Can Kemi Badenoch Count?
Given her proclamation about social media, it seems not
The past few days have witnessed a war of words between Kemi Badenoch, the opposition leader, and upstart Reform UK MP Nigel Farage.
Unsurprisingly, these two dislike each other, and the "truths" they each spout are subject to interpretation.
Let’s take their current spat—how many members does each party claim?
Earlier in 2024, the membership of the Conservative Party was announced as 131,680. This was before the July election, and the current number, whether higher or lower, has yet to be published. The party claims that membership has risen since the leadership election a couple of months ago.
On Boxing Day, Nigel Farage from Reform UK announced that his party now has more members than the Conservatives. The figure claimed on the Reform UK website is just over 143,000 (at the time of writing), some 11,000 more than the Conservative figure earlier in the year.
Badenoch refutes the number claimed by Farage, arguing that a timer automatically adjusts the membership ticker on the Reform UK website to show a steady increase. She also noted that the party has recently changed the link used for the ticker. Our brief and unscientific investigation into the Reform UK ticker observed membership increasing by one to five every 23 to 29 seconds. Make of that what you will. She further accused Farage of not understanding social media.
Farage immediately responded—loudly, as he tends to—that this was not the case. He invited the Conservative leader to open her membership numbers for scrutiny, claiming he had already done so with The Spectator, The Telegraph, Sky News, and the Financial Times. The Clacton Reform UK MP also stated that he was willing to have the numbers verified by one of the big four accountancy firms in the UK and invited the Conservatives to do the same.
At the same time, Nigel Farage claimed to have over 5.4 million followers on social media. Kemi Badenoch countered that, rather than 5.4 million, his followers only amounted to 320,000.
This raises the question of whether Kemi Badenoch can accurately interpret social media numbers or has a fundamental understanding of how it works.
The snapshot below comes from Nigel Farage's official X account:
Badenoch claims Farage has only 320,000 followers on social media. However, the number on X for the Reform UK MP currently stands at 2.1 million—six and a half times more than the figure cited by Badenoch. This is still lower than the 5.4 million Farage claims, though the 2.1 million figure only accounts for X and not other platforms.
It remains unclear where Farage’s missing followers might be found, as his official account on the growing Bluesky platform has a meager 292 followers, and he hasn’t posted there in over a month. Meanwhile, Badenoch’s X account sits at a modest 273,000.
Whatever the actual numbers may be—and we will likely never know with any certainty—it highlights the old saying: “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.”
Welcome to politics!