Reform UK overtakes conservative membership Niger farage calls it historic kemi Badenoch says numbers are fake

Reform UK and Nigel Farage have been involved in a series of furious exchanges online with Tory leader Kemi Badenoch.

According to a digital counter on the party's website, Reform UK had gone past 131,690 members - the amount the Conservative Party declared before its leadership election in the autumn - just before midday on Boxing Day.

Mr Farage, party leader and MP for Clacton-on-Sea, hailed the "historic moment" and said on X: "The youngest political party in British politics has just overtaken the oldest political party in the world. Reform UK are now the real opposition."

But Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused the party of issuing misleading figures: "Manipulating your own supporters at Xmas eh, Nigel?. It's not real. It's a fake... [the website has been] coded to tick up automatically."

Reform UK also shared a video of the membership tracker being projected on to the Conservative Party headquarters in London overnight.

Zia Yusuf, party chairman, also said "history has been made today" and that the Tories' "centuries-long stranglehold on the centre-right of British politics" has "finally been broken".

Mr Farage hit back at Ms Badenoch, who strongly contested Reform UK's figures. He claimed to have proof and posted a screenshot of an online register reportedly showing 'active memberships'.

"We understand you are bitter, upset and angry that we are now the second biggest party in British politics, and that the Conservative brand is dying under your leadership. However, this not an excuse to accuse us of committing fraud," he wrote on X.

Mr Yusuf added to the debate by appearing to goad Ms Badenoch about an audit: "We will gladly invite a Big 4 audit firm to verify our membership numbers on the basis that you do the same."

In response, a Conservative Party spokesman said: "Reform has delivered a Labour Government that has cruelly cut winter fuel payments for 10 million pensioners, put the future of family farming and food security at risk, and launched a devastating raid on jobs which will leave working people paying the price.

"A vote for Reform this coming May is a vote for a Labour council - only the Conservatives can stop this."

According to research from the House of Commons Library, there is no uniformly recognised definition of party membership and no established method or body to monitor the number of members each political group has.

Reform UK was also originally set up as a limited company, but Mr Farage said he would change the party's structure to be member-owned in September.