Andreas Baader

Reform UK's vetting question, and the pattern behind it Today the BBC reports that the CPS has charged George Madgwick, leader of Reform UK in Hampshire, with 35 offences against four people between 2008 and 2021. He is due at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on Wednesday 25 November. He is presumed innocent. The allegations are for a court and nothing here is a comment on them. I'm leading with it because of what it asks of the party's vetting. Madgwick appeared in the ITV News Exposure film voicing support for the Portsmouth Patriots. Afterwards he accused ITV of "electoral interference", saying the undercover reporters potentially had an "impact on the result" of council elections. Hampshire police say their investigation began on 24 July 2025 and that they first arrested him on 6 January 2026. So the questions for Reform are about the party and don't depend on any verdict. When did it learn of the investigation, and of the arrest? What was his status afterwards? Was he campaigning for the party in May? Those are questions Reform can answer now. THE PATTERN That question lands after two undercover investigations in six weeks. Different broadcasters, different material. The party's response followed the same script both times. THURSDAY 3 SEPTEMBER: CHANNEL 4 NEWS AND VERBATIM Reporters posed as the UK-based son of a wealthy American donor. On camera, James Orr, Reform's head of policy, and Dan Jukes, a long-standing aide to Nigel Farage, arranged for the fictional American company to pay for £32,500 of polling. The polls ran in the Telegraph and the Times as apparently independent research. Foreign companies are not permissible donors under UK electoral law. Orr called the Electoral Commission "completely useless" and "so dumb and ineffective". Jukes said the projects "don't show up anywhere in public records". Farage met the pair at Clacton in late July. He called the polling "amazing" and "bang for buck", and said "it worked, boom". Reform's response, in order. That night: a "hoax perpetuated by foreign-funded, climate change activists". Before 8am on Friday: Orr and Jukes had "stepped down", it was "right to get rid of this distraction straight away", and there was "no chance" of them returning. Around 8.30am, on LBC: Farage said the programme had "managed to get a couple of our contractors to say things that on the face of it look injudicious". Jukes was Farage's paid aide from 2017 and was registered at Companies House as a director of Farage Media Ltd from December 2020. Orr holds Reform's own Head of Policy title. From "no chance of return" to "a couple of contractors" took about two hours. SUNDAY 18 OCTOBER: ITV NEWS EXPOSURE ITV's undercover reporters filmed Reform councillors and candidates. In Solihull, Cllr Alan Feeney called Asian families "absolute parasites". Cllr Chris Whelan, speaking about a female Reform candidate, said: "If she was my daughter, it would still be bath night on a Thursday… I'll wash you properly this time." Cllr Jamie Campbell, on a planned mosque, said: "go and buy some pork chops". In the same investigation, Reform MP Sarah Pochin was filmed saying male colleagues are "so f***ing chauvinistic". Robert Jenrick denies it. What happened next. Feeney resigned from Reform and sits as an independent. The Ministry of Justice suspended him from his Prison Service job. Whelan resigned from Reform, then from the council. Campbell stayed, and is now Reform's deputy group leader in Solihull. Reform called his comment "a joke in poor taste" and took no further action. Reform's response: investigations had "commenced", "due process must be followed", and "a handful of individuals who do not share our values will initially make it through vetting". It also reported ITV to the police. WHAT REPEATS Both times the first answer was to attack the people who made the film. Hoax, foreign-funded activists, a police report. Reform should be finished, this can't continue.