We’ve got Farage rattled

In making another complaint against HOPE not hate, Nigel Farage is seeking revenge for our campaigned that stopped Reform UK in Makerfield. Like there, he is likely to leave empty-handed

Yesterday, just as everyone was finishing up for the day, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage announced on X that he was lodging a formal complaint to the Electoral Commission about our campaign in the recent Makerfield by-election, accusing HOPE not hate of breaking the law by spending too much.

This comes just a few weeks after he made another complaint about us, this time to the Charity Commission, accusing us of having used charitable donations for a political campaign. The Charity Commission investigated, and concluded that there was no case to answer. We are just as confident that we have abided by the rules here too.

Farage argued that it would have been impossible for us to run our campaign without exceeding the £700 limit that we are entitled to spend, by law, as a third party campaign group. He cited as evidence our 5,000 Carol Vorderman letters and also claimed that we have spent several thousand pounds on Facebook ads in Greater Manchester over the last few weeks.

As usual, Farage has it all wrong. The letters were hand-delivered and the ads he refers to did not go out in Makerfield.

Farage’s complaints against us were part anger, part deflection, and one can perhaps detect no small dose of fear. He is furious that we played such a crucial role in stopping Reform from winning the Makerfield by-election. By collaborating with Carol Vorderman to write to 13,000 women in the constituency, we were able to expose the vile sexist views of the party’s candidate and also ensured that the issue dominated the entire election campaign.

In true Trump style, Farage’s complaint was also designed to deflect attention from his torrid media circuit on Tuesday morning. After weeks of hiding from the media to escape scrutiny about the £5m donation he received just before he became an MP, he was assailed on that very subject by one broadcaster after another. Some interviewers really went after him and it turned out to be a searing experience for Farage, so what better way to change the conversation than launch an attack on us?

We are confident that his complaint will go nowhere. HOPE not hate’s campaigning in Makerfield was carefully tracked so as to remain within relevant electoral law spending limits. Just as importantly though, if he thinks that his constant attacks on us will scare us off, he really hasn’t grasped who we are. I’ve been in this game for too long and I know when someone is unnerved, and I also know that the best response is to double-down on our investigations, exposées and campaigning, and to keep rattling his cage!