Listening to Reform Party Voters
As part of our party conference tour in partnership with the Centre for Justice Innovation — listening to voters of all stripes across the country — we attended the Reform UK Party Conference in Birmingham to host a discussion and speak directly with party members about their views on crime and justice.
The session — “Justice in Crisis: Is There Common Ground?” — was chaired by Jacob Dunne and featured Reform justice spokesperson Sarah Pochin MP, Reform’s crime tsar and former detective inspector Colin Sutton, and Matthew Torbitt, whose experience of homelessness and gang exploitation shaped his perspective on the justice system.
Before the discussion began, we ran a live poll of the audience. The results surprised many in the room.
Among Reform members present:
78% said the justice system should prioritise both punishment and rehabilitation
64% said crime is caused by both personal choices and wider social circumstances
While there is no doubt that many attendees thought punishment was important, the results challenged the common assumption that voters in the room would take a purely “tough on crime” stance.
Conversations with Reform members
Alongside the panel, we recorded short interviews with conference attendees about their experiences of crime, policing, and the justice system.
We interviewed a whole range of party members, hearing a wide diversity of views.
“You’re sending these people to prison to learn new criminal skills… we need tougher wings in prisons, but we also need to look at rehabilitation and what’s going wrong there.” – Reform Party Member.
One member who runs a community garden described a theft from their donation box. Asked what should have happened, she said the person responsible should have been required to volunteer in the garden to repair the harm.
Listening across political divides is essential if we want to understand what voters really think about crime — and to find the common ground needed to build a justice system that works. Our party conference tour continues soon.