Row erupts between Reform and Tory Party over membership figures - as Farage accuses Badenoch of being 'bitter'

26 December 2024, 18:27 | Updated: 26 December 2024, 19:38

A huge debate has broken out between Reform UK and the Conservative Party.

Reform are claiming they now have more members - with leader Nigel Farage calling it an "historic moment" - even going so far as to say they are the real opposition to the Labour government.

A digital ticker on their website shows they now have more than 131,000 members - the number registered during the Tory leadership contest.

But, Tory party leader Kemi Badenoch is disputing the credibility of the counter - saying it increases automatically.

Farage has accused Badenoch of being "bitter" after she claimed the membership figures are fake.

Deputy leader Richard Tice told LBC her reaction was "hysterical" and that she will need to eventually apologise.

In a thread on X later on Thursday, Badenoch said the counter was "a fake" and used a clock emoji to say that it was "coded to tick up automatically".

She added that "we've been watching the back end" of the counter "for days"

Badenoch added: "Farage doesn't understand the digital age. This kind of fakery gets found out pretty quickly, although not before many are fooled."

There were 131,680 Conservative members eligible to vote during the party's leadership election to replace Rishi Sunak in the autumn, but Mrs Badenoch claimed in her thread that "the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election".

'Bitter, upset and angry'

In a later tweet responding to Badenoch, Farage said: "Kemi says I don’t understand the digital age.

"I have 5.4m followers and she has 320k.

"We understand you are bitter, upset and angry that we are now the second biggest party in British politics, and that the Conservative brand is dying under your leadership.

"However, this not an excuse to accuse us of committing fraud.

"We will gladly invite one of the Big 4 firms 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.

"It’s an open secret at CCHQ that your membership numbers are fake."

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'Deeply embarrassing'

Richard Tice, deputy leader of Reform, told LBC that Badenoch's reaction is "hysterical".

He told Simon Marks on Thursday: "This is hysterical, it's just deeply, deeply embarrassing for someone who repeatedly has claimed to be an engineer.

"Of course we haven't fiddled the numbers, of course those numbers are bang-on accurate, she's effectively accused Nigel and us at Reform of fraud.

"I mean it's a pretty serious allegation and it shows her and her colleagues at the Conservative party don't understand technology, that number is pulled via a website, via our server directly from our nation builder database and is the accurate number.

He later added: "This is a very embarrassing day for Kemi and she'll end up having to apologise".

Richard Tice hits back over Kemi Badenoch's claim about Reform's membership numbers

Reform was set up as a limited company and in September Mr Farage announced that 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.

In a video posted on X, he said: "We will change the structure of the party from one limited by shares to a company limited by guarantee, and that means it's the members of Reform that will own this party."