Bad Apples or Rotten Orchids? Reform Under the Undercover Lens

Reform UK found itself in deep water following ITV and Verbatim’s year long under-cover investigation. The investigation spotlighted Reform’s most controversial candidates, revealing footage featuring hate-speech and extremist views. As a result, the party’s candidate vetting process has been brought to question. Farage insisted in July 2024 that his party had ‘a few bad apples’. However, recent footage from the undercover operation, and Farage’s waning vetting stance, insists otherwise.

In secretly recorded footage, Reform councillor Feeney was exposed for expressing that the area has been ‘infested’ with Asian families. Feeney revealed an ‘us versus them’ mentality that underpins the party’s overall views: ‘they are not working on our side, they’re against us’. 

Farage categorises Feeny’s bigotry as ‘the most egregious case’ and that, ‘anyone who says stuff like that’ was ‘not welcome’. Farage went on to say: ‘you’ll find unsavoury things said by all parties’. 

Following the footage, Feeny resigned as councillor.

In the case of the most rotten ‘apples’, Dr Chris Parry said the then Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy should ‘go home to the Caribbean’ where his ‘loyalties lie’. Farage described the comment as ‘over the top’, and Parry later described the comment as ‘clumsy’. 

Jenrick, the party’s Treasury spokesman, defended Parry by acknowledging that ‘he is the most heavily scrutinised figure in British politics’, but attested that ‘he’s someone who’s probably done more than almost anybody else to stand against racism and the far right’. 

Although the level of extremism (or ‘rot’) does not consistently sit amongst the most shocking quartile, the party’s overall stance regarding vetting potentially bigoted candidates is clear: it is evasion at worst, and neglectful at best. 

Jenrick claims the party has vested a ‘huge amount’ of effort to achieve ‘very strong vetting’. In March 2026, Parry was suspended only after separate social media comments regarding anti-semitism. The footage also revealed a senior Reform official warning Farage that he was ‘protecting’ Parry following the racist comments about Lammy. 

Farage has defended the party’s ‘bad apples’ by stating that, ‘you can’t vet for future comments’, insisting ‘appropriate action’ would be taken following the broadcast.

However, the footage reveals that Lomas failed the party’s vetting process twice, including for sharing social media posts from Robinson. Lomas was later asked to stand for the party: ‘on my second application, I got declined on the Friday, I got an email from them on the Tuesday saying you’ve passed vetting’. He also said that the party ‘better check [their] paperwork’, because he was ‘just jailed on Friday’, and nothing had changed since. 

The vetting process seems to be a mythological notion that vaguely promises a revised candidate selection process, yet is not actually taken seriously by the party.

In another part of the footage, Sarah Pochin described the party as ‘so f***** chauvinistic', and that ‘It’s really tough being a girl with all of this alpha male s*** going on’. In response, Jenrick attested to their friendship and said that there are ‘bad individuals’ within ‘all political parties’. 

In July 2025, before the undercover operation had been released, Reform stated they would implement a vetting system that was not stringent on ‘common sense’, after facing complaints about too strict checking processes. There was no established vetting system before or after the release of this statement, yet it hinted towards mitigating Reform’s most controversial statements, particularly on social media.

Following the ITV exposure, Reform said the party has ‘improved and prioritised its vetting procedures’. The undercover reporter met with Ian Frost, who stated the meeting was the ‘first stage’ of the vetting process. He warned the reporter to take down social media posts supporting Tommy Robinson: ‘I would delete the account and I’d start again’, Frost told the reporter. This begs the question of the extent to which Reform’s vetting procedure is a means of damage control for the most ‘egregious cases’, in Farage’s words. 

Reform candidate Campbell, was seen in the footage referring to potential mosque’s being built in the area: ‘go and buy some pork chops; we’ll bury it in the ground’. Reform Solihull spokesman said Cambell’s comments ‘was a joke in poor taste with no malicious intent’. However, he added that, ‘it’s something that he deeply regrets, and the party will not be taking any further action’.

Conservative leader Badenoch has contested this by saying: ‘every party will have people who make mistakes and have bad apples, the difference is how you deal with it’. 

A Green Party spokesman said: ‘Vilifying migrants and Muslims is Reform’s main focus, and these racist comments reflect party policy’. 

Although the level of extremism (or ‘rot’) does not consistently sit amongst the most shocking quartile, the party’s overall stance regarding vetting potentially bigoted candidates is clear: it is evasion at worst, and neglectful at best. 

Image:Flickr