Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, has hit back at Kemi Badenoch’s claims that his party’s membership numbers are fake.
Farage called this achievement “historic” and claimed that Reform UK is now “the real opposition” . However, Badenoch, the Conservative leader, disputed these numbers, saying they are “fake” and that the website counter is “coded to tick up automatically” .
The debate raises questions about the accuracy of party membership numbers. According to a research briefing published by the House of Commons Library, comparing party membership numbers can be “difficult” due to the lack of a uniformly recognized definition of membership .
Farage responded to Badenoch’s accusations by posting a screenshot of an online register showing ‘active memberships’ and challenging her to verify the numbers through an independent audit . He also accused the Conservative Party of being “bitter, upset, and angry” about Reform UK’s growing popularity.
Reform UK’s membership milestone is significant, but it’s unclear whether it will translate to electoral success. The party’s chairman, Zia Yusuf, said “history has been made today” and that the Tories’ “centuries-long stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics” has “finally been broken” .
However, experts say that party membership numbers can be misleading. Luke Tryl, director of the More in Common think tank, described party membership as “very opaque and murky as a metric anyway” .
