Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage are no party of the people. Their emerging Epstein links show how their relationships with unaccountable transnational ruling elites let them play politics on easy mode. What has changed is that we’re starting to see more and more receipts.

If Farage’s outfit knows one thing it is money. A privately-educated banker himself, Farage has always played the tweed populist while making money moves behind the scenes. For example, this virulent critic of Muslims and Islam was in the Middle East last week ago courting UAE billionaire’s for donations.

But there is more. Property tycoon billionaire and Reform treasurer Nick Candy has now been revealed as an associate of late child-rapist, Zionist, and fascist Jeffrey Epstein.

Reform have an Epstein problem

As Skwawkbox reported recently, the Epstein files name Candy in relation to Epstein. There was even an email talking about Candy’s property firm selling a London flat for Epstein.

The emails appear to show, among other things, that Epstein was a fan of Candy, that Candy and Epstein appear to have swapped phone numbers through a third party, spoke directly – and that disgraced Labour grandee Peter Mandelson was also in the mix.

You should read the full report here.

A former Tory donor, Candy shifted to Reform UK in 2024 and now serves as their treasurer. He even promised the party a massive sum to support their bid for office. Even far-right tech baron Elon Musk – another Epstein associate – approved of the move.

Candy’s job is to elicit money for the nativist party whose officials have spent the last week dodging questions on Epstein. One even threatened to storm out of a TV interview when pushed on the party’s connections to Epstein.

Needless to say the full extent of Candy’s – and his financial dealings – with Epstein are still hazy. Yet the pair’s apparently rather collegiate relationship tells a story.

Questions to answer

Tax expert and economist Richard Murphy drew out some of the contradictions in the Reform UK/Epstein relationship.

Murphy wrote on 5 February:

In December 2024, Candy announced that he had quit the Conservatives and would “become the treasurer for Reform UK”. He then joined Nigel Farage and Elon Musk at a strategy meeting at Donald Trump’s Florida mansion, the latter two of whom also appear in the Epstein files.

Adding:

The trio’s names all appear in a tranche of three million documents released by the US Department of Justice last Friday

Murphy rightly noted:

Appearing in the Epstein files is not an indication of wrongdoing.

But as he pointed out questions remained. And that no Reform MP seemed to have attended the debate on Epstein and Mandelson on 4 February:

That is true, but questions still need to be asked about this and about why, apparently, no Reform MP thought it appropriate to be in the Commons yesterday. Why could that be?

But what are we to make of it all? Because treating Epstein as an aberration, rather than a product or expression of a system, rather misses the point.

Global transnational elites

Epstein was many things. And by all credible accounts every single one of those things was reprehensible. He was a prolific (and prolifically self-serving) operator in international affairs: connector, deal-maker, and schmoozer. Epstein was one figure in an amoral network of transnational elites, dealing in information and brokering power.

He traded in what he and his vile cohorts considered nothing more than property, be it human (his sex-trafficked victims seem to be regularly sidelined in all this) or inanimate. His own politics were clearly of the furthest right.

Ultimately men like these – and they are overwhelmingly men – want to make a world in their own image. With that in mind organisations like Reform UK  – led by people with bottomless reserves of base viciousness, bigotry and ambition –  are going to have a profound appeal for powerful, hyper-rich grotesques like Epstein.

The core truth is Reform UK aren’t popular, they’re just connected. They’re the electoral wing of a propertied global cartel. Underneath the pint-swilling, faux-populist trappings they represent an identifiable set of class interests. Those interests, as it happens, are the same values as tech barons, billionaires, bankers and property tycoons, petro-lords and bought-and-paid-for politicians and abusers whose names are all over Epstein’s gruesome files.

Featured image via the Canary

Piers Corbyn, brother of Jeremy Corbyn, is officially on the ballot for the Your Party Central Executive Committee (CEC) in elections ending 5 January. This is despite Piers’s links to various conspiracy theories.

A pale imitation of his younger brother

Corbyn passed the ballot with 103 votes as an independent yesterday. Since then, people have raised their concerns:

Piers Corbyn is a climate change denier who has been protesting outside refugee hotels alongside fascists of late. The fact that he’s allowed to be in YourParty, nevermind that he has been endorsed for its CEC by 102 London members, is shocking. https://t.co/jZBIpwk87p

— Adam Ramsay (@AdamRamsay) February 4, 2026

Piers has a long history of controversial beliefs, having been very active in the anti-vax movement, leading to his arrest on several occasions. He didn’t stop there, going on to harass NHS workers, accusing them of murder. He also turned up at a drag story time in Brighton screaming “Your parents were straight!”

To be fair, some of the above is kind of tame compared to the time Piers was arrested on suspicion of inciting arson.

Observers have also clocked Piers holding signs saying ‘Stop the Boats’ outside of migrant hotels:

🇬🇧🚨 PIERS CORBYN, brother of JEREMY CORBYN, has arrived at the Bell MIGRANT Hotel in Epping to offer his support.

“I’m here to support the campaign to close this hotel. The boats should be STOPPED. The government is using this CRISIS to bring in DIGITAL ID. We don’t need… https://t.co/536Yj9lkek pic.twitter.com/O7rqq12SVK

— VoxPopuli (@vpopulimedia) August 8, 2025

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Just yesterday, he tweeted this:

AND now:
Zach Polanski the conman.
Fact: Man-Made ClimateChange does Not Exist – Download https://t.co/qXisckHYmJ https://t.co/OsYEcRbTUO pic.twitter.com/xulHiKnylA

— Piers Corbyn (@Piers_Corbyn) February 3, 2026

Do you see what we’re getting at here?

Is this really who Your Party wants?

The presence of Piers on the ballot poses a significant question for Your Party members.

Will the membership reject his toxic brand of conspiracy-led politics?

Or, will Piers find a powerful new platform for his controversial views?

It all feels a bit ‘nepo sibling’ to us.

Featured image via Daily Record

Neva Novaky is Surrey Area Deputy Chairman and was a candidate in the 2019 General Election. 

As a small state, low tax Conservative, I can see why some fellow Conservatives have been tempted by Reform. However, I have no intention of joining them. My reasons are not rooted in tribal loyalty but in judgement, delivery and national interest.

Reform will not deliver low taxes. They claim to be a low-tax party but that is already being tested – and found wanting – in the five councils they control.

 Residents of Derbyshire, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Leicestershire Council’s, are seeing their council tax increase by the maximum of 5 per cent allowed by law. Kent residents face a 3.99 per cent increase. This is a huge betrayal of the public given they were elected on a promise to cut council taxes, whatever Farage claims.

They are also now backtracking on the £90 billion of tax cuts they promised in their manifesto. In autumn of last year, Nigel Farage said that his party now felt that substantial tax cuts were not realistic.

Reform also announced they are against the two-child cap.

They did not propose a tax cut to support families but defended a government hand out. They put the emphasis on the state giving you back the money you pay them in the first place after taking a cut, rather than allowing you to keep more of your own hard-earned money. This is socialism dressed up as populism.

Then there is Farage’s track record as an elected official for over 20 years – he was a Member of the European Parliament from 1999 to 2020 and there was one single issue that he stood for – UK’s departure from the EU. Yet, it was not Farage, the Brexit Party or UKIP that delivered Brexit or even the intellectual arguments in favour of it. We did that as Conservatives in government.

During his 20+ years representing the UK in the European Parliament, he also did not influence EU legislation or arguably do the job he was paid to do. Outside of plenary sessions where he played to the UK media, he did not do the committee work so as to even try and defend the UK’s national interest in the policy-making process. His attendance was notoriously bad. Meanwhile, Conservative MEPs did the job at hand! They were present at votes and negotiations at all levels (committee and plenary) and worked hard to defend our national interest.

He’s had questions around his expenses throughout his time in the European Parliament and they don’t make me confident that Reform would be a safer pair of hands if in charge of the treasury.

During his time as an MEP, Farage and the group he co-chaired faced various spending scandals. From 2004 till 2019, he co-chaired a European Parliament group of MEPs. Farage was personally found to have not respected rules on staff funding and had his salary cut for 10 months to compensate for it.

His political group’s EU wide alliance had to repay their full 2016 grant of €1.1 million.

While Farage’s team in the EU did underline that they were under higher scrutiny on their public spending for politically motivated reasons, this was also the case for Conservatives. The reality is that decisions taken by Farage and under his watch left him and his European grouping vulnerable. Farage is responsible for at least some of those decisions and indirectly responsible for what happened on his watch.

Then of course there is Russia.

Reform’s weak stance on Russia is not in our national interest – amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, threatening the freedoms we fought so hard for decades before, it is difficult not to see Reform’s history and stance on Russia through the lens of national security. Last year, a UK court found Nathan Gill guilty of accepting bribes to promote a pro-Russian narrative. Gill was a former MEP in Farage’s party under his leadership and briefly head of Reform in Wales.

Furthermore, Farage’s voting record on Russia speaks volumes. In October 2019 before leaving the EU, while we were supporting European efforts to take stronger action against Russian propaganda, Farage and his MEPs were opposing it.

Farage did make a public statement last year finally criticising Putin, saying he was a “very bad dude”. However, that was after he had once said Putin was the politician he most admired and repeated the Russian propaganda after the invasion of Ukraine that the West was to blame for provoking Putin. Everyone is allowed of course to change their minds, but historical statements speak to Reform’s inability to make sound judgements in the interest of national security.

Reform’s track record and that of Farage demonstrate to me that my political values will not be better fulfilled by them. This is not about tribalism – after all, Winston Churchill changed parties. It is about making sure that a potential trade is a trade up. As Edmund Burke argued, those in public office fail the public when the sacrifice sound judgement for an applause. Reform are good at playing for applause but they fail the test of sound judgement and delivery needed to lead Great Britan.

I am sad to see some Conservatives who were unsuccessful in fulfilling their aspirations in my party join Reform. There may be a lesson for us on how to manage aspiration and treat teamwork as a key skillset needed from those in public office. After all, national interest must come before ego.

Those leaving because they fear Reform would beat them, my advice is, do not make it a self-fulfilling prophecy. With elections three years away, there is everything to fight for.

Peace campaigners have held two days of protest to call attention to a controversial arms fair hosted by Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre (NEC).

There were no arrests outside the Specialist Defence and Security Convention (SDSC-UK) on 3-4 February. Although two protesters were carried off the site.

Actions by around 60 protesters included a mock drone attack ‘die-in’, street theatre from the Red Rebels, a silent vigil led by Quakers, interfaith prayers and drumming.

Arms fair ‘not welcome’

The Stop SDSC-UK campaign includes Quakers, Campaign Against Arms Trade and others. A spokesperson for the campaign said:

The SDSC-UK isn’t just another exhibition, it’s a showcase for companies that profit from war, human suffering, and corruption.

Weapons sold here end up being used against civilians in conflicts from Yemen to Gaza. This is not welcome in our city.

The SDSC-UK has faced protests in every community it has visited. Campaigners forced previous events out of the Three Counties Showground in 2023 and the Telford International Centre in 2025.

Notorious exhibitors at the arms fair have included:

• Thales, linked to arms used against civilians in West Papua and breaches of sanctions against Russia.
• BAE Systems, whose fighter-bombers have been used in Yemen and whose deals have been tied to massive bribery scandals.
• Qioptiq / Excelitas, providing military optics to regimes known for human rights abuses.
• L3 Harris, whose bomb racks have seen use in conflicts in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ethiopia, and Libya.
• Elbit Systems, a key part of Israel’s drone fleet involved in attacks condemned as potential genocide in Gaza.

An open letter to Paul Reeve, CEO of the NEC Group, signed by over 400 individuals and 30 organisations including Pax Christi and the Peace Pledge Union. Their Peace Dove mascot delivered it to the NEC on 21 January.

In their letter, the campaigners said hosting the arms fair goes against the NEC’s stated commitment to honest, ethical business.

The UK arms industry alone emits over 1.4m tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. And it has links to nearly half of all international trade corruption cases.

The spokesperson added:

The NEC cannot claim to be a responsible, ethical venue while hosting an event that fuels oppression and destruction around the world.

Campaigners are calling on the NEC to refuse to host the next SDSC-UK.

Featured image via Hugh Warwick / Flickr

Jeremy Corbyn has demanded a focus on the victims of Jeffrey Epstein as the scandal surrounding Peter Mandelson grows. Speaking from the Central Lobby on 5 February, Corbyn called for the US authorities to interview Mandelson and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

Victims of Epstein’s vile network will be scarred forever by the horrific abuse they suffered. It is them we should be thinking about.
pic.twitter.com/EBgrCCUJnC

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) February 5, 2026

Corbyn makes plea

Corbyn rightly emphasised that the political activity around the latest Epstein File releases should not overshadow the woman and girls involved in these sex trafficking rings. Pointing out the tragic case of Virginia Giuffre who sadly died by suicide in April 2025, he continued:

Others are in a desperate situation. They will be scarred forever by the experience of the behaviour of Jeffrey Epstein. It is the victims we should be thinking about.

Corbyn’s suggestion that both Mandelson and Mountbatten-Windsor would only be questioned under voluntary circumstances is worrying. These two perverted predators should be in fucking prison, not being politely asked to consider facing justice.

Unaccountable

These remarks are absolutely right. It’s the women and girls who have had their lives ruined who should be at the forefront of these investigations.

As Maddison Wheeldon wrote for the Canary:

It is time we empathise and choose to empower women and girls, not continue this toxic cycle of even the reveal of abuse not centring the abused.

Featured image via Sky News

1) “You always…” or “you never…”

2) “Boo-hoo, poor you…” or “You’re so dramatic”

3) “If you really loved me…” or “I thought I meant more to you than that…”

4) “Other couples don’t have this problem” or “My ex never did this”

5) “I don’t care, you do you,” or “I don’t want to tell you what you should do, you know best”