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.

And here is Chris Lonie, a creative brand director, who is 'allergic to wokeness'.

https://x.com/brandideasguy

Guys, guys! Mark Matlock is a brand!!

Ours lost their deposit but definitely were real, they had a hustings in Wetherspoons car park but failed to turn up to the main hustings with the other 5 candidates because they had been drinking and hadn't realised there were no evening buses! (Cabs are like gold dust)

That would be … embarrassing, especially on top of the deceased potential candidate sacked for inactivity.

Kudos for the Helen Burns spot.

There's a female name for the email address. Shame it's not also Helen Burns.

I love this thread.

Well, his Twitter posts are a delight!

Disappeared off X by the looks of it ?????

The Glaswegian has done another Helen Burns video, with a shocking revelation about Reform's office.

https://x.com/kbfilms92/status/1810332007823487459?s=61&t=U9XrcF693-JpMxeIueYG7g

That was quick. I did consider screenshotting but then thought he's not worth it.

I’m sorry I’ve not rtft but just seen The Good Law Project are looking into this .

As is apparently a big law firm and a major broadcaster

The delightful badbrandideasguy must have crossed paths with Alice Roberts. You can see the replies to him still.

Andrew Tate loving Mark Matlock is still on X though.

x.com/vote4markreform/status/1810356229749059888?s=46&t=fMjCB4vFfh_N6mYE72mhHw

I think Max Headroom is angry......

Broadcaster is Channel 4, I think

Sorry, picture didn't attach....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/08/reform-uk-under-pressure-to-prove-all-its-candidates-were-real-people?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

One of the responses to the Kim Blythe film tweet

Might be worth having a chat with her election agent, Thomas David Stark.

Interestingly, he’s also the election agent for some other mysterious Reform UK candidates in Scotland, like Morag McRae

A David Stark was also the Rutherglen candidate

https://x.com/That_Simone_/status/1810343473993732385

"The Guardian has also learned that one Reform candidate suspected of being fake, in part because his official election photo looked AI-generated, is a real person."

Presumably, he's satisfied them enough that he does exist.

I guess if you're allowed a Binface you've also got to be allowed an AI face.

"Separately, it has emerged that Reform raised the most out of all political parties during the fourth week of the election campaign, bringing in almost £600,000 – of which a third was from the party’s new donor, Zia Yusuf.

Yusuf, a Muslim businessman who spoke at a recent Reform rally, is the founder of a luxury concierge company called Velocity Black, and gave Nigel Farage’s party £200,000.

Other donors to Reform include £125,000 from Jeremy Hosking, a businessman who recently backed Laurence Fox’s Reclaim party and the anti-vax former Tory MP Andrew Bridgen."

Bridgen lost his deposit this time.

At least Binface is real !

Funnily enough our reform candidate made much of the time he'd spent living and working in the Netherlands and Germany and what a good experience it was. But he doesn't want people from other countries to have the same experience here. He clearly has suffered an irony bypass.

More intrigue. The Reform candidate for Lewisham North was Edward Powell. This is on the declaration, and on the election results.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2024/uk/constituencies/E14001332

But the Reform website now lists the candidate for Lewisham North as Jonathan Crozier.
https://www.reformparty.uk/lewisham-north-constituency

Jonathan Crozier exists - he stood for the council as a Tory candidate in 2022.

So who is Edward Powell and why the switcheroo?

Someone I follow on twitter identified 3 candidates on Merseyside

3/13 candidates in #Merseyside are “ghosts”. No online profile, campaign materials, images at all. Nothing.

Garston Kiera Hubbard 4406 10.5%
West Derby Jack Boyd 4870 12.8%
St Helens South and Whiston Ray Peters 6974 18.3%

Going off on a tangent now but was curious about Zia Yusuf. He's clearly an atypical Reform supporter.

Found this in the Evening Standard:

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/workaholic-who-smoothes-the-way-for-the-rich-and-famous-a3883296.html

The decision to leave and start Velocity Black with his business partner Alex Macdonald — they met as boys at the posh Hampton School in west London — has paid off. Velocity turned over £12 million in the last financial year and raised $32 million (£24 million) of venture capital just days after the Brexit vote took place.

The rest of the article, from 2018, doesn't really expand on the relevance of Brexit here.