Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal action against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch if she does not apologise for accusing him of publishing a “fake” ticker showing Reform UK’s membership increasing to overtake the Conservatives.
The Reform UK leader has reacted furiously to Ms Badenoch’s assertion that he was “manipulating [his] own supporters” with a ticker that is “coded to tick up automatically” after it showed the insurgent right-wing party had gone past 131,680 members - the number of eligible Conservative Party members in its leadership election in the autumn.
He is demanding an apology from Ms Badenoch for the “accusations of fraud and dishonesty” that he labelled “disgraceful”, and said he is “not going to take it lying down”.
Asked by Sky News in a call with journalists if he is going to sue the Tory leader for libel, Mr 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.”
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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.
Unfortunately the claims made were specific. That the reform web site automatically increases numbers.
Weather evidence can be provided by either side to support or falsify that statement will be the direction the case goes.
Also because party membership is personal information. A list of that data would not be public. Only the number of payments made.
I don’t think whether it is raining or not will matter much.
Not necessarily.
Tories may demand the disclosure in order to prove that Farage’s party don’t have as many members as their website says it has. It is up to the judge to decide if such request is granted.