Farage claims Reform candidate would have won by-election if only UK citizens voted
Nigel Farage has said Reform’s candidate would have won last week’s by-election if only British citizens had voted.
Reform UK’s Matt Goodwin came second to the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer in the Gorton and Denton by-election, with Labour in third.
Reform UK leader and Clacton MP Mr Farage has since said his party would limit voting in national elections to British citizens and remove the right from those with Commonwealth citizenship who qualify as UK residents.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, he said: “I’m absolutely convinced that amongst British-born voters, Matthew Goodwin came first in that election last week.
“Of that, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever.”
A Green Party spokesperson said: “This is dangerous, racist nonsense from a party who were well beaten, seeking to delegitimise the election, Donald Trump-style.
“In a democracy, everyone’s vote is equal and we attracted voters from across all communities, in all areas, including from those who said they were originally going to vote Reform.
“Farage has no idea who did and didn’t vote for him.
“And, as he said, he always knew they were going to lose. ‘If you don’t like the results of an election, change the electorate’ is the refrain of sore losers and anti-democrats through the ages.”
Mr Farage’s belief that allowing Commonwealth citizens to vote “undermines national sovereignty” and leads to elections being fought over international rather than domestic issues is behind the plan to remove their right to vote in national polls, Reform UK has said.
Asked if he was worried that the policy could be seen as an effort to cut out voters unlikely to support his party, Nigel Farage said that many other “normal” countries already do this.
He said: “I do believe for national elections they should be they should be voted on by British voters only, absolutely.
“Otherwise, we get a really, very, very perverse influence on our politics, where people are voting more about Gaza than they are about Gorton.”
Reform UK Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick said many other countries including the US and Japan already limit voting rights to citizens.
Mr Farage added: “We just want to be a normal country and normal countries protect their borders, protect their democratic systems, know what works and what doesn’t.”
Reform also wants to restrict postal voting.
Currently, anyone eligible to vote in UK elections can choose to do so by post but under Reform UK’s plans this would be limited to the elderly, disabled, serving armed forces personnel and those working overseas during an election.
Mr Farage warned on Monday of the “mass harvesting” of postal ballots.
“I don’t trust the postal voting system. I don’t trust the electoral register,” he said.
The Reform UK leader has complained about postal voting in the past, including when Ukip lost the Oldham West and Royton by-election in 2015 and when his Brexit Party lost the Peterborough by-election in 2019.
Postal ballots
Reform UK MP Richard Tice questioned the validity of postal ballots when his party’s candidate lost the Rochdale by-election in 2024, stressing the result should act as a “serious wake-up call” to the electorate and those in power.
In none of those cases was postal voting fraud ever proved and none resulted in any convictions.
The latest Electoral Commission data, from 2024, shows no evidence of large-scale election fraud in the UK, with 94% of allegations resolved locally with “words of advice”, or resulting in the police taking no further action.
Reform has also asked police to investigate allegations of election fraud after reports of “family voting” – an illegal practice where two voters use one polling booth and potentially direct each other on voting.
Election observer group Democracy Volunteers warned it had witnessed “concerningly high levels” of family voting in Gorton and Denton.
Confidence
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “While the vast majority of people vote lawfully, any instance of family voting is unacceptable. It undermines confidence in our democratic process.
“It’s essential that every elector is able to cast their vote in secret and free from any form of coercion.
“It is a serious offense to accompany another person into a polling booth with the intention of influencing how they can vote and this can carry criminal penalties, including imprisonment.
“We encourage anyone with relevant information to assist Greater Manchester Police and we fully support the Electoral Commission as it considers the report.”
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
So is Mr Farage claiming that excluding voters who were not born in the UK would have led to Reform winning this by-election?
Is there any proof to justify this rather divisive claim?
Does he seriously believe there were huge numbers of oppressed wives who wanted to vote Reform but were forced by their fundamentalist husbands to put their mark next to a party run by a gay Jew?
The biggest problem for Reform is what it means for their green trashing agenda that they were trashed by the Greens.
Insufferable cretinous waste of oxygen of a man.
They want to remove people voting that they do not like, that means different colour, this is Trump 101.
Racist party.
So, not just a bigot, but an innumerate bigot who can’t even reason in a straight line. What a wicked waste of Oxygen every time he breathes
In other words its only legitimate if they win. I’m pretty sure only UK nationals can vote anyway.
No. The rule is that you must be on the electoral register and ” either a British citizen, a qualifying Commonwealth citizen or a citizen of the Republic of Ireland”. Qualifying means with residence rights. There are reciprocal rights. British citizens in Ireland are potentially eligible to vote in Irish elections for example.
What about UK citizens who choose to live abroad still being eligible to vote in general elections?
Like Tice?
This is downright surreal even for this moron.
I really hope they keep embarrassing themselves into oblivion.
For his claim to be true there would need be 4,402 voters (margin over Reform) who voted Green residing and registered to vote within the constituency who were commonwealth citizens and granted leave to remain in the United Kingdom. Clearly false. About as true as Bath being in Wales.
He also said that Green Party voters don’t work, whilst he was about it. How to widen your potential voting base?
Of course, what Nige really means is that only white people should be allowed to vote.
“We’d have won if all the demographics we demonise weren’t allowed to vote.”
It’s clear as day what his endgame is here, in my view, and that is removing the right to vote from people of certain faiths and origins. Then what’s the next step?
Reform are a dangerous party with increasingly overt fascist policy points. If they ever win power we’ll all be plunged into a nightmare of epic proportions.
What I find most disturbing is that the validity of the vote has been called into question not just by Reform and (laughably, as they got just 1.9% of the vote) the Conservatives (I expect that from both of them as they are fundamentally anti-democratic parties) but also the Labour Party. Entitled bad losers doesn’t even begin to describe them.
So, first of all “Stop the Votes”.What next? Banned from certain jobs? Wear a yellow star?
Hmmm postal votes, can’t be trusted, immigrants voted. All sounds very familiar…. Ah, that’s it – he got it from his buddy Trump. Vote Farage – get Trump – it’s as simple as that.
Let’s make a new rule to prevent anyone who isn’t a mediocre cishet white man from voting. I’m sure there won’t be any backlash…
Reform would have won if only Reform voters were allowed to vote and maybe in the future, we could get rid of Reform if only anyone was allowed to vote.
For anyone familiar with the Gorton & Denton constituency area, this assertion of Farage’s lacks credibility. I grew up in south Manchester and returned there – after two decades spent in Wales – to work, and during that period I both lived and was very active in local politics in areas very close to the Gorton/Denton patch. Within that constituency, the only area which has a large immigrant population is Longsight (in the extreme north-west of the constituency, the part nearest to Manchester city centre). That population is overwhelmingly south Asian and culturally Muslim, and it is substantial. To a… Read more »