LONDON — In October 2025, Reform UK officials announced that they had personally vetted more than 4,000 candidates and that their screening procedures were "the best in the country." This week, HOPE not Hate and Byline Times published evidence suggesting that the vetting process had, in a number of cases, cleared candidates whose publicly expressed views include admiration for British fascism's founding father, enthusiasm for migrant slave labour camps, and the belief that the late Queen was a fraud.

Reform said each case would be "investigated." In several cases, the candidates had already been investigated before and reselected. The party described this as consistent with their process.

The Candidates in Question

Arnold Tabor, standing in South Elmsall and South Kirkby in Wakefield, had expressed admiration for Oswald Mosley — the leader of the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s — and stated that he wanted to keep migrants in "slave labour camps" and wished to "crush birthrates in Africa." He passed Reform's vetting.

Separate investigations identified three Reform candidates whose names appeared on a leaked BNP membership list. The party said it was looking into the matter, which is the same thing it said the last time this happened.

In Wales, a candidate for the Senedd had shared posts claiming the Queen was a fraud and expressing support for various conspiracy theories. A candidate in Carmarthenshire had enthusiastically shared content from Tommy Robinson, the anti-Muslim extremist whom Reform publicly disavowed last year and has repeatedly disavowed since without this appearing to deter his supporters from joining the party.

The Fake News Channel That Wasn't

In a separate investigation by Byline Times, a journalist created a fake far-right news channel and used it to interview Reform UK candidates ahead of the elections. The candidates, believing they were speaking to a sympathetic audience, expressed views that differed meaningfully from those in the party's official literature.

More entertainingly, several candidates enthusiastically condemned a series of council decisions — failures on housing, waste management, and local services — that the interviewer had actually attributed to Reform-controlled councils without the candidates realising. The candidates called these failures "exactly what happens under Labour" and "why people need to vote Reform." The interviewer confirmed which councils had made the decisions. The interviews were then published.

"Our vetting procedures are the most rigorous of any party in the country. We take this very seriously. Each case will be fully investigated." — A Reform spokesperson, for approximately the fourteenth time since 2024

Farage's Response

Nigel Farage, asked about the candidates at a campaign event in Barnsley, said the cases were "a tiny minority" and that "every large party has bad apples." He noted that Reform was standing thousands of candidates and that it was "inevitable" some would have unsuitable views. He did not address why the vetting process described as "the best in the country" was not catching them.

When a journalist asked whether he considered the Oswald Mosley comment a disqualifying view, Farage said "of course" and that the candidate "would not be representing Reform." The candidate remained on the ballot at time of publication.

Things Reform's best-in-the-country vetting process did not catch:

• A candidate who expressed admiration for Oswald Mosley.
• A candidate who called for migrants to be held in slave labour camps.
• Three candidates who appeared on a BNP membership list.
• Multiple candidates who had publicly supported Tommy Robinson.
• A candidate who believed the Queen was a fraud.
• Candidates who, when given the chance, condemned their own party's record without realising it.

Reform's national campaign team confirmed that candidate vetting had been "significantly strengthened" following previous candidate controversies in 2024, 2025, and earlier in 2026. They described the current round of controversies as "legacy issues" from the previous vetting regime. It is not clear at what point the current regime is expected to produce different results, but party officials expressed confidence that it would, eventually, and that this confidence was itself a form of progress.