Was your Reform candidate a fake?

[noblegiraffe]

We know that the election was called unexpectedly and that small parties had to rush around last minute to find people to stand in all the constituencies. We know that Reform had problems with (lack of) vetting and some of theirs had to be dropped mid-campaign due to being problematic.

I saw a couple of amusing videos on twitter about someone worried that their Glaswegian Reform candidate Helen Burns didn't actually exist
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808772750938448124?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g
https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1808857245456773492?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

This morning I see that the North Northumberland Reform candidate Katherine Hales was suspiciously absent from all proceedings.

https://x.com/josiahmortimer/status/1809583328049168541?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

Clifford Ronald Thomas Bond in York Central also had no photos and the same generic leaflet as Helen Burns.

Helen Burns got 1655 votes, Katherine Hales got 7688 votes, Cliff Bond got 4721 votes. These start stacking up when you are talking about vote share and they're not the only missing candidates.

Did your Reform candidate appear to be a real person standing for election? Are there rules requiring people standing for election to actually do anything apart from be a name on paper? It seems suspicious, particularly if that party is now banging on about their vote share, if it came via dodgy means.

Mine was definitely real, he has been on the telly several times.

Excellent thread. So many candidates who nobody had ever seen evidence of! Nigel and his imaginary friends.

I think mine was real too, her leaflet was definitely not generic and had personal details. But did these other anonymous candidates actually exist and fill out the paperwork without any intention of campaigning, or were they just fraud?

Are the police or electoral commission looking into this? Surely it's a crime?

Ours was real.

Paper candidates has always been a thing with parties who want their party name on all or most ballots in the country. It tends to be in seats they know they won't win and aren't even trying to win. It's just name PR.

However I have always assumed there has to be proof they are a real person. I don't think there is a legal obligation to turn up to the count and announcement.

Mine appeared to be real but lived nowhere near the constituency, i.e. around 150 miles away.

Ours was kicked out for being a former BNP member.

i think the more interesting question is how were they funded.

Ours got 4,406 votes. She lives about 150 miles from us according to the ballot. She didn’t step foot in our constituency. She has zero online presence. We don’t know a single thing about her, yet 4,406 must have thought “She sounds like she’d be an excellent representative for our local area”.

No, they were a local person who has been an active community member for years and they were very visible throughout the campaign. I was surprised to find out they were standing for Reform though.

Usually they are members of a party who have no actual intention or ambition to fulfil the role and they don't expect to win.

I saw a video where Farage admitted the guy who won the Thurrock seat was a paper candidate who offered his name up 2 weeks before the election not expecting to win at all.

So occasionally it can be a dangerous game if you really didn't want to be an MP or Councillor.

The candidate for York was dead.

Awkward!

More likely they just saw ‘Reform’ on the ballot paper and thought they were voting for Lizard King Farage himself!

A lot of candidates were parachuted in, our Tory one wasn't local but was going to buy a house if he won, Reform one was going to get a flat locally and the Labour was originally from somewhere different, I do prefer candidates to be more local and lived in the constituency for a while but none of our top three were that

A candidate needs to be known to a minimum of 10 voters in the constituency they are standing in. A candidate does not need to campaign in any way, or be resident in the constituency, or set foot in the constituency.

If a candidate does not exist, and 10 voters have said they do - obviously that is fraud. If 10 voters have not said they do exist, and Reform have faked their signatures, that is also fraud.

I expect they exist, and 10 voters in their constituency did know them and vouch for them

Ours was/is real. He lives down the road and has lovely racist posters on his car/house. Delightful man. At the local hustings ranted on about bitcoin and conspiracy theories. And still managed to beat local Labour candidate 🙄. On the upside, we did get the useless Tory out (generally tactical voting which explains the low Labour vote, but still..)

The others are interesting though..🤔

I expect they exist, and 10 voters in their constituency did know them and vouch for them

One of the Reform candidates for Bristol lives in Gibraltar. When the voters in the constituency have to 'know' them, what does that actually mean? Merely know that they exist?

Oops. How did he manage to sign the forms?

How could you tell?
Several politicians look inanimate. Maybe they've just been propped up in the House of Commons. They could've passed on to a better place and noone noticed.

Edit: 'A better place' being of course, the House of Lords.

Facebook friends?

Find 10 people in Bristol and them to follow on Twitter.

If not outright lying I could see something like that. Electoral rules may not have caught up with technology and explicitly outlawed being online 'friends'.

Mark Matlock who stood for reform in Clapham and Brixton Hill looks suspiciously AI generated...

My local candidate was unfortunately real.

Mark Matlock has as part of his campaign literature "We should manage the transfer of human jobs to AI responsibly." 👀

At least if they got elected they wouldn't do any damage.

I read an interesting article about this. It mentioned Mark Matlock, other candidates also suspect he was AI generated.

https://bylinetimes.com/2024/07/03/reform-uks-invisible-candidates-who-are-they-hiding/

OMG I just looked this up https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/who-is-james-mcmurdock-meet-reform-s-new-south-basildon-and-east-thurrock-mp/ar-BB1pw9Fh

He looks incredibly pissed off. I'm sure he will be an excellent and dedicated MP instead of continuing his career in banking.