Nigel Farage has admitted he is considering taking legal action against Tory leader Kemi Badenoch after the pair locked horns over Reform UK’s Boxing Day membership milestone.
Farage and Badenoch were involved in an online spat after Reform UK claimed to have surpassed the Tories when it comes to signed-up members.
A live-tracker showed the revamped Brexit Party soaring past the Tories just before midday yesterday.
After hailing the milestone as a “historic moment”, Farage shared a video projecting the soaring tally on Conservative Campaign Party Headquarters in Westminster.
Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage
PA/GETTY/REFORM UK
Badenoch bit back in the early afternoon, accusing the Reform UK leader of ticking the tally up with “fake” numbers.
“I’m not going to take it lying down,” Farage said on Friday. “It’s an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said.
“I am asking Kemi Badenoch to apologise immediately for this intemperate outburst.”
Farage appeared to take a huge step towards proving his point after inviting a number of journalists to inspect the data on Reform UK’s Nation Builder platform.
Probed on whether he would consider legal action, Farage revealed: “I’m going to take some action in the next couple of days, and I’ve got to decide exactly what it is.
“But I’m certainly not going to take it lying down. It’s an absolutely outrageous thing for her to have said.
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Nigel Farage
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“Now I know she’s got a very bad temper, I know she’s well known for lashing out at people. I’m not at all happy and I’m going to take some action. Exactly what it’ll be, I’ll let you know within two days.
“Once we’ve fully disproved this, she’s going to find life a lot more difficult and bitterly regret putting this out on Boxing Day afternoon.”
He added: “The accusations of fraud and dishonesty made against me yesterday were disgraceful, and we have opened up our systems to The Telegraph, The Spectator, Sky News and The FT in the interests of full transparency.
“I am asking Kemi Badenoch to apologise immediately for this intemperate outburst.”
Journalists who look over the numbers left concluding that the data provided “strong evidence that the ticker was not automated” after being based on “verified membership data”.
The Financial Times said: “The demonstration provided strong evidence that the online counter did correspond to the number of members that had signed up to Reform.”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch hit back KEMI BADENOCHSky News’s Ben van der Merwe added: “In fact, it all looks perfectly normal. Membership applications decline overnight, then rise in the morning.
“At around 11am, when news about Reform UK having more members than the Tories started going viral, the number of new members surged. None of this is what you’d expect from a pre-programmed ticker.”
He concluded: “The numbers did indeed match up.”
Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf, who invited the group of journalists to inspect the populist party’s membership data, asked his X followers yesterday: “Should Nigel Farage sue Kemi Badenoch for libel?”
The populist party’s membership total continues to soar after the social media spat between Farage and Badenoch, exceeding 140,000 earlier today.
Badenoch’s five-party thread accused Farage of “manipulating” his supporters on Christmas.
She also added that the Tories had “gained thousands of new members since the leadership election”.
Farage initially responded by labelling the Leader of the Opposition as “bitter”, later inviting the Tories to let one of the “big four” accountancy firms audit both parties’ membership levels.
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