Nigel Farage is threatening action against the Tory leader in a row over membership figures

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

“I will not take it lying down. it’s a terrible thing that he talked about it,” Farage said on Friday. “I ask Kemi Badenoch to apologize immediately for this extreme outburst.”

Speaking on a Zoom call to reporters, he said: “I’m going to take action in the next few days,” adding that he was still deciding what kind of action he would take.

Reform chairman Zia Yusuf showed the Financial Times the code and underlying data supporting the party’s membership numbers on Friday, providing strong evidence that the tally is accurate.

The comments of the Reform leader came as a result of the accusation of Badenoch on Thursday that Reform had produced “fake” numbers, after Farage claimed his party’s membership was outnumbering the Tories’ for the first time.

In a post to X, Badenoch responded by saying that the Reform counter was “written to be automatic”.

He added: “We’ve been looking back for days and they just changed the code to link to a different site as people pointed this out.

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

Yusuf placed A poll in X on Thursday, asks: “Should Nigel Farage prosecute Kemi Badenoch for treason?”

Farage said the Conservatives’ membership numbers themselves were false and he had evidence they included people who had left the party or died, as he renewed calls for the Tory party to release their numbers. of members to be examined abroad.

The Reform leader said he would happily review his party’s membership numbers every year regardless of whether the Tories agreed to do so.

Badenoch “made a very bad mistake and he owns it completely, it’s wrong about us”, Farage said. “He’s going to find life more difficult and he’s going to regret putting this out there on Boxing Day afternoon.”

The line pointed out that UK political parties are not required to publish their membership numbers, and no external body is responsible for checking or verifying the figures published.

While most parties release their rates in their annual reports or on their website, the Conservatives do not.

The online tracker Reform showed on Friday that the party has around 142,500 members, compared to the 131,680 held by the Conservatives during their leadership election last month.

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

The show gave strong evidence that the online company is compatible with the number of members who signed up for Reform.

Expanding its membership is the main thing for Reform as it wants to change from the beginning to become a reliable political party.

To campaign successfully ahead of the local elections in May next year, Change will need thousands of supporters to knock on doors doing research and gather information, as well as standing as councilors in hundreds of seats. .

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

The Liberal Democrats and Greens state their membership numbers 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.

A person close to Badenoch said: “Fake Farage is clearly joking that his Boxing Day Publicity Stunt is facing serious questions about the fake clock and that hundreds of ‘members’ are apparently taking part midnight.”

“Like many ordinary people in the UK, Kemi is enjoying Christmas with her family and is looking forward to the challenges of renewing the Conservative party in the new year,” they added.