STOP REFORM UK

Reform scandals

Reform UK has ongoing scandals at all levels of the party, from its leadership to MPs, candidates and supporters.

Read about the Russian bribery scandal that brought down RUK’s deputy here.

Reform UK MPs


Nigel Farage

Suella Braverman defected to RUK in 2026 and her time as Home Secretary was marked by multiple scandals, including her controversial comments on immigration, her handling of protests, and her proposal to deport migrants to Rwanda. She was sacked twice from her position due to her inflammatory statements and policies that were criticized for being divisive and harmful to marginalized communities.

Robert Jenrick also defected in 2026. He faced calls to resign over approving a £1bn development by a Conservative Party donor, which was later deemed unlawful due to apparent bias. The decision allowed the developer to avoid paying millions in additional charges, and Jenrick denied any actual bias. Robert Jenrick made racist comments about Handsworth, Birmingham, where he stated he “didn’t see another white face” and described the area as “one of the worst integrated places” he had ever visited. 

Reform MP Sarah Pochin blatant racist language after she complained about adverts being “full of black people, full of Asian people”. She is also accused of ‘complete fabrication’ over boxing club funding boast.

Reform MP Lee Anderson has made dismissive comments about women dealing with biological issues like menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause which reveal a lack of empathy and understanding. He attempted to trivialize these issues by defending men’s issues related to the “Battle of the Somme” during World War One. 

Laura Anne Jones, Reform UK’s sole member of the Welsh Parliament, has been suspended for two weeks after an investigation found she used a racial slur in an office WhatsApp group. The Senedd’s standards commissioner concluded the comments reflected a workplace culture lacking respect and awareness of offensive language.

RUK councillors scandals

There are multiple RUK councillors scandals listed below with the council name in alphabetical order.

Cambridgeshire County Council

Andy Osborn faced police probe over alleged “malicious” election comments in June 2025 about another candidate. He reportedly denies the claims.

Andy Osborn called some children in care “downright evil” has been removed from his committee role, after his party called the comments “clumsy and regrettable”. 

Chester Council

Amanda Clare was charged with assault and criminal damage protesting against a Pride event (she denies the charges).

Doncaster City Council

  • Mark Broadhurst was expelled from the Reform UK group following allegations of racist social media activity including a meme suggesting Hitler would have been “a legend” if he’d chosen to exterminate Muslims instead of Jews
  • RUK councillors in Doncaster attempted to create a business, which would have dealt directly with the council to help manage Doncaster Sheffield Airport, for “financial gain”. (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c237108798jo) 

Durham

Councillor and anti-migrant content creator Cllr Darren Grimes was demonetised by Meta after it flagged him as an elected official, raising questions about undeclared income. While he lists his company, D-Dog Media Ltd, on council records, there’s no obligation to disclose clients or payers, including revenue from social media platforms like Facebook or X.

Epping Forest

Reform councillor suspended over ‘racist’ posts at Epping hotel protests. James Regan, elected as a councillor for Epping Forest District Council in May, called asylum seekers ‘paedophiles’ and Muslims ‘evil’ in social media posts https://archive.ph/Vsxur

Epping Town Council

James Regan was suspended by Reform UK after calling the Bell Hotel holding asylum seekers in Epping a “paedophile babysitting centre”. Here is RUK cllr James Regan at a racist anti-refugee rally.

Lancashire

Leicestershire

Lincolnshire

Reform Lincolnshire council leader Sean Matthews has suggested circumcision leads to transgenderism in children.

Liverpool

Reform UK councillor Joel Tetlow under fire for likening small boat arrivals to a “Nazi invasion” using a Hitler meme. 

Kent

  • Daniel Taylor wad suspended and had the whip removed in June following a matter now with the police. He denies threatening to kill his wife.
  • Cllr Chris Hespe, defected to RUK from the Tories. He has an X account which has been prolifically sharing racist material. Hespe has posted extreme images by Paul Golding, leader of Britain First, and Keith Woods, the Irish white nationalist. He has called for Tommy Robinson to be knighted and shared a meme of Adolf Hitler. His posts were uncovered by Reform Exposed.
  • Councillor Terry Mole failed to name his firm on his register of interests, or respond to questions about it from his constituent, prompting a formal complaint.
  • Councillor Robert Ford has been suspended over an “unofficial complaint” from several female members of staff. Ford “refused to engage” with the complaints process and is planning to take legal action.

Medway

Cllr Robbie Lammas, now deputy leader of Reform Medway, who according to a report in the Express, the former Tory aide was found by a parliamentary investigation to have bullied and harassed a colleague. Lammas is said to have “abused his position of authority” and left a junior staff member “vulnerable, upset, undermined, humiliated and threatened”. He denies wrongdoing.


North Northamptonshire

  • Robert Bloom resigned as councillor in August after being accused of shouting the N-word at a black neighbour and her family. He has so far refused to comment.
  • Former RUK cllr John Allen likes to made racist, homophobic and violent comments. He is a particularly unpleasant bigot who enjoys cracking racist jokes and spewing his toxic politics into the comment sections under YouTube videos. In just the past fortnight he claimed he would like to shoot and/or hang Keir Starmer from a lamppost if given the opportunity, and has made frequent racist comments over the past five years. RUK has suspended him from the party.

Nottinghamshire County Council

The Reform UK councillor now responsible for environmental policies at Nottinghamshire County Council says man-made climate change is a “hoax”. Bert Bingham, elected as a Reform councillor for Worksop West following the May 1 county council election, says he will be doing everything in his power to “end the net zero crime”. Also enjoy this breakdown of a catastrophic interview with a clearly clueless “senior reform UK councillor” who is forced to read from a script at one point, as well as confess to his total ignorance on a number of matters.

Southport

Cllr Morris has made a series of racist and bigoted social media posts.

Staffordshire

Warwickshire
Reform’s boy wonder – 19-year-old George Finch, the youngest council leader in British history – is being investigated for alleged contempt of court in an upcoming child rape case.

Far-right, racist Reform candidates 

Farage claims that Reform UK is a “non-racist” party, despite many instances of racist comments or actions from party members. Farage tends to distance himself from these incidents, often claiming they are “moles” or not representative of the party.

For the 2025 local elections:

  • HOPE not hate research shows the range of RUK candidates standing in the 2025 local elections that post hate, push far-right conspiracies, and praise extremists.
  • In Lancashire, Joe Custodio, a Reform candidate who came within 100 votes of being elected to Lancashire County Council in the May by-elections, recently attended a far-right event organised by Patriotic Alternative. Patriotic Alternative have been known to support deportation of people of ‘migrant descent’, advocated for political violence, and supported white genocide conspiracy theories and Holocaust denial, according to Hope Not Hate. Reform UK said he’s not a member of the party – and the local branch said he never had been – but this is not a requirement to stand for the party in an election. (https://national.thelead.uk/p/unpicking-starmers-dog-whistle-politics)
  • RUK candidate in Corby, Nigel Clarke, 64, appeared in court charged with one count of stalking against the woman in Corby, which is alleged to have taken place between February and April 2025. Clarke denied the accusation.
  • Reform councillor Alexander Jones, who ran for mayor in Doncaster in May, has been accused of making openly racist comments online. According to Byline Times, in a now-deleted post following the train attack on Sunday, Jones explicitly attributed the crime to “individuals” who were “not English” and instead “Black and of Caribbean descent”. When a commenter noted that the killer was British, Jones replied that being “English” is tied to racial “lineage” and “Anglo-Saxon heritage”. (https://national.thelead.uk/p/reform-watch-bus-lanes-back-tracks)

For the 2024 general election, Reform showed a consistent failure to vet suitable candidates, examples of this included: 

(Source: HOPE not hate State of Hate 2025, https://hopenothate.org.uk/2024/04/03/more-hateful-reform-candidates-exposed/)

Rupert Lowe was elected as a Reform UK MP in 2024 and in March 2025 was accused of bullying and threatening behaviour towards Reform party colleagues, and is no longer a Reform MP and reported to the police. It looks likely that this was the response to Lowe criticising Farage in an interview. Then it look likely that Lowe was lying about communications with the Reform lawyer.  This civil war has forced supporters to pick a side. Many are hoping that this will fatally weaken Reform but we can’t assume this, they will likely bounce back, Farage is good at this.


James McMurdock was expectantly elected as a Reform UK MP in 2024 and has a violent past, involving an assault where he pleaded guilty to kicking a woman while she was on the ground. Initially, Reform UK claimed to have known about the conviction but downplayed its relevance. However, as details emerged, Farage attempted to distance the party from the scandal, suggesting the party hadn’t properly vetted McMurdock. (State of Hate P26-29)


Reform UK’s Dodgy Operations


Has Reform UK been stealing data from those visiting its website? It is reported by the Guardian that Reform UK tracked users’ browsing data without consent, sending sensitive information to Facebook’s parent company, Meta. The tool, active for at least two years, captured details like viewed pages and clicked buttons, including potentially revealing political beliefs. The party, which claims to prioritize privacy, removed the tracker after being contacted. The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating the breach in the summer of 2024. Experts raised ethical concerns about digital surveillance, as such data can be used for targeted political ads, potentially influencing voter behaviour without proper consent, violating data protection laws. 


Did ‘invisible’ Reform UK candidates have affected the outcome of 6 seats in the 2024 general election? During the election, Reform UK was accused of standing multiple ‘invisible’ candidates. The election watchdog, the Electoral Commission received a flood on complains with a spokesperson for the commission stating it was a police matter. Reform UK stated that all candidates were real. To illustrate the weakness of UK election rules a YouTuber stood in 11 different seats. Bylines Times found that Reform ‘invisible’ candidates may of decided the outcome of at least six seats in the general election: “Byline Times has uncovered half a dozen seats where Reform candidates, who appeared to have no public photos or biographies in the run-up to the election, secured more votes than the margin between the winning party and the runners-up.”


Reform UK is facing legal action from two former employees who claim they were summarily sacked being owed thousands in back pay. The employees have filed legal complaints and Reform  said the employees had “attempted to bring legal claims against the party based on what we have reason to believe are fraudulent and forged ‘employment contracts” (Sources: https://youtu.be/dTL1t86GGiA?si=N4qc3EbieX5eiYXj, https://archive.ph/4O17Y#selection-2151.0-2151.169) 


Controversial Reform UK activists and campaigners

Reform UK is riddled with racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry and extreme far-right views. 

During the 2024 election campaign:

  • a Reform UK candidate said that Britain should have taken up the Nazis’ “offer of neutrality” rather than fighting World War Two. 
  • The Reform UK’s party spokesperson agreed, saying it was “probably true”. 
  • One Reform UK councillor shared posts that spread racist conspiracy theories about “Zionist controllers” and “Jewish supremacism”. 
  • Another of their councillors defended a politician who described the Covid-19 vaccination as “the biggest crime against humanity since the Holocaust”. (Stand up to Racism factsheet)
  • An undercover investigation in Farage’s seat Clacton found evidence of Reform activists being racist, homophobic and breaking campaign spending limits.
  • Reform UK candidates and activists have been running a network of Facebook groups spreading misinformation, conspiracy theories and Islamophobia.
  • A Reform canvasser was caught on camera using racist language about the prime minister Rishi Sunak, and saying the army should “just shoot” asylum seekers crossing the Channel.


Reform UK activists conspiratorial views:

  • Lee O’Shea, Reform’s County Organiser for the West Midlands, is a firm believer in the conspiracy cult QAnon, as well as the ravings of David Icke and Alex Jones. 
  • Sarah Morris, chair of Reform’s Isle of Wight East branch, appears to be greatly concerned by the “chemtrails” theory, which holds that governments around the world are secretly spraying their citizens with toxic fumes disguised in the vapour trails of aeroplanes. 
  • Steve Rubidge, chair of Reform’s Truro and Falmouth branch is a conspiratorial anti-vaxxer and appears to believe that there is evidence of a conspiracy to control the weather. 

(Source: HOPE not hate State of Hate 2025 p38-9)

Reform UK is full of racists

Farage’s Stance on Racism and Reform UK:

  • Farage has made dozens of objectively racists and xenophobic public comments over the years (see here)
  • Farage claims that Reform UK is a “non-racist” party, despite many instances of racist comments or actions from party members. Farage tends to distance himself from these incidents, often claiming they are “moles” or not representative of the party.
  • His comments about London being “unrecognizable as being English” were clearly xenophobic and racist. (see this video on Farage’s racism)

Reform UK campaigners, activists and supporters have all been caught making racist comments, (see here)


Reform UK has a misogyny problem

Click here for more on RUK’s misogynist policies

Reform welcomed Aiden Burley even though he has said that women are a drain on society and the party also defended his views as “truths.” (Burley organised the famous Nazi themed party. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OH-gvzn6cwk&t=132s)

See Farage’s misogynist comments. 

See Reform UK campaigners’ and activists’ misogynist comments.

Reform MP Lee Anderson has made dismissive comments about women dealing with biological issues like menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause which reveal a lack of empathy and understanding. He attempted to trivialize these issues by defending men’s issues related to the “Battle of the Somme” during World War One