‘Invisible’ Reform Candidates Could Have Swung Election Results in These Seats

So-called ‘invisible’ Reform UK candidates may have played a pivotal role in deciding the outcome in at least six constituencies in the General Election. 

Byline Times has uncovered half a dozen seats where Reform candidates, who appeared to have no public photos or biographies in the run-up to the election, secured more votes than the margin between the winning party and the runners-up. 

While there is no evidence to suggest the individuals do not exist, the findings add weight to concerns over Reform UK, a limited company, lacking proper party structures or public figures beyond the tightly-controlled leadership. 

Richard Tice MP and Nigel Farage MP own the vast majority of the company’s shares, and therefore control over what happens, while supporters – there are no formal members – get little to no say. 

Byline Times has now identified around 50 Reform UK candidates for whom almost no information was available to voters before the election, including photos, biographies, direct contact details. We will be publishing more on the ‘information vacuum’ surrounding the party’s super-shy paper candidates in the coming week.

Despite the candidates having zero online presence, many still garnered thousands of votes, netting the party thousands of pounds in potential Short money – public funds that go to parties based on their share of the vote and their number of seats won. National spending limits for parties also increase by £54,010 per seat contested.

In North Northumberland, mysterious candidate Katherine Hales bagged 7,688 votes – more than the 5,067 vote gap between Labour’s victory and the Conservatives’ second place. One voter there told Byline Times‘ VoteWatch project: “There is no social media presence for her at all, and as far as we can recall there was no photograph on her election leaflet.” (Since the publication of this article, Ms Hales has been identified on Facebook)

Birmingham Perry Barr saw an even more dramatic scenario. Reform’s Akshay Khuttan, despite being virtually unknown, secured 2,446 votes in a nail-biting finish where an Independent candidate pipped Labour to the post by just 507 votes.

The trend continued in Horsham, where Hugo Miller’s 6,116 votes for Reform far exceeded the 2,517 vote margin between the winning Lib Dems and the Conservatives.

Sutton & Cheam was a similar story, with Reform candidate Ryan Powell’s 5,787 votes dwarfing the 3,801 vote gap between the victorious Lib Dems and the Tories.

And in the newly created Birmingham Hodge Hill & Solihull North, Jamie Pullin secured 6,456 votes for Reform – a figure that towered above Labour’s 1,566 vote lead over the Workers Party.

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And in the Conservative stronghold of Tatton, Reform’s Oliver Speakman pulled in 5,948 votes, more than the Tories’ 1,136 vote margin over Labour. One local voter told this outlet: “I tried to find out something about him before the election but drew a blank online. [There was] no photograph of him on Reform leaflets, which had picture of Farage and just stock boilerplate text. No photo on Reform website. [He] didn’t appear at hustings events or at the count/results, as I understand.”

Another voter there added: “They sent someone from a neighbouring constituency for one of [the hustings]…We tried to track him down but he had no social media and a Google search only shows a photo of him now, post-election. It didn’t before.”

The South Dorset constituency saw Reform’s Morgan Young bag 8,168 votes, overshadowing Labour’s 1,048 vote lead over the Conservatives.

Little information was available about Hugo Miller in Horsham, until he was dropped by Reform UK after a spate of racist posts were found by Channel 4 to have been posted from his personal Facebook page. 

In two other constituencies, alleged ‘invisible’ Reform candidates came close to potentially tipping the scales. In Selby, David Burns secured 9,565 votes for Reform, just shy of the 10,195 vote difference between Labour’s win and the Conservatives’ second place.

Similarly, in Worcester, Andy Peplow’s 6,723 votes for Reform fell only 393 votes short of the 7,116 vote gap between Labour and the Conservatives.

None of the Reform UK candidates named above had public photos or biographies listed on the Reform or WhoCanIVoteFor websites prior to the election. All but one (Andy Peplow) had no publicly-open X/Facebook profile, according to our analysis.  

We will never be certain how much the truly invisible Reform UK candidates influenced the outcome of the 2024 general election, as we don’t know where their voters’ support may have gone had they not been on the ballot paper. 

Another seven Reform candidates who received a larger vote than the winner’s vote share were accused by voters of being absent during the campaign, in responses to Byline Times. That includes failing to turn up to the count, hustings, and failing to campaign publicly. Paper candidates are common across parties however, so we have not included these in our analysis. 

A spokesperson for Reform UK did not respond to requests for comment. 

Homar Paez contributed to the research.

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