Some quick but important disclaimers:
- I'm definitely not an expert in the topics discussed, and the thoughts I've put together here are not particularly rigorous. This is really just a call for broader discussion of this topic, and a request for people to consider acting on or evaluating the "Next Steps" below.
- This article was largely written with animal welfare considerations in mind. Though you could substitute in different cause areas, this obviously introduces different considerations (I think aid interventions or climate will be more partisan, for instance but others like AI Safety could more easily draw bipartisan support).
- This is my first EA Forum post. Any general feedback is appreciated!
1. Why the UK Might Be in a Politically Unusual Moment
A few global trends indicate that we're currently in a time of political volatility: incumbent leaders are being ousted more readily than before; the influence of far-right parties, particularly in Europe, is threatening the dominance of legacy parties; countries across the globe are electing more populist leaders.
The specifics of these issues, and their implications for how we act, will obviously vary by country. For the UK though, I'd like to argue that this could be an unusually promising time to pursue political interventions.
Firstly, what is surprising about the current political moment?
- Reform UK's rise: At the time of writing, Reform UK leads consistently on a number of polls – which is uncommon for such a new party. Despite winning only 5 MPs in 2024, Reform dominates headlines. They received 4.1 millions votes in 2024, and won 41% of contested council seats in 2025.
- Weak major parties: The success of Reform has been accompanied by the shrinking of the two main parties. In the local council elections, both performed worse than they had in the last two decades. Despite waning popularity of the Labour government, the Conservative opposition has not seen a significant increase in support. This indicates that voters could be losing faith in these legacy parties.
- Recent emergence of "Your Party": Founded by Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana after leaving Labour, the as-yet unnamed party has attracted over 600,000 sign-ups in its first week and is positioning itself to Labour's left – mirroring Reform's role to the Conservatives' right.
- Third-party gains: Aside from Reform, the Liberal Democrats won more seats in the 2025 council elections than they had since 2008, and also increased their number of MPs significantly in the 2024 general election. The Green Party also gained a record 4 Commons seats in 2024.
What will happening during the next election, which could be another 3-4 years away, is clearly difficult to predict. However, we're currently seeing smaller third parties increasing not just their media presence, and favourability with the general public, but also their ability to gain the attention of larger parties.
2. Why This Could Make Political Interventions More Tractable
- Influence of smaller parties is growing: Even without winning an election, third parties could achieve higher vote share, stronger media presence, and policy influence.
- Smaller parties are themselves easier to influence: they're still forming identities, policies, and voter coalitions – making them more open to new ideas than entrenched legacy parties.
- Early influence is higher-leverage: This is perhaps the most important point. If the above two claims are correct, influencing small parties now could more effectively sway political discourse in the coming years. Lobbying might become harder and costlier towards a general election. Influencing them at this stage, where policy positions are still relatively plastic, may prove a better use of resources. Even if efforts prove unsuccessful, this is maybe a sign that they would also be unsuccessful during a time where the brand is more consolidated, and thus when lobbying would require more effort.
- Agenda-setting effects: Even if a small party doesn't win power, they could still shift an important cause area into wider national discourse – much as UKIP's pressure led to the Brexit referendum, and the Greens have helped mainstream a sustainability agenda.
3. Possible Next Steps
- Engage early with "Your Party": Their emphasis on democratisation could allow members to push animal welfare, AI safety and welfare, or global health into their platform. Especially considering that aid and animal welfare are generally considered more left-wing issues, influence here may be more tractable than on the right.
- Frame policies for different audiences: Björn Olafsson and Coni Arévalo recently put together a report on how animal advocates might appeal to the values of US conservatives. It seems similar strategies could be adopted in the UK. For instance, Animal Policy International has discussed how extending welfare standards to animal product imports would "level the playing field" for British farmers – a framing which has the potential to resonate with Reform's more protectionist and nationalist base.
- Be vocal in political spaces: podcasts such as The Rest is Politics, Political Currency, and The News Agents all have audience Q&A formats, where listeners send in questions. There could be a room for a campaign which strategically seeks to raise awareness simply through submitting questions to political podcasts. This is just one example, but there is clearly scope for campaigns which use already-existent forums to provoke discussions around (e.g.) animal welfare policy. Again, this might look different across the political spectrum, or for different cause areas.
- Work locally: Build relationships with councillors and MPs – especially independents or members of smaller parties – who may be more receptive and connected to grassroots influence.
4. Risks and Objections
- It could legitimise problematic parties: this idea for this doc originally came from a conversation about whether Reform could be convinced to adopt policies which favour small farm-owners against large factory farming cooperations. Concerns were raised that it would be wrong to work with Reform in this way because of their other political positions. The claim here could either be that collaboration with them would make them more appealing and electable, or that it would be wrong in principle.
- It could cause partisan backlash: Establishing a connection between a certain policy position and a certain political party may create partisan resistance to the issue which prevents progress on it. To a certain extent, this is what has happened with climate change, where the left's pursuit of Net-Zero policies may have caused a backlash on the right. Pursuing political interventions could risk a cause area becoming a culture war issue.
- It's still intractable: Even in an unusually flexible time like this, shifting party policy may still be very difficult. There might even be concern that it's more true at a time like this, where people are more likely to be single-issue voters about issues like cost of living, inequality or immigration.
Bottom line:
The UK's political landscape is unusually fluid. This volatility could create rare opportunities for shaping emerging party platforms – before they harden into fixed positions. While risks exist, the potential to embed important but neglected issues into the political mainstream might justify exploration, especially if done tactically and with attention to long-term consequences.
Some interesting ideas, thanks for sharing.
It does seem a bit perverse to me to note that there is a new political party, with a relatively nascent policy framework and shallow bench, that nonetheless is polling as if it will win the next general election... and conclude that we should focus on building relationships with a different party.
At face value that might seem the case. In practice, Reform is a party dominated by a single individual, who enjoys promoting hunting, deregulation and criticising the idea of vegan diets: he's not exactly the obvious target for animal welfare arguments, particularly not when it's equally likely a future coalition will include representatives of a Green Party.
The point in the original article about conservatives and country folk being potentially sympathetic to arguments for restrictions on importing meat from countries with lower animal welfare standards is a valid one, but it's the actual Conservative Party (who will be present in any coalition Reform needs to win and have a yawning policy void of their own) that fits that bracket, not the upstart "anti-woke", pro-deregulation party whose core message is a howl of rage about immigration. Farage's objections to the EU were around the rules, not protectionism, and he's actually highly vocal on the need to reduce restrictions in the import of meat from the US, which has much lower standards in many areas. Funnily enough, Farage political parties have had positions on regulating stunning animals for slaughter, but the targeting of slaughtering practices associated with certain religions might have been for... other reasons, and Farage rowed back on it[1]
halal meat served in the UK is often pre-stunned, whereas kosher meat isn't, so the culture war arguments for mandatory stunning hit the wrong target....