‘Gloves are off’ as Reform UK sets sights on Badenoch’s constituency – Farage

Nigel Farage has said “the gloves are off” in the next election bout for Kemi Badenoch’s Essex constituency, after the Tory leader claimed Reform UK’s online membership counter was fake.

The Reform UK leader told his supporters he would not sue Ms Badenoch for her claim.

Instead, he promised to take a “big joint photograph” in an effort to prove the existence of his party membership.

Reform UK published a membership ticker on its website, along with a “join us” link.

On Boxing Day, Ms Badenoch wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the figure was “a fake, coded to tick up automatically”.

Several media outlets including The Spectator and Financial Times reported having been shown the code for calculating and displaying the party’s online tally, which they found appeared to function properly.

Speaking at the Reform UK East Midlands Conference in Leicester on Friday, Mr Farage told his backers: “I don’t take kindly to being accused of being dishonest.

“You can call me many things, and people do, and that’s fine, but don’t call me dishonest. I’m not and I never, ever have been.”

He added Ms Badenoch had “chosen not to take the opportunity” to apologise for her claim and his audience at the rally shouted “sue her” when Mr Farage asked: “What to do?”

The party leader, whose Clacton constituency also lies in Essex, continued: “It’s all well and good saying ‘sue her’ but you have to prove actual harm. She hasn’t harmed us. She’s given us tens of thousands more members.

“But what I am going to do – isn’t it delightful that the Eastern Region conference tomorrow takes place at Chelmsford Racecourse which happens to be in her parliamentary constituency, which is good.

“And better than that, on 31st of this month, we’ve booked a big venue and I’m going to invite all our members and supporters in North West Essex to come along to meet me, to have a photograph.

“And we already have 800 supporters in her constituency, nearly 400 of whom have signed up as members, and we’ll do a big joint photograph and I’ll tell Kemi, not only are these not fake members, but we’re now going to make this a target constituency for the next general election.

“You had your chance.

“You accused me of being dishonest. You had your chance to apologise. Well now the gloves are off.”

Ms Badenoch, the MP for North West Essex, had previously written on X: “It’s not real. It’s a fake, coded to tick up automatically.

“We’ve been watching the back end 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, like many of you, I am sick of the endless lies, smoke and mirrors, stuff and nonsense politics.”

Ms Badenoch won North West Essex with 19,360 votes last July against Labour’s 16,750, majority 2,610.

Grant StClair-Armstrong came third with 7,668 votes.

He was listed as the Reform UK candidate but resigned from the party after the Times reported he previously called on voters online to elect the British National Party (BNP).

Mr StClair-Armstrong said in a comment to the BBC at the time that he had “never supported the BNP”.