Nigel Farage threatens to take action against the Conservative leader over a row over membership numbers

Open Editor’s Digest for free

Rula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Nigel Farage has said he is considering legal action against Kemi Badenoch, as the Conservative leader demanded an apology for accusing him of falsifying Reform UK membership numbers.

“I would not consider lying down. It is absolutely outrageous for her to do so,” Farage said on Friday. “I ask Kimmy Badenoch to immediately apologize for this excessive outburst.”

Speaking via Zoom with reporters, he said: “I will take some action in the next couple of days,” adding that he is still deciding exactly what form that will take.

Islah Party head Zia Youssef showed the Financial Times the code and underlying data supporting the party’s membership numbers on Friday, providing strong evidence that the count was accurate.

The Islah leader’s statements came in response to a previous accusation Badenoch On Thursday, Reform produced “fake” figures, after Farage claimed his party’s membership had surpassed that of the Conservatives for the first time.

In a post on X, Badenoch responded by claiming that the repair meter was “coded to appear automatically.”

“We have been monitoring the back end for several days and we can also see that they have just changed the code to link to a different site when people point it out,” she added.

The public row is the first time Badenoch has attacked Farage and Reform, which is seen as one of the biggest threats to the Conservative Party as it seeks to rebuild his party after its worst election defeat in history in July.

Yusef to publish An X poll on Thursday asked: “Should Nigel Farage sue Kimmy Badenoch for libel?”

Farage said the Conservative membership numbers were false and that he had evidence they included people who had resigned from the party or died, and renewed calls for the Conservative Party to submit their membership numbers for external audit.

The Reform leader said he would be happy to review his party’s membership figures annually regardless of whether the Conservatives agreed to do the same.

Farage said Badenoch “made a huge mistake and got this completely wrong about us.” “You will find life much more difficult and you will deeply regret making the announcement on Boxing Day afternoon.”

The row has drawn attention to the fact that political parties in the UK are not obliged to publish their membership figures, and there is no external body responsible for auditing or verifying published figures.

Although most parties publish their numbers in their annual accounts or on their website, the Conservatives do not do so.

Online membership tracking website Reform showed on Friday that the party had nearly 142,500 members, compared with the Conservatives’ 131,680 at the time of their leadership election last month.

The FT were shown code to calculate and view their online reform history, as well as their own dashboard created by NationBuilder, a third-party app the party uses to manage memberships and donations.

The demonstration provided strong evidence that the online counter matches the number of members who have signed up for the reform.

Expanding its membership is a priority for Islah as it seeks to transform from a nascent party into a credible political party.

To mount a successful field campaign before the local elections in May next year, Islah will need thousands of supporters to knock on doors to collect votes and collect data, as well as running as advisors in hundreds of seats.

Farage said on Friday that he believed the “vast majority” of people who joined the Reform movement had “never belonged to any political party in their lives.”

The Lib Dems and Greens cite their membership numbers on their websites. The Liberal Democrats say they have “more than 90,000 members,” while the Green Party says they have “more than 59,000 members.”

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

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