Robert Ford is a British academic and a professor of political science at the University of Manchester. His interests include diversity, immigration, and politics and right-wing political parties.
Ford is a professor of political science at the University of Manchester. [1] He frequently writes for The Guardian . [2]
He wrote Revolt on the Right (2014) alongside Matthew Goodwin which focuses on the rise the right-wing party UK Independence Party (UKIP) following their success on the 2014 European Parliament election. [3] [4] The book examines the party's history and who typically votes for UKIP. [3]
He later edited Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: 50 things you need to know about British Elections (2015) with Philip Cowley. [5] This was followed with More Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box: Another 50 Things You Need To Know About Elections (2016) edited by Ford and Cowley. [6]
Ford authored Brexitland: Identity, Diversity and the Reshaping of British Politics (2020) alongside Maria Sobolewska which examines British identity, diversity, and immigration following Brexit. [7] He authored The British General Election of 2019 with Tim Bale, Will Jennings, and Paula Surridge about the 2019 UK general election. [8]
In January 2023, Ford was appointed as a senior research fellow UK in a Changing Europe, a think tank which examines the ever-changing relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union, following Brexit. [9]
The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and is led by Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK government. The party was founded in 1982, and reached its greatest level of success in the 2000s, when it had over fifty seats in local government, one seat on the London Assembly, and two Members of the European Parliament. It has been largely inactive since 2019.
The UK Independence Party is a Eurosceptic, right-wing populist political party in the United Kingdom. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two members of parliament and was the largest party representing the UK in the European Parliament. The party is currently led by Nick Tenconi.
The Referendum Party was a Eurosceptic, single-issue political party that was active in the United Kingdom from 1994 to 1997. The party's sole objective was for a referendum to be held on the nature of the UK's membership of the European Union (EU). Specifically, it called for a referendum on whether the British electorate wanted to be part of a federal European state or to revert to being a sovereign nation that was part of a European free-trade bloc without wider political functions.
Nigel Paul Farage is a British politician and broadcaster who has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Clacton and Leader of Reform UK since 2024, having previously been its leader from 2019 to 2021. He was the leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 to 2009 and 2010 to 2016. Farage served as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 until the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU) in 2020.
Robert Michael Kilroy-Silk is an English former politician and broadcaster. After a decade as a university lecturer, he served as a Labour Party Member of Parliament (MP) from 1974 to 1986. He left the House of Commons in 1986 in order to present a new BBC Television daytime talk show, Kilroy, which ran until 2004. He returned to politics, serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 to 2009. He had a profound role in the mainstreaming of Eurosceptic politics in the UK and has been dubbed 'The Godfather of Brexit'.
Alan Sked is a British Eurosceptic academic. He founded the Anti-Federalist League and its successor the UK Independence Party (UKIP). He is Professor Emeritus of International History at the London School of Economics and has stood as a candidate in several parliamentary elections.
Boston and Skegness is a constituency in Lincolnshire represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Richard Tice of Reform UK since the 2024 general election. Like all British constituencies, it elects one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first-past-the-post system of election. Prior to Tice's election, it was considered a safe seat for the Conservatives.
Far-right politics are a recurring phenomenon in the United Kingdom since the early 20th century, with the formation of Nazi, fascist and antisemitic movements. One of the earliest examples of fascism in the UK can be found as early as 1923 with the formation of British Fascisti by Rotha Lintorn-Orman. It went on to acquire more explicitly racial connotations, being dominated in the 1960s and 1970s by self-proclaimed white nationalist organisations that opposed non-white and Asian immigration. The idea stems from belief of white supremacy, the belief that white people are superior to all other races and should therefore dominate society. Examples of such groups in the UK are the National Front (NF), the British Movement (BM) and British National Party (BNP), or the British Union of Fascists (BUF). Since the 1980s, the term has mainly been used to describe those groups, such as the English Defence League, who express the wish to preserve what they perceive to be British culture, and those who campaign against the presence of non-indigenous ethnic minorities.
Libertarianism in the United Kingdom can either refer to a political movement synonymous with anarchism, left-libertarianism and libertarian socialism, or to a political movement concerned with the pursuit of propertarian right-libertarian ideals in the United Kingdom which emerged and became more prominent in British politics after the 1980s neoliberalism and the economic liberalism of the premiership of Margaret Thatcher, albeit not as prominent as libertarianism in the United States in the 1970s and the presidency of Republican Ronald Reagan during the 1980s.
Paul Andrew Nuttall is a British politician who served as Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2016 to 2017. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2009 as a UK Independence Party (UKIP) candidate, and served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for North West England between 2009 and 2019, sitting in the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group. He left UKIP in December 2018, criticising the party's association with far-right activist Tommy Robinson, and joined the Brexit Party in 2019.
In Great Britain, the term North–South divide refers to the economic, cultural and political differences between Southern England and Northern England, or sometimes between southern England and the rest of Great Britain including the Midlands of England, Wales and Scotland. In mainstream interpretation, the divide cuts through The Midlands. The term has been widened to include the whole United Kingdom, with Northern Ireland included as part of "the North".
There are five types of elections in the United Kingdom: elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, elections to devolved parliaments and assemblies, local elections, mayoral elections, and police and crime commissioner elections. Within each of those categories, there may also be by-elections. Elections are held on Election Day, which is conventionally a Thursday, and under the provisions of the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Act 2022 the timing of general elections can be held at the discretion of the prime minister during any five-year period. All other types of elections are held after fixed periods, though early elections to the devolved assemblies and parliaments can occur in certain situations. The five electoral systems used are: the single member plurality system (first-past-the-post), the multi-member plurality, the single transferable vote, the additional member system, and the supplementary vote.
Matthew James Goodwin is a British political scientist and former academic whose last academic post was as professor of politics in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, which he held from 2015 to 2024. His publications include National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy and Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics. From September 2022 to 2023, he served on the Social Mobility Commission.
Independence from Europe was a minor, Eurosceptic political party in the United Kingdom. The party was first registered in June 2012 but remained inactive until it was launched in October 2013 by sole party leader Mike Nattrass, a disaffected member of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). It had no official political representation at the time of its dissolution in November 2017, but previously had one Member of the European Parliament (MEP) and three Councillors, all of whom were once members of UKIP.
The Referendum Party was a Eurosceptic, single issue party in the United Kingdom formed by Sir James Goldsmith to fight the 1997 General Election. The party stood in 547 constituencies. In Northern Ireland, the party did not stand, but endorsed the Ulster Unionist Party. In the 165 seats also contested by UKIP, the Referendum Party beat UKIP in all but two, Romsey and Glasgow Anniesland.
The For Britain Movement was a minor far-right political party in the United Kingdom, founded by the anti-Islam and "counter-jihad" activist Anne Marie Waters after she was defeated in the 2017 UK Independence Party leadership election.
The red wall is a term used in British politics to describe the UK Parliament constituencies in the Midlands and Northern England that have historically supported the Labour Party. At the 2019 general election, many of these parliamentary seats were won by the Conservative Party, with the media describing the red wall as having "turned blue".
Rob Ford is a professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester. His research is on public opinion, electoral choice and party politics. He wrote his first book with Matthew Goodwin, Revolt on the Right, about the rise of UKIP, which was longlisted for the Orwell Prize. His latest book is Brexitland, coauthored with Maria Sobolewska. He is a Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe.