Reform UK have banned a number of journalists from its conference this week after they published critical reporting of the party.
Nigel Farage’s party love to portray themselves as the party of free speech. On its website, Reform’s policy to ‘Defend and Protect British Culture and Traditions’ states that the party will “defend free speech.”
But, predictably, it seems that only extends to voices that aren’t critical of them.
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This week, ahead of Reform UK’s party conference in Birmingham which gets underway on Thursday, a number of journalists have been denied press passes to the event.
Most notably, this includes the Guardian’s City editor Anna Isaac, who broke the story about Farage’s undeclared £5m from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.
Meanwhile, investigative reporter Peter Geoghegan was told he was banned from the Reform conference shortly after he published a piece revealing that pro-Reform journalist Isabel Oakeshott had allegedly called Harborne “untrustworthy” in private comments.
Veteran broadcaster Michael Crick also shared that his request for media accreditation had been declined.
The Guardian reports that a Reform spokesperson said Crick and Geoghegan had been denied accreditation because the party “viewed them as minor figures.”
Reform did not comment on the decision to ban Isaac from the conference.
Several other journalists have also been denied access to the conference, with the party having accepted 950 of some 1,000 media applications they received.
The bans have been condemned by the journalism industry, with NUJ general secretary Laura Davison saying the reports were “frustrating and concerning.”
“A functioning democracy depends on a free press that can ask political parties difficult questions and hold those seeking power to account,” she said.
Even Talk’s Julia Hartley-Brewer hit out at Reform for the decision, writing in a post on X that it was ‘deplorable.’
She continued: “This is an outrageous attack on press freedom. It’s petty point-scoring that will dangerously backfire.”