NIGEL Farage and Kemi Badenoch have become embroiled in a bitter row about party membership numbers as both bid to represent the hard-right of UK politics.
On Thursday, Reform UK leader Farage claimed that his party membership had overtaken the Tories, calling it an “historic moment” and claiming that his group of five MPs “are now the real opposition”.
He shared data which purported to show Reform UK having 134,832 members, surpassing the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservative Party during its leadership election earlier in 2024.
However, Badenoch claimed that Farage was lying, writing on social media: “Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel?
“It’s not real. It’s a fake, coded to tick up automatically.
Hi Kemi, this is very embarrassing for you. Here is a screenshot of our internal membership numbers. Whether you like it or not, we have more members. We are the real opposition. https://t.co/mS8VbkAi8N pic.twitter.com/Rb47zrsZ04
— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) December 26, 2024
“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.”
She added: “How do I know for certain the Reform announcement is not true? Because the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election. But we don’t shout about it.
“We are building quietly and steadily on principles and values, not gimmicks.”
Responding on social media, Farage claimed it was an “open secret” that the Conservative Party’s “membership numbers are fake”.
He added: “We will gladly invite one of the big four firms [Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG] in to audit our membership numbers as long as you do the same.
“We have also heard from many Tory whistleblowers that will swear under affidavits that ballots were sent out to long expired or resigned ex-members in your leadership election.”
Speaking on GB News on Friday, Farage repeated his offer of an audit, adding: “[Badenoch] may be used to being in a party that lies to the British public. We are not.
“We put that digital tracker up a few days ago showing every single person that goes online and gives us their postcode and pays us £25.”
He added: “The truth is, there is a very big shift that is going on in British politics.”
A research briefing published by the House of Commons Library in 2022 said comparing party membership numbers can be “difficult”, saying there is not a uniformly recognised definition of membership, or an established method to monitor it.
Farage’s Reform UK is registered as a limited company with Companies House.
In September, Farage said he would change the ownership structure so that it would be owned by members.
“I no longer need to control this party,” he said at the time. Currently, Companies House still lists Farage as having majority control.
Luke Tryl, director of the More in Common think tank, told PA that political parties are “notoriously opaque” about membership numbers.
On Reform, he said: “We know that lots of Reform’s most vocal supporters are very online.
“Do those people who are very online and joined up, do they also go out and pound the streets, deliver leaflets, canvass, that sort of thing? That remains an open question.”
