 which prevents women in England and Wales from facing a criminal investigation for having an abortion, and despite high public support for abortion across the UK.
Between April 2024 and April 2026, nearly half of the selected accounts increased their abortion activity, with overall impressions of posts mentioning abortion almost quadrupling compared with the previous two years. These posts were shared around 153,000 times and received more than 800,000 likes.
What the data shows is a network of influence between anti-abortion groups and individuals and far-right politicians, with Reform-linked accounts reposting extreme far-right influencers, and vice versa, as well as anti-abortion organisations and activists posting support for Reform.
Posts include former Home Secretary and Reform UK MP Suella Braverman saying that the party would reverse decriminalisation – as did far-right parties Restore Britain, UKIP, and the Heritage Party. The parties did not respond to a question on what their policy would mean for re-criminalising women who self-manage their abortion.
But such a change would “mean women once again facing investigation, arrest and even imprisonment for ending their own pregnancy, treatment that belongs to another era entirely and has no place in modern society,” warned Labour MP Tonia Antoniazzi, who tabled the amendment that decriminalised abortion in England and Wales.
“Parliament overwhelmingly supported decriminalising abortion for women because it listened to the facts, the expertise of professionals and to the evidence gathered over time from over 50 countries where abortion is rightly treated as healthcare, not a crime,” she added.
“These findings expose a coordinated attempt to import the US anti-abortion playbook into Britain: disinformation, moral panic, inflammatory language and pressure on politicians to roll back rights,” said Kerry Abel, chair of Abortion Rights UK. “Abortion rights are under organised attack, and anyone who believes in equality, healthcare and freedom must take that threat seriously.”
The X activity represents, Abel added, “a deliberate strategy to stigmatise abortion, intimidate people who need care and make reproductive freedom politically toxic again. When Reform figures, far-right parties and supportive media voices echo this rhetoric, they are helping to drive moves to strip people of basic bodily autonomy.”
What the data says
The investigation examined how many occasions 78 X accounts of Reform politicians, staffers, donors, Reform-supporting columnists, hard right media outlets, far right political parties and influencers, mentioned “abortion” over four years. It included reposts as well as original posts.
Between April 2022 and April 2024, the accounts posted the word abortion 758 times, rising to 1,063 times between April 2024 and April 2026 – a surge of more than 40%. While some of the increase in social mentions can be explained as responses to the parliamentary debates to decriminalise abortion, that isn’t consistently the case.
In the latter two years, posts used more extreme and emotive language and increasingly shared anti-abortion disinformation. This includes growing use of the phrase “abortion up to birth”, mentioned 18 times between April 2022 and April 2024, but rising to 190 mentions in the last two years.
“The phrase ‘abortion up until birth’ is legally and medically nonsensical,” said Louise McCudden, head of external affairs at abortion provider MSI Reproductive Choices UK. “Anti-abortion opposition campaigners will scaremonger like this because they know most people are pro-choice and don’t agree with their extreme, ideologically motivated views.”
Sian Norris
Posts shared since April 2024 include Reform MP Richard Tice describing decriminalisation as “abortion carnage”, one of four posts he made about the issue since 2024. He posted once about abortion in the previous two years. Tice also shared content from his partner, journalist Isabel Oakeshott, who posted eight times about abortion after 2024, calling for a reduction in the upper time limit, describing decriminalisation as “horrendous” and late-term abortions as “butchery”.
Reform councillor Darren Grimes also criticised decriminalisation, calling it “morally repugnant”, while Reform mayor Andrea Jenkyns said the law change was part of the “degradation of society” and “tragic news for unborn babies”. Reform’s London mayoral candidate Laila Cunningham accused the UK government of treating “the ending of life as a policy solution”.
One of the biggest increases came from right-wing columnist Allison Pearson, who has frequently praised Reform. Pearson posted just 16 times about abortion between April 2022 and April 2024, compared to 87 posts in between April 2024 and April 2026. Pearson said Britain was “vying for the infanticide cup with the People’s Republic of China”, claiming that the law change allows “abortion up to birth” and sharing inaccurate information about abortion laws in Britain compared to Europe.
Far right influencers, including Laurence Fox, whose Reclaim party is backed by Reform donor Jeremy Hosking, and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), have also started posting more about abortion, with Fox calling it “premeditated murder”.
Creeping US influence
Farage did not post about abortion during the time period analysed. But last year, he called for a debate on the current 24-week upper time limit on abortion. Neil Datta, director of the European Parliamentary Forum for Sexual and Reproductive Rights, said that “whether Farage is himself pro or against abortion is irrelevant. He is taking Reform in a direction which will seek support of a socially conservative constituency”.
Datta also highlighted Farage’s relationship with a range of US and global anti-abortion organisations, including the legal charity Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which reportedly brokered meetings between Farage and White House officials in 2025.
Reform appointed ADF International UK’s former communications director, Lois McLatchie Miller, as a candidate for this May’s local elections. McLatchie Miller posted about abortion 759 times between 2022 and 2024, rising to 1,036 posts in the last 24 months. We did not include her posts in our total, as she worked for the anti-abortion charity for much of the four years.
Her candidacy makes it clear that “Reform is committed to rolling back abortion rights and bringing anti-abortion politics into the heart of political debate in Britain,” said Abortion Rights UK’s chair Kerry Abel. McLatchie Miller got 272 votes, losing to Labour.
Sian Norris
ADF is not the only connection between Reform and the anti-abortion world. Farage appointed anti-abortion academic and chair of the Edmund Burke Foundation, James Orr, to be Reform’s policy lead in February this year. The foundation organises the anti-abortion National Conservatism Conference, where Farage has twice been a speaker.
Paul Marshall, the co-owner of GB News, which has paid Farage nearly £370,000 since he became an MP, is on the board of the anti-abortion ARC forum alongside Orr and Reform MP Danny Kruger. Farage was the star speaker at the forum’s 2025 conference alongside various anti-abortion influencers. He has also spoken at an extremist anti-abortion event in the US.
The next UK general elections are set for no later than 2029. At present, Reform is leading in the polls, although its vote share is trending down. If Farage gets into power, Datta warned, he will at some point “have to repay” his global anti-abortion support. This investigation suggests such repayment could mean reversing criminalisation and rules protecting abortion clinics from protests, and reducing the upper-time-limit, which last year Farage described as “ludicrous”.
But if Reform does so, it will face opposition. Nine in 10 people in Britain support the right to abortion, including 86% of Reform voters.
“Support for abortion in the UK is not a partisan political matter and attempts to make it one are a direct threat to women’s rights and autonomy,” said Labour’s Tonia Antoniazzi. “Women deserve better than public figures parroting the unfounded claims of anti-abortion groups unchecked, whose goal is to strip back access and convince you that supporting a woman’s right to choose is extreme.”
We approached Reform UK and others named in the article for comment. None responded.
