Reform And The Phantom Menace

Hardly has the General Election result been reported and picked over, than suspicion has been aroused as regards some of the candidates who stood for Reform UK, the domain of self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage and his pals. It was put to his side-kick Richard Tice (he’s not very nice) that some Reform candidates may not even have existed.

This was put to Tice by Robert Peston on the latter’s ITV show, causing the Reform man to lose it in no style at all. “It is a total fabricated lie that is nothing short of defamatory, libellous and totally outrageous. We’ve proved it to people like [the Lib Dems] and the Guardian and still they print this utter trash and garbage. I’m steaming mad about it”. Steaming, Goon Show fans!

There was more. “To suggest that we put forward false names and candidates - one of whom was in hospital at the count with pneumonia, nearly died for heaven’s sake. People need to get a grip”. Tice’s problem was that people were indeed getting a grip - like those asking questions getting a very firm grip of the narrative. Peter Walker of the Guardian had a correction.

“Reform have *not* as yet provided details to prove the identities of some candidates. We emailed them yesterday at 11am with three names (not mentioned in the story) asking for evidence. We are yet to get a reply”. Meanwhile, the candidate who had “almost died” took just 96 hours from that moment to be videoed dancing around his kitchen.

Mark Matlock had used a clearly doctored photo, for which he made a variety of excuses - it had to be edited so his tie could appear to be in the Reform UK colours, or that the photographers had all been booked up. He then appeared with apprentice gobshite Patrick Christys on Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”) to show he was a real person. However.

He looked nothing like the photo, and also appeared to have problems with his use of English. “Unfortunately I will not be attending the count tonight as I have pneumonia. The hospital I visited was closed before it’s [sic] closing time. I said to the nurse on a buzzer I am struggling to breath [sic] and she said call a number”. 96 hours later and he’s bopping around his house.

They seek them here, they seek them there, they seek Reform UK candidates everywhere

And on the subject of defamation, Peter Jukes of Byline Times noted "While Tice rages about ‘defamation’ he should remember Farage admitted there was no proper vetting of the candidates, and this is a matter of high public interest (and therefore has a public interest defence) given Reform are seeking public ‘short money’ dependent on votes cast”. Quite.

Furthermore, Byline Times had discovered more Reform UK candidates who were absent elsewhere when their counts happened. “Now Mark Matlock has been verified (with quite an amazing recovery from the pneumonia that kept him away from the count) we have at least 30 other Reform candidates who have not been identified or have other potential issues with their declaration”.

There was more. “Overnight the number of unverified candidates with no official photo or presence at the count has risen to 50. At best, these may be ‘paper candidates’ - but it is still bizarre that they require no photo ID or verification, unlike voters”. We have also seen one reliable right-wing shill site trying to put journalists off asking all those inconvenient questions.

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog told anyone not yet asleep “Some dark corners of the sanctimonious left’s presence on Twitter have been frantically trying to come to terms with the fact that Reform did so well at the election. Their chosen conspiracy? That Reform’s ‘paper candidates’ in unwinnable seats aren’t real people at all”.

So that’s an admission that Reform UK fielded “paper candidates”. Spend a few thousand notes on online ads, and add the rest of the £55,000 per candidate spending allowance to the pot for pushes in winnable seats. Not illegal. But if any of those candidates aren’t even “paper candidates”, that’s different. And the Fawkes folks don’t want anyone going there.

All of which means investigations will continue. Questions, questions, eh?

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