Nigel Farage urges Kemi Badenoch to apologise or face "action" after she accused Reform UK of "fakery"

28 December 2024, 07:46

Nigel Farage has urged Kemi Badenoch to apologise or face "action" after she accused Reform UK of "fakery" over its membership numbers.

The Reform UK leader will spend the weekend weighing up what action to take if Conservative leader Mrs Badenoch ignores his calls for an apology over the "crazy conspiracy theory".

Mr Farage pushed back against reports suggesting that legal action would be the next step, as officials from both parties continued the row.

The MP for Clacton also outlined his hopes that US billionaire Elon Musk could help attract younger voters to Reform as he "makes us cool".

Tech entrepreneur Mr Musk met Mr Farage earlier this month at US President-elect Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, amid rumours of a possible donation to either Mr Farage or Reform.

Tensions between Reform and the Conservatives escalated after Mrs Badenoch accused Mr Farage of "fakery" in response to Reform claiming they had surpassed the Tories in signed-up members.

Mrs Badenoch said Reform's counter was "coded to tick up automatically".

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A digital counter on the Reform website showed a membership tally before lunchtime on Boxing Day ticking past the 131,680 figure declared by the Conservative Party during its leadership election earlier this year.

Mr Farage, in a statement issued on Mr Musk's social media site X, said the accusations of "fraud and dishonesty" made against him were "disgraceful".

He said Reform had opened up its systems to media outlets, including The Daily Telegraph and The Financial Times, in the "interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct".

He added: "I am now demanding Kemi Badenoch apologises."

Mr Farage, on whether he was threatening legal action or not, told the PA news agency: "I haven't threatened anything. I've just said that unless I get an apology, I will take some action.

"I haven't said whether it's legal or anything."

He added: "All I've said is I want an apology. If I don't get an apology, I will take action.

"I will decide in the next couple of days what that is. So I've not specified what it is."

Mr Farage went on: "She (Mrs Badenoch) has put out this crazy conspiracy theory and she needs to apologise."

On why Mrs Badenoch had reacted as she did, Mr Farage said: "I would imagine she was at home without anybody advising her and was just angry."

A Conservative Party source claimed Mr Farage was "rattled" that his Boxing Day "publicity stunt is facing serious questions".

They added: "Like most normal people around the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and looking forward to taking on the challenges of renewing the Conservative Party in the New Year."

Mrs Badenoch, in a series of messages posted on X on Boxing Day, said: "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.

Mrs Badenoch claimed in her thread that "the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election".

Elsewhere, Mr Farage used an interview with the Daily Telegraph newspaper to describe Mr Musk as a "bloody hero".

He said: "The shades, the bomber jacket, the whole vibe. Elon makes us cool - Elon is a huge help to us with the young generation, and that will be the case going on and, frankly, that's only just starting.

"Reform only wins the next election if it gets the youth vote. The youth vote is the key."

Earlier this week, Reform UK claimed they now have more members than the Tories - 141,000 compared to the Conservative’s 131,680.

Mrs Badenoch, however, accused the party of faking this number in a series of social media posts.

Writing on X, she alleged that the counter - displayed on Reform’s website to mark its “historic” membership - is fake and designed “to tick up automatically.”

Mr Farage has branded these allegations “absolutely disgusting” as other high-profile members of the party called for him to launch legal action against the leader of the opposition.

"I'm going to take some action in the next couple of days. I've got to decide exactly what it is, but I'm certainly not going to take it lying down," he told Sky News.

"I think it's an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said," he continued. "I know she's got a very bad temper. I know she's well known for lashing out at people, but I am not at all happy, and I'm going to take some action."

Reform chairman Zia Yusuf launched a social poll asking supporters if hard-right Farage should sue Mrs Badenoch for “libel.”

Sources close to the Reform leader have also suggested legal action is on the cards.

A source told the Telegraph: “The more I read, the worse it gets for Kemi.

“Not only has she lied and embarrassed herself, but she's shown a horrific lack of judgement.

“Our membership has surged even more thanks to her ludicrous conspiracy theories.”

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage told GB News: “The idea that the leader of His Majesty's Loyal Opposition is accusing me of fraud is absolutely disgusting.

“She 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, gives us their postcode, and pays us £25.

“Even since we went through that number yesterday morning, the numbers are rocketing where another five or six thousand higher than we were when we went past the Conservative Party.

“I know that Kemi Badenoch is well known for her aggression and for lashing out.

“But to accuse me of not understanding the digital age, when I've got 5.5 million followers on social media and she's got fewer than a third of a million, frankly, was a bit rich.

“The truth is there is a massive shift going on in British politics.”

He continued: “If the Conservative Party want us to call in one of the big four auditors to check the validity of our numbers against the ballot papers that were sent out at the leadership contest, thousands of which went to lapsed Conservative members... I think if the truth came out she'd be very, very embarrassed indeed.

“I don't mind all sorts of comments being made about me, but to be accused by her of being a fraudster - I'm sorry, I'm not going to let this rest.”

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

Writing on Boxing Day, Mrs Badenoch suggested Farage “doesn’t understand the digital age” and has been “found out.”

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."

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".