A specific trend has proliferated on British social media: the “Benidorm Clip.” Accounts like Benidorm Clips or Benidorm Now have sprouted across Instagram, featuring seemingly impartial footage of retired white Brits enjoying package holidays. While posts are often apolitical and cheery, showing little more than people dancing or drinking beer in the sun, the comment sections tell a much darker story.
The most striking element of these posts isn’t the content, but the audience’s reaction. Despite no evidence of the subjects’ political leanings, the comments are a sea of coded accusations: “Is this the Reform national convention?” “Reform immigrants in their natural habitat.” “Average Reform voter on tour.”
Despite being someone partial to some reform slander, it’s hard to ignore the overwhelmingly homogenised conclusions of “reform voter” based purely on aesthetics. Indeed, there is a lot to be said about the adverse effects of package holidays on the local population’s ability to afford homes and generally maintain quality of life; however, not a single comment targets package holiday companies or the effects of Brits abroad.
So why do I have a problem with it? I finished reading Owen Jones’ “Chavs” a few years ago and couldn’t help but notice the parallels between branding retired happy white Brits, scantily clad holding a beer as “reform voters” or other variations with pejorative undertones, and traditional middle-class condescension; in other words, this feels like a return of the “Chav” myth. This branding suggests that the subjects in each video must have an unrefined taste to enjoy a cheap pint, sometimes topless, in Benidorm. Reducing multiple demographics into a punchline.
Mark Casey, Professor at the University of Newcastle, identifies this phenomenon as the “Benidorm Effect, where Benidorm has morphed into an arena for the middle-class gaze to police social boundaries of UK tourists to prove the observer’s own “sophistication.” From the voyeuristic perspective of an Instagram user, it is no wonder this phenomenon is so effective.
Not only does this perpetuate classism through seemingly harmful yet coded context and quotes, but it emboldens the victim complexes of reform voters themselves. Outlets like The Spectator and The Daily Mail engage in “counter-outrage,” taking these condescending social media comments and framing them as proof that the “metropolitan elite” or “woke snobs” harbour a deep-seated hatred for “ordinary British people”. Outlets like these are all too happy to shift the focus from behaviour itself to the reaction of the “metropolitan elite,” providing ample evidence for “hating our own people.”
These receipts of “anti-British” slander fall neatly into the laps of the likes of Nigel Farage or Richard Tice, who need to claim they are the only ones who truly respect the working class, defending any holidaymaker in their choice to present an uncanny British caricature, especially abroad.
So, what’s the lesson here? Labelling happy retirees indulging in package holidays in Benidorm is not an avenue for anti-reform criticism. I also highly doubt the accounts inviting such criticism are on the left. Therefore, commenting that they look like “reform voters” will not compromise Reform UK Ldt’s public image, but build their base for them.
Another article you may enjoy – https://thebadgeronline.com/2026/02/jesss-rule-and-the-cost-of-reassurance/
