Tories point finger at ‘faker’ Farage over members claim

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Nigel Farage of faking a surge in Reform membership after the party claimed to have surpassed the Conservatives for the first time.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has been accused by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch of inflating the number of members his party has signed up. Picture: Getty Images

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has accused Nigel Farage of faking a surge in Reform membership after the party claimed to have surpassed the Conservatives for the first time.

Figures posted on Reform’s website suggested that more than 132,000 people have joined the party, up from about 100,000 last month and higher than the 131,680 members declared by the Conservative Party during its leadership election this year.

The Tory leader questioned the Reform figures, describing them as a “fake” tally “coded to tick up automatically” and ­accused Mr Farage of “manipulating his own supporters at Christmas”.

“It’s not real. It’s a fake,” she said. “We’ve been watching the back end (of the Reform website) for days and can also see they’ve just changed the code to link to a different site as people point this out.

“Farage doesn’t understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled.”

Mr Farage denied the figures had been manipulated, accusing Ms Badenoch of being “sad, desperate and angry” at her party’s own membership numbers.

“How dare she accuse us of fraud?” he said. “These are real members and what we have achieved is phenomenal.”

Reform has tried to capitalise on its success at the general election by increasing its membership base and creating a local party ­infrastructure before next year’s local elections.

The party now has branches in more than 300 of Britain’s 650 constituencies and is charging just £25 a year to join, compared with £39 a year for the Conservatives. It also has a £10 youth membership fee, which Mr Farage said had been a significant driver in its growth.

He said he was prepared to allow Reform’s membership numbers to be audited and challenged the Tories to follow suit.

New polling has found that Mr Farage is more popular than Prime Minister Keir Starmer. A YouGov survey showed that 28 per cent of voters approve of the Reform leader, compared with 25 per cent who have a favourable opinion of Sir Keir.

The Times