We can see how Reform UK operates at the moment with Reform councils banning journalists and Farage’s nasty reaction when he was asked about his tax affair in relation to his Clacton house.
While Nigel Farage publicly claims to champion free speech, Reform-led councils in Kent and Nottinghamshire have effectively banned journalists from asking questions, contradicting those claims.
At the RUK 2025 conference Nigel Farage reacted angrily when questioned by a Daily Mirror reporter about his tax affairs, calling her “disgusting” before a security guard physically pushed her away. The reporter can be heard saying “whoa” and “Jesus Christ” in footage captured by The Mirror. A person standing beside her asks if she’s okay after she stumbles backwards. The confrontation followed revelations that Farage avoided paying around £44,000 in stamp duty on his Clacton home because the property was bought solely in his partner Laura Ferrari’s name.
RUK lawyers attempted to intimidate a small Welsh news website
- Nation.Cymru, a small independent Welsh news site, was threatened with legal action by a barrister representing Reform UK after publishing a story naming Ed Sumner, Reform’s director of communications, in relation to a Senedd standards investigation.
- The investigation concerned former Tory MS Laura Anne Jones, now with Reform UK, who faced suspension for using a racist term in WhatsApp messages. Sumner had also sent offensive messages in the same chat.
- Reform UK’s barrister, Adam Richardson, described as a Reform insider and long-time Farage associate, claimed Sumner’s privacy had been breached and demanded his name be removed, threatening legal action and regulatory complaints.
- Nation.Cymru rejected the claims, arguing Sumner had no legitimate privacy expectation because they had previously named him in an earlier story about the leaked messages.
- Richardson escalated the threat by starting a pre-claim legal process, but Nation.Cymru refused to comply and instead published an article calling out what they saw as bullying intended to suppress journalism.
- After the public pushback, the news site heard nothing further from Richardson.
- The author argues that such tactics are intended to intimidate smaller news outlets into silence, drawing parallels to “Trumpian” behaviour and warning how a future Reform government might treat critical media.
- Nation.Cymru advises other news organisations not to “play the bully’s game”:
- stand firm if confident in the legality of reporting,
- avoid being dragged into expensive legal processes unnecessarily,
- publicly expose intimidation attempts.
- The piece criticises larger outlets for sometimes giving in to similar pressure, which the author says emboldens powerful actors.
- It calls for solidarity among journalists and urges the UK government to legislate against SLAPP lawsuits, legal actions used by wealthy individuals or organisations to silence critical reporting.
STOP REFORM UK 