Reform FC
Progressive football fans must resist Nigel Farage's hypocritical attempted appropriation of football culture...
Throughout the short history of this Substack, I’ve tried to steer clear of writing pieces that are politically tribalistic or overtly tied to current affairs. However, very occasionally, I come across some news that is too stirring to ignore.
Yesterday was one of those days.
As I opened Twitter for my daily morning doomscroll, my feed was dominated by the news that Reform UK – Nigel Farage’s nascent hard right populist party – has launched its very own football shirt.
Tailored in the party’s turquoise colour scheme and emblazoned with “Farage – 10” on the back – a move of pretty startling arrogance even for Farage – the new kit has already caused a splash online. Indeed, according to party chair Zia Yusuf, 5,000 of the shirts have already sold out on the first day of retail. Yes, that even includes the eye watering £99 limited edition shirts adorned with Farage’s autograph.
There’s a hell of a lot to this story.
But in the name of brevity – and minimising the amount time, energy and exposure I give to Farage and co. – I’ll stick to just three aspects of this move that I find particularly interesting.
Firstly – and most obviously – there’s the hypocrisy.
I grew up in a political climate largely defined by Farage’s vindictive brand of snake oil salesmanship. His capacity to cross any boundary in order to appeal to his base shouldn’t come as a shock.
But even by Farage’s contemptuous standards this kit launch does seem particularly brazen, not least because it flies in the face of almost everything he has said about the beautiful game during his political career.
Let us not forget, Farage is a man who took very public, pearl-clutching offense at the fact that England’s away kit at the Euros last year featured an altered multi-coloured Union Jack flag:
“That's it, it's a multicoloured cross, it bears no relationship to the St George's Cross whatsoever. If the England football team think that's acceptable well why on earth would you be apologetic about Englishness if you're going to play for England in the European football finals. I think it's an absolute joke."
Even more ridiculously, he is perhaps the most notorious member of the “keep politics out of football” brigade anywhere in the UK, as proven by this particular gem in the leadup to the re-scheduled Euros of 2021:
Of course, this new Reform football shirt does both. It is not only emblazoned with a Union Jack altered to incorporate Reform’s turquoise colour scheme, but also represents one of the most obvious infiltrations of football culture with politics that I’ve ever seen.
That Farage should seek to exploit football’s cultural capital in a way that so openly undermines his own (so-called) principles is laughable. Even to the most pig-headed of Farage sympathisers, the launch of this shirt must surely stretch the limits of credulity.
But beyond the searing hypocrisy of Farage and Reform, their choice to launch a kit speaks to a wider trend in British society: the explosion of the football shirt as a cultural behemoth.
Simply, football shirts are everywhere.
There is the “blokecore” trend, a nostalgic nod to 90s terrace culture popularised via TikTok and celebrity endorsement, which has seen football shirts increasingly used in both street style and high fashion.1
There is the use of football shirts as tribal expressions of fandom by various musicians, not least the likes of Fontaines DC and Oasis. As someone who was lucky enough to attend one of the Oasis reunion shows in London, it is hard to overstate just how much the massive audiences resembled groups of moshing football fans, adorned in adidas-branded Oasis shirts and retro Man City kits.
However, most importantly, football shirts are being increasingly mobilised by cultural institutions and political movements as an easy, expressive way of signalling affiliations and stances in public.
In short, football shirts are no longer merely the domain of the football supporter and its attached tribalisms. They are now a highly effective cultural canvases, used to promote, display and champion a range of messages that expand far beyond the outer limits of football culture.
Even more crucially, the football shirt seems almost tailor made to serve Farage’s purpose, namely to win over and mobilise a largely working-class, provincial voting base who are increasingly tired of and marginalised by mainstream politics. As outlined by Josiah Gogarty in his excellent GQ article on the Reform shirts yesterday:
“In Britain, the football shirt is similarly foundational to working class identity, whether it’s an England jersey during major tournaments, or a club one for the rest of the year. Shirts of minor clubs in particular are symbols of regional tribalism, a quality that populists like to exploit and place in opposition to elite, cosmopolitan “globalists”.2
Against this context, it is perhaps unsurprising that many commentators have today been offering their predictions that this Reform football shirt could soon become the UK equivalent of the MAGA hat.
It’s this last issue that I find the most pressing.
As I watch Keir Starmer’s flailing government go about its work - the latest iteration of insipid, anaemic centrism that is failing to address the chasmic inequality, sickly public services and increasingly tempestuous mood that defines contemporary Britain - it strikes me that we are heading for a battle for the very soul of the nation.
Despite being a major architect of the structural problems we’re facing in the UK, Farage looks increasingly likely to take advantage of Britain’s brokenness by sweeping into office, perhaps as early as 2029.
Against this context, the fact that Reform have so openly opted to attach themselves to the warm glow of football’s working-class cultural cache is highly significant.
I have long been of the opinion that football could be one of the key battlegrounds for this impending struggle.
Football’s clear links with working-class culture, pride in place and patriotism means that the hard right has always seen football as potentially fertile ground for spreading its message.
Let’s not forget the ways in which the National Front attempted to infiltrate the terraces in the 70s, or the explosion of the “Football Lads Alliance” in the 2010s.
But for the sake of the game we love and indeed the fate of Britain at large, it is vital that progressive football supporters (like me) do not take this union lying down (just as we did in the 1970s and 2010s).
The rise of hard right politics in Britain has been predicated on Farage’s placement of himself as a “man of the people”, alongside Reform’s image as the natural party of patriotism, the pub and common sense thinking.
This connection has developed without much of a challenge from an increasingly cosmopolitan and metropolitan-oriented “left”.
Surely football can become a forum where we can show that Britain’s working-classes and elements of their culture are not inevitably aligned with hard right ideas.
Just because football is popular, it doesn’t have to be populist.
To me, the launch of this football shirt is not just a recognition from Farage that he has got his previous messaging around football horribly wrong, but the starting gun on an active attempt to make Reform the natural party of the football supporter.
This simply cannot be allowed to happen.
Chortane, S. G. (2025) ‘Everyone in fashion is suddenly wearing football shirts – here’s why’ Stylist. Available at: https://www.stylist.co.uk/fashion/football-fashion-trend/996240; “Pitch, Please: Why are we all wearing football shirts?” (2024) Natasha in Glorious: Cultural in Play. Available at: Pitch, Please: Why are we all wearing football shirts? - Glorious Sport.
Gogarty, J. (2025) “The Reform UK football shirt is Farage's (sad!) attempt to find his MAGA cap”, GQ. 18th August, 2025. Available at: https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/the-reform-uk-football-shirt-is-farages-sad-attempt-to-find-his-maga-cap.
Really thought-provoking article.
Good piece, Josh. It’s a very clever idea by someone within the cesspit of Reform to do this, and sadly many people will fall for it, particularly given the insipid response of Starmer’s Labour government to every awful thing that Reform does or says, and the total failure of the mainstream media to point out Farage’s monumental hypocrisy.