REFORM UK leader Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal action against Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch after claims of a "fake" ticker showing Reform UK's membership numbers.
On his Twitter/X account, Farage shared a video on Boxing Day claiming Reform had more members than the Conservatives.
The video showed a membership tracker being projected onto the Conservative Party headquarters in London.
The number went past 131,680 members - the number of eligible Conservative Party members in its leadership election in the autumn, Sky News reports.
The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful. Today we opened up our systems to The Telegraph, Spectator, Sky News & FT in the interests of full transparency to verify that our data is correct. I am now demanding @KemiBadenoch apologises.
— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) December 27, 2024
Badenoch responded on X accusing the party of issuing misleading figures.
She wrote: "Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? 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…"
Farage is now demanding an apology from Badenoch for the "accusations of fraud and dishonesty" that he labelled "disgraceful", and said he is "not going to take it lying down".
🚨 NEW: Reform UK projected their live membership counter onto CCHQ to wish Kemi Badenoch a ‘Merry Christmas’ as they overtake the Toriespic.twitter.com/lmrf7c3olJ
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) December 26, 2024
Asked by Sky News in a call with journalists if he is going to sue the Tory leader for libel, Farage said: "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."
"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."
He added that he would confirm within two days exactly what this action would be if she did not apologise for the "intemperate outburst".
Sky News added: "Reform showed Sky News the coding used to link the ticker to the member count within their account on the platform NationBuilder.
"The demonstration provided strong evidence that the ticker was not automated."
