Reform losers resurrect racist election smear after Manchester arrests

Reform lost the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, but the Thatcherite bigots are still trying to call this massive defeat into question. How? With racist dog-whistles, and by talking about something different that some other people reportedly did somewhere else in Greater Manchester…

Farage’s not-so-subtle dog-whistle

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party, no stranger to dodgy tricks itself, reportedly got fake independent candidates to run in Tameside’s local elections to split the vote in its favour. And on 21 May, police arrested five people in connection to the controversial events in St Peter’s ward (which isn’t in the Gorton and Denton constituency).

In a clear response to the news, Farage spoke about the events in relation to Gorton and Denton – a different election in a different place – and avoided mentioning St Peter’s ward entirely. He said:

I have warned repeatedly over many years about election fraud and always been ignored.

The Gorton & Denton by-election was a disgrace, but at last there have been some arrests in Greater Manchester.

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 22, 2026

In other words, he carefully hinted at a connection without specifically alleging that the same thing had happened in the same place.

Farage’s aim seemed clear: to use the Tameside arrests exposing Labour’s dirty tactics to resurrect Islamophobic lies about “family voting”, instead of admitting that the Greens battered Reform fair and square in Gorton and Denton.

Reform’s tantrums

In Gorton and Denton, Farage’s party lost by well over 4,000 votes. But it had a tantrum anyway. It quickly blamed ‘family voting‘ for the result, trying to sow seeds of suspicion, particularly about Muslim backers of the Green Party, by suggesting men had told their wives how to vote.

Greater Manchester Police ended its investigation into Reform’s allegations a month later because there was no reliable evidence.

That hasn’t stopped Reform voices continuing to spread smears and misinformation, though. Because like Farage, racist Gorton-and-Denton-by-election-loser Matt Goodwin also responded to the news of the Tameside arrests by referring back to the Islamophobic lies about Gorton and Denton and failing to mention Tameside itself.

Other far-right agitators have joined in the ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ dog-whistle campaign too.

They know exactly what they’re doing. And they don’t care. Because truth gets in the way of spreading hate and division.

Featured image via Christopher Furlong/Getty Images