Nigel Farage threatens action against Tory leader in row over membership numbers

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Nigel Farage says he is considering legal action against Kimmy Badenoch, as she demands an apology from the Conservative leader for allegedly falsifying Reform UK’s membership numbers.

“I’m not going to take it lying down. It’s an absolutely outrageous thing for him to say,” Farage said on Friday. “I am asking Kemi Badenoch to apologize immediately for this unbridled outburst.”

Speaking in a Zoom call to reporters, he said: “I’m going to take some steps in the next few days,” adding that he was still deciding exactly what form it would take.

Reform chair Zia Yusuf showed the code and underlying data based on the party’s membership numbers to the Financial Times on Friday, which proved accurate.

The reform leader’s comments came in response to a complaint Badenoch The reform produced “false” numbers on Thursday, after Farage claimed his party’s membership had overtaken the Tories for the first time.

In a post on X, Badenoch responded by claiming that Reform’s counter was “coded to automatically tick up”.

“We’ve been looking at the back end for a few days and also see that they’ve changed the code to just link to a different site because people point it out,” he added.

Badenoch launched his first public spat against Farage and the reforms, which are seen as the biggest threat to the Tory party as it seeks to rebuild after its worst election defeat in history in July.

Yusuf has been posted A poll by X on Thursday, asking: “Should Nigel Farage sue Kimi Badenoch for defamation?”

Farage said the Conservatives’ own membership figures were false and he had evidence they included people who had resigned or died from the party, as he called for the Tory party to submit its membership figures to external audits.

The reform leader said he would happily audit his party’s membership annually, regardless of whether the Tories agreed to do it.

Badenoch “made a terrible mistake and he got it completely, completely wrong about us”, Farage said. “He’s going to find life a lot harder and bitterly regrets revealing it on Boxing Day afternoon.”

The row drew attention to the fact that political parties in the UK are not required to publish their membership numbers and there is no external body to audit or verify published figures.

While most parties publish their numbers in their annual accounts or on their websites, the Conservatives do not.

Reform’s online membership tracker showed on Friday that the party had about 142,500 members, up from 131,680 by the Conservatives at the time of their leadership election last month.

The FT was shown the code to calculate and display Reform’s online tally, as well as their dashboard created by NationBuilder, a third-party application the party uses to manage membership and donations.

The demonstration provides strong evidence that the online counter is commensurate with the number of members signing up for reforms.

Expanding its membership is a priority for Reform as it seeks to transform from a start-up into a credible political party.

To run a successful on-the-ground campaign ahead of local elections in May next year, Reform will need thousands of supporters to canvass and gather information for voters, knocking on doors, as well as standing as councilors in hundreds of constituencies.

Farage said on Friday that he believed the “vast majority” of people joining the reform had “never been in a political party in their life”.

The Liberal Democrats and Greens report their membership figures on their websites. The Lib Dems say they have “over 90,000” members, while the Greens say they have “over 59,000”.

The Labor Party said it had around 370,000 members in March this year.

The Conservative Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.