Police probe Reform's energy competition

Last week, Rats in a Sack reported on how Reform’s national competition for one winner and their entire street to get their energy bills paid for by the party for a full year had been astonishingly won by an active party member.

The raffle – a stunt designed to bring attention to the party’s back-of-a-fag-packet policy to cut household energy bills- was launched last month, and last week Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick knocked on the door of an unsuspecting couple in Wigan to present a woman called June with a bunch of flowers and one of those giant cheques which used to appear in local newspaper pictures 30 years ago.

It didn’t take long for June and her husband to turn out to be active members of Reform going back years, with photos online showing them at a Brexit Party rally with Ann Widdecombe at the home of non-league football club AFC Fylde as long ago as 2019. They had also recently signed nomination papers for a Reform candidate.

Now police in Greater Manchester are investigating whether Reform have broken any laws with their sham competition. The Rozzers are reviewing a complaint that the Turquoise Tories broke electoral rules.

Suggested Reading

What will Viktor Orbán’s landslide defeat mean for poor Matt Goodwin?

Rats in a Sack

Greater Manchester Police have said in a statement it had received a report about the competition and that officers “are currently reviewing the matter”, but did not disclose what the potential offence is. But Karl Turner, the MP who had his Labour whip removed in March, said such competition might have broken an arcane law on “treating” if it happened inside the pre-election period for local authorities.

Reform’s free energy bills competition ran from March 17-31 and the winners were announced on April 9. The pre-election period began on March 30. A corrupt practice under the Representation of the People Act 1983, according to the Electoral Commission, treating occurs “if food, drink, entertainment or other provisions are directly or indirectly given to voters to corruptly influence how they vote”.

Zia Yusuf, Reform’s spokesperson for home affairs, has said those who reported the competition to police “should be embarrassed”, telling Sky News at the weekend: “I know for a fact we had some outstanding lawyers, multiple lawyers, look at all of this. We’re extremely comfortable with our position.”

Still, there could be other issues for Reform, too. Sky have reported that concerns have been raised about Reform’s handling of the collected personal data.

As Rats in a Sack wrote when the competition was launched on March 17: “Simply by handing over all your details to Farage’s party you too could be the one picked – and it’s open to everyone, not just Reform members (all of whose data the party is already in possession of). Which begs all manner of questions. What precisely does the party intend to do with all that data?”