Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has posted to X to declare that Reform UKs live membership counter "is not real and is a fake clock".
Ms Badenoch posted:
Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel? It’s not real. It’s a fake clock 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…
Like many of you, I am sick of the endless lies, smoke and mirrors, stuff and nonsense politics. For a party that pretends to hate the establishment so much, they are copying and pasting the fake Tony Blair/ Alister Campbell’s spin book. Why does it matter…?
Because millions of good people in our country are crying out for hope…some of them think Reform are the answer. But as we saw today, Reform will let them down. They’ll say anything for cheap media hits because they have no plan underneath. Just rage against the machine.
The Conservative Party is under new leadership and 2025 is going to be about hard, unvarnished truths. Many of those truths will be difficult for my party and for the country. We’re in opposition because previous governments made mistakes. We HAVE to do things differently.
We won’t fix what has gone wrong over the last 30 years with rage, but with courage. Telling the truth takes bravery. And on a final note…How do I know for certain the Reform announcement is not true? Because the Conservative Party has gained thousands of new members since the leadership election. But we don’t shout about it…we are building quietly and steadily on principles and values, not gimmicks. The road ahead is long and difficult. But our first mission is to win the trust of the British People -you don’t do that by manipulating them at Christmas.
https://twitter.com/KemiBadenoch/status/1872316097900212533
Nigel Farage has posted to X on more than one occasion asking for Kemi Badenoch to apologise.
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.
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1872673945251729635
Mr Farage followed up with a new message this morning:
Good morning @KemiBadenoch.
When will you apologise to me and 146,077 other members of Reform UK?
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1872932037352669674
Reform MP Lee Anderson commented on X:
Tickergate..
We've hit nearly 27,000 new members in less than a week. Our ticker is in full working order despite some of the outrageous claims being made online. Even Sky News are backing us up at @reformparty_uk.
https://twitter.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1872919204695032138
