Reform's energy cost stunt hits yet another snag

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 continues to be the gift that keeps giving – just not in the way that Nigel Farage’s Turquoise Tories intended.

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 in March, and earlier this month 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.

That triumph was followed by police announcing they were investigating whether Reform had broken any laws with their sham competition. Greater Manchester Police are currently reviewing a complaint that Farage’s mob broke electoral rules.

The force has said in a statement that 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.

And with these things tending in occurs in threes, another blow to the PR stunt has now happened: Reform has been accused of excluding at least three households from the prize, despite promising to cover the “whole street”.

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When Farage announced the postcode lottery-style contest, the details specifically told competition entrants: “Win your energy bills paid for a year along with your whole street.”

However, St Malo Road, where lucky winners June and Ray Dibble live, is split in half, divided by the intersecting St Aubyn’s Road. And now the Daily Telegraph has reported that only households in the same half of the road as the competition winners had a congratulations letter posted through their door with instructions on how to put in a claim to Reform.

One resident to miss out, Angie Ecclestone, told the paper she had found out about the prize draw when her sister called to congratulate her on the winnings, assuming she had been included. She said: “Nigel Farage said the whole street [would be included] but we haven’t heard anything. I am in shock. I am the first house on St Malo Road. It’s the whole street or not the street. I am mortified.

“I have the biggest house in the street. It’s five bedrooms. I pay £400 per month on energy. All the other houses are semi-detached but this one is fully detached. I am really up against it.”

A Reform UK spokesman told the paper that “we posted letters physically through some of the doors on the day but weren’t able to deliver to all the addresses on the day,” without explaining what on earth prevented them. “Letters are incoming for the remaining households. We always intended to pay for the whole road, as promised, and will do.”

Certainly one to keep an eye on, especially as one resident who missed out, Fraser Hayes, told the Telegraph that “I am absolutely not a Reform fan and I am appalled that anyone is” and another, Matt Johnson, described the draw as a “trick” and said he did not vote for Farage’s party.