Most young people are unlikely to vote for Reform, despite portrayals of the political party appealing to those in their teens and twenties, new research shows.
A year on from the General Election the study suggests depictions of Reform's youth-surge are more hype than reality.
Although Reform is performing well in polling very few young people who took part in the new survey said they would vote for the party.
The study also shows the Labour Party faces a serious challenge in holding into the youth support they secured last year.
Respondents for the University of Exeter research were asked how likely they were to ever vote for each party, on a scale from 0 (very unlikely) to 10 (very likely) in order to give a more detailed indication of the depth of voters' support than just current voting intention.
Among 18 to 30-year-olds who took part, nearly two-thirds (61%) gave Reform a score of 0, meaning they are almost certain never to vote for the party. Only 13% gave a score of 7 or higher, indicating the kind of support likely to translate into a vote in an election. In contrast, Labour, the Greens, and the Liberal Democrats all performed significantly better, with much higher levels of strong support and far fewer outright rejections.
The polling was conducted by YouGov during May and June. It shows the chances of someone under-30 being a likely Reform voter is very low but is much higher for those over the age of 50, and for 55 to 70-year-olds the likelihood that they will back Reform is substantially higher than that of either Labour or the Conservatives
There was no youth-surge at the General Election, with barely 6% of under-30s voting Reform, compared with 42% who voted Labour, with the Greens and Liberal Democrats each securing 15%.
Dr Stuart Fox, from the University of Exeter, who led the research, said: "Reform's aggressive social media strategy targets younger audiences with short-form videos and populist messaging. But just because young people see Reform's content doesn't mean they're buying into it."
A total of 25% of under-30s who took part in the study said they would never vote Labour, and only 27% gave the party a vote likelihood of 7 or above. In comparison, the Greens and Liberal Democrats are gaining ground, with 30% and 33% of young voters respectively giving them a vote likekihood of 7 or more. A total of 15% of 18-30 year olds gave a vote likelihood score to either Labour and the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, or Labour, the Greens and the Lib Dems: that's 15% of 18-30 year olds who are seriously considering voting for a left-wing party, but find either the Greens or the Liberal Democrats as appealing as Labour.
