Farage insists he is not to blame for vetting failures, claiming he inherited the issue from Richard Tice
Nigel Farage has admitted that Reform did ‘no due diligence’ on suspended MP James McMurdock before the 2024 general election.
The Reform UK leader, who took over from Richard Tice in June 2024, claimed he “inherited a situation” where hundreds of general election candidates had not been vetted.
McMurdock, the MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock gave up the whip on Saturday amid a Times investigation into government covid support scheme loans he took out during the pandemic.
Shortly after the general election, The Times revealed that McMurdock had failed to disclose a previous criminal charge for assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
Farage told LBC: “There was no due diligence on him [McMurdock] at all. Zero. I mean, I inherited this.
“I said after the general election last year that I’d put proper professional vetting in place. I’ve done that.
“We fielded more candidates than anybody on May 1. There was hardly any arguments at all.”
Despite Farage’s claim he has put “proper professional vetting in place”, the party has lost 11 councillors since May’s local elections, several of which were due suspended or expelled for offensive comments and social media posts.
In March, Farage appointed Jack Aaron, a 2024 Reform UK general election candidate who previously said Hitler was “brilliant” at inspiring people and described the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad as “gentle by nature”.
Farage refused to say whether the allegations against McMurdock were an embarrassment for the party.
Instead, he said “Let’s find out the truth”, and claimed: “I know as much about this right now as you do”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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