{"id":254145,"date":"2025-11-01T08:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T08:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/254145\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T08:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T08:22:09","slug":"what-to-expect-for-cycling-if-reform-uk-get-into-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/254145\/","title":{"rendered":": What to expect for cycling if Reform UK get into power"},"content":{"rendered":"

It might be hysterical, it might be a flash in the pan; but there is no doubt that Reform UK are currently riding high in the polls, and threatening (or deservedly preparing, depending on who you ask) to form the\u00a0next UK\u00a0government if nothing changes in the next four years.<\/p>\n

As a responsible publication*, we need to give a proper, serious, and considered overview on what this might mean for cyclists.\u00a0Here are my predictions thus far\u2026<\/p>\n

The esteemed leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, has repeatedly called for cyclists to be registered. In 2020, Mr Farage said<\/a>: “The time has come for cyclists to be licensed \u2013 and to be forced to obey the Highway Code like the rest of us”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fantastic news! If Reform do win the next election, we can therefore expect them to build the ministry of cycling that will need to be created to set up the infrastructure to register every single bicycle in the land, record all bike sales on a centralised mega document, and make sure the road worthiness of all those bikes are also updated every year on another mega document.<\/p>\n

They will also need to create the basic infrastructure to be able to do things like track the number plates on our bikes as we inevitably blast through the 100th red light of the day, effortlessly reaching speeds of 52mph<\/a> as we chase Strava segments. If we just put those cameras on half of the traffic lights in the UK, that would mean\u00a0around 17,000 cameras would be needed, which I am sure we will be able to pay for by… turning the small boats back around?<\/p>\n

In the unlikely event that Reform UK have suggested an uncosted policy that doesn\u2019t make any sense, would have almost no impact on the quality of life of people in the UK and is unaffordable, they could always just whack our taxes up by 10% like the freshly minted Reform council is trying to do in Worcestershire. Easy.<\/p>\n

A strong focus on turn signals<\/p>\n

\"RidingRiding hand signals – turning.jpg (credit: road.cc)<\/p>\n

If anybody believes that Reform are always against cyclists, then they clearly have not been spending much time researching them. I know for a fact there is a bit of cycling culture that Reform councillors and their supporters seem to enjoy more than almost anybody I\u2019ve met: turn signals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While there is definitely some appetite from them to warn people about potholes, and a surprising fixation on movements to the right, turn signals are the thing that I\u2019ve noticed some\u00a0Reform voters are particularly interested in.<\/p>\n

I have seen many Reform supporters signalling \u2013 and even Reform councillors eagerly standing next to \u2013 people who drape flags around their neck, drink warm lager, and repeatedly signal that they\u2019re about to turn slightly ahead, slightly upwards, and slightly to the right. They do this very clearly, and make it very obvious with how straight their arms are, pointing every finger on the hand straight in the same direction.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This kind of focus on turn signals, where they\u2019re practising it even when not a bike, shows that this party really could\u00a0take indicating\u00a0etiquette to a whole new level.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Strategic flags<\/p>\n

\"VizaveeVizavee Reflective Union Jack Vest (credit: road.cc)<\/p>\n

Perhaps those Reform supporters that I’ve seen who have\u00a0a\u00a0never-ending fascination with those turn signals are doing so because they want to see more bikes back on the road, and not on those pesky cycle lanes.<\/p>\n

Our esteemed leader of Reform UK even said in April this year<\/a>: \u201cYou look at where they spend the money \u2014 tens of millions being spent on cycle lanes that no one uses, huge departments of people dealing with climate change, but all people really want are proper, well-run local services.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Setting aside that a lot of cycle lane funding comes from central government, this suggests that a Reform government would be looking to rip out as many cycle lanes as possible, not build more. This means cycling advocates need to get creative, so I believe the obvious way around this is to paint England \u2013 or at least Union Jack \u2013 flags all over the few cycle lanes we do have in Britain. \u00a0<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve seen the anger that many Reform supporters\u00a0have expressed at anybody taking flags down from public property, and that this is quite possibly their Achilles\u2019 heel. Say a committed cohort of cyclists were to go round in the dead of the night, painting flags on cycle lanes? I reckon it\u2019s a safe bet if we want to preserve them.<\/p>\n

In fact, I believe this could be a tactic deployed far beyond cycling. NHS bosses will present their budgets on an English flag so they can\u2019t be taken away. We\u2019ll see social enterprises for disenfranchised youths, where everybody paints flags on their faces while learning to sew, or helping a granny.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The flag is both their source of strength, and their kryptonite. Cyclists can use this to their advantage.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll need a bogeyman, and quickly<\/p>\n

\"RABRAB swimming.png (credit: road.cc)<\/p>\n

From where I\u2019m standing, Reform\u2019s schtick appears to be that the vast majority of issues in the UK are not caused by late-stage capitalism, Brexit, or a decade of austerity, but by foreigners.<\/p>\n

In an alternative universe where Reform are somehow incorrect on this \u2013 but the same issues are inexplicably still present when they\u2019ve succeeded in getting rid of all the foreigners \u2013 they will need someone else to blame. If the Daily Mail, the Telegraph and the Daily Express manage to exert their influence on a future Reform UK government, then that scapegoat will almost certainly be cyclists.<\/p>\n

I can see the headlines: \u2018NHS failing because of carnage caused by cyclists\u2019; \u2018Cyclists causing potholes by skidding\u2019; \u2018Cyclists causing global warming by farting and pedalling too hard\u2019\u2026 we need to counter these. Not with facts, experts, or basic logic, but by fighting fire with fire.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Footballers creating potholes by kicking balls too hard\u2019; \u2018NHS failing because of carnage caused by ginger people\u2019; \u2018Swimmers causing sea levels to rise\u2019\u2026 sorted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

*Not actually the official line of this publication, all opinions expressed my own etc<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It might be hysterical, it might be a flash in the pan; but there is no doubt that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-254145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}