LONDON — Nigel Farage has challenged the principle U.Okay. opposition Conservative Party to hold out an audit of its membership figures after claiming his upstart Reform UK had eclipsed it.
The Brexiteer used the festive interval to declare Reform the “actual opposition,” unveil a flashy “ticker” to depend up new recruits and declare his party had handed the 131,680 membership determine the Tories revealed on the time of the Conservative management contest in November.
That contest’s victor, Kemi Badenoch , swiftly took to X to accuse Farage of “manipulating” assist, suggesting the membership tracker had been “coded to tick up robotically.”
In response, Farage mentioned he would enable one of many “Big Four” accountancy companies to audit Reform’s membership — if the Conservatives did the identical. He mentioned he had been contacted by “many Tory whistleblowers” saying that in the course of the management contest ballots had been despatched to long-expired or resigned members. The Conservatives haven’t responded to the problem.
The upstart Reform UK party precipitated critical injury to the Conservatives on the summer season election, successful 4 million votes and 5 members of parliament. It now has the governing Labour Party in its sight, with one ballot this month placing Farage’s outfit forward of Keir Starmer’s party.
The disagreement between Reform and the Tories started when a flat cap-sporting Farage attended a conventional “Boxing Day” fox hunt Thursday morning, the place he invited his favourite GB News TV channel to listen to him gloat concerning the “historic second” his party overtook the Conservatives.
He mentioned 15,000 members had stumped up £25 to affix the party within the earlier 4 days, as Reform deployed a video of its ticker being projected onto Conservative HQ, turning the road the party’s shade turquoise and blaring: “Merry Christmas, Kemi!”
In response, Badenoch solid doubt on the accuracy of the figures, saying: “We’ve been watching the again finish for days and may see they’ve simply modified the code to hyperlink to a unique website … Farage doesn’t perceive the digital age. This form of fakery will get discovered fairly shortly, though not earlier than many are fooled.”
Farage shot again on X, saying: “We perceive you’re bitter, upset and indignant that we at the moment are the second greatest party in British politics, and that the Conservative model is dying below your management. However, this [is] not an excuse to accuse us of committing fraud.”
Reform Chair Zia Yusuf later confirmed screenshots purporting to be proof of the membership figures.
Critics of each events had been fast to level out that membership figures don’t at all times equate to electoral success. Former Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn racked up round 560,000 enthusiastic members earlier than crashing to the worst defeat in his party’s historical past in 2019. The May native elections might be a giant check to see if Farage can translate this assist base into council seats.
New YouGov polling within the Times exhibits not one of the party leaders are a success with the general public. Starmer’s internet favorability stands at -41, with Farage’s -34 and Badenoch on -31.