Reform UK Voters and Climate Action

How publicly available data can drive strategy and shape campaign messages.

The UK polling industry is creating one of the most comprehensive datasets in history and giving it away for free. Pollsters provide constant updates on the fortunes of the government and political hopefuls. News outlets, podcasters and political commentators rely on this data to tell their stories and, in return, provide exposure to the pollster through citation. Indeed, the UK’s dynamic political picture and an ever-growing need for content mean that this free data is an extremely well-used resource.

 

Yet there are other free datasets that are less widely used but richer and broader in scope. Think tanks, NGOs and private businesses publish hundreds of thought pieces, policy papers and industry reports every year. They cover, in detail, issues from a wide range of industries and are full of untapped insights: countless data points that will never be fully utilised.

 

The attention premium means that reporting needs to be concise. As a result, only a handful of figures will be used to support a narrative; the rest are unreferenced and relegated to supporting roles. However, there are valuable insights hidden within these reports and powerful new narratives and strategies that can be built by those who know where to look.

 

The process of identifying, classifying and analysing multiple datasets is time-consuming, and there is also no guarantee that the required data is available. This has proved prohibitive in the past; however, the advent of AI is changing this. It allows us to collate and summarise reports in minutes rather than hours and dedicate more time to reanalysing the data rather than finding and organising it.

 

This provides an opportunity for organisations to make better strategic decisions with less expenditure. For those with large insights budgets, it means a better research ROI. For those with little or no research budget, it is the opportunity to make better, evidence-based, decisions.

 

Among researchers who frequently engage with Reform UK voters, it has become received wisdom that Reform UK voters are not as anti-climate as the headlines suggest. Outside of this niche group of insight professionals, however, this is less well known and can be difficult to believe. For organisations this can mean a choice between expensive research projects or believing the headlines.  Yet, there is an answer in the data that doesn’t make the headlines.

Case Study: Reform UK Voters and Climate Action

The following case study demonstrates the potential of unused data by testing two research hypotheses and developing a basic campaign strategy.

Hypothesis:

1. The majority of Reform UK voters do not oppose government action on climate
2. There are climate-positive policies that the majority of Reform UK voters support

Method:

1. Create a basic literature review using AI to collate and summarise existing material.
2. Conduct a meta-analysis and quality control of the literature review.
3. Collate relevant data points from across the literature.
4. Reanalyse data to uncover hidden insights.

Literature review:

The following command was given to ChatGPT-5:

“Search the internet for all the studies you can find that related to: ‘What Reform UK voters want’ and ‘Reform UK voters and climate’. Create a table that explains the relevance of each piece to the topic, format it in a way I can copy and paste it an article.”

The outcome was a shortlist of fifteen articles that provided a foundational understanding of the attitudes of Reform UK voters toward climate. Of the fifteen articles, two were duplicative (blue highlighted) and one was low relevance (orange highlighted). Once removed, thirteen articles remained for analysis.

 

Analysis:

Hypothesis one: the majority of Reform UK voters do not oppose government action on climate

It is true that there is a stronger rejection of climate action among Reform UK voters than among other parties, and the stark differences between them attract the headlines[1].

However, there is another story.

While YouGov data shows that Reform UK voters are significantly more likely to believe that the UK ‘should not reduce carbon emissions’, the same data shows that:

• Over a quarter of Reform UK voters think that: ‘The UK should try as hard as possible to reduce its carbon emissions by as much as possible even if other industrialised nations do not’,
• Another 32% of Reform UK voters think that the UK should try as hard as its Western peers to reduce emissions.

In other words, nearly two-thirds of Reform UK voters expect the government to act on climate in some way.

For insight professionals, the biggest story is the statistically interesting minority who oppose climate action. For climate campaigners, it is the politically important majority who do not.

 

Hypothesis two:  there are climate-positive policies that the majority of Reform UK voters support

Supporting the second hypothesis is even simpler; both Global Witness and the Green Alliance have identified climate-positive policies popular with Reform UK voters. Meanwhile, Climate Barometer data shows others that are rejected. Together, these findings show that while Reform UK voters resist abstract goals like Net Zero, they support practical environmental measures.

• 71% of Reform-leaning voters favour higher taxes on big polluters like oil and gas firms to fund climate action. (Global Witness)
• 69% of Reform UK voters agree that legislation should be passed to significantly increase the size of protected woodland and wildlife habitats. (Green Alliance)
• 60% of Reform UK voters oppose the UK’s target to become Net Zero by 2050. (Climate Barometer)

 

Building a campaign message:

Successful campaigns convince governments and major parties that they will gain more than they will lose by responding to their message. In practice, this means demonstrating that the most important voters, the swing voters, agree with the campaign message and expect action.

The current challenge for climate action in the UK is the dominance of immigration as an issue. Voters are switching to Reform UK because of two issues: immigration (62%) and a need for change (34%). (More in Common).  Climate action is not their voting priority; thus, it is difficult to argue that climate action will win votes.

Therefore, climate campaigners require a strategic pivot. The message for the Labour and Conservative parties is a defensive one: turning away from climate action will not win votes. Abandoning existing commitments to climate action will have no electoral gain among Reform UK swing voters and have potential electoral downsides among your base – who are typically more concerned about climate.

Engaging Reform UK requires a different tactic: create internal demand for credible climate policies by targeting the 27% of Reform UK voters who want the government to do more on climate. Design and promote policies that can credibly replace Net Zero while helping fight climate change. This will appeal to the Reform UK leadership while building deeper support with their voters.

 

Doing more with less

This case study demonstrates the potential of publicly available data to deliver meaningful insight. The methodology is straightforward, but the outcomes can be substantial. For organisations with smaller research budgets, this approach opens access to insights that were previously out of reach. For those with established data infrastructure, it enhances quality, scope and return on investment.

Ultimately, the real advantage no longer lies in collecting more data but making the most of what already exists. AI allows us to collate a huge number of data sources. With additional analysis, this underused data allows organisations to uncover new narratives, strengthen strategy and achieve more with less.