At Reform UK’s rally in Birmingham, the line to the men’s toilets is the longest I have ever seen.
Snaking around the circular foyer of the city centre’s Utilita arena are dozens of men from all walks of life. Young, pale men in grey and blue suits, diminished clones of American white nationalist leader Richard Spencer circa 2016; groups of lads clutching plastic pint glasses as tattooed biceps burst from under t-shirts; middle-aged men in casual clothes, hair slipping back from the foreheads; and older men in tweed country jackets, Reform rosettes pinned to the lapels. Some are wearing ‘Save Britain’ baseball caps, others sport caps embroidered with ‘Make Britain Great Again’. They queue, twitching, willing the line to shorten so they can get back inside in time to hear Reform leader Nigel Farage.
In contrast, there’s no queue for the ladies. Reform’s voter base is majority male, although there are some women here, most of whom seem to have come with their husbands. It’s a mix of working-class women in cotton tops and jeans, and country club women with glossy hair over blazers. They eye me suspiciously – unsure why a young woman is here alone. But mostly, it’s just men. And apart from the staff pulling pints and checking bags, every single face is white.
