Vetting firm being sued by Farage denies 'stitch-up'

Nigel Farage has threatened to report the vetting company hired by Reform UK to the police after it failed to run background checks on its candidates in time for the general election.

- ARCHIE MITCHELL

The Reform leader is pursuing legal action against Vetting.​com, alleging it “stitched up” the right-wing party due to the company chair Colin Bloom’s past links to the Conservative Party.

But Vetting said it simply did not have time to scrutinise all 609 of Reform’s candidates before the snap summer poll. A spokesperson for the organisation said it had been working on the assumption the general election would be this autumn, giving it the summer to complete its work.

“Given the explicit need for candidate consent, as well as our systems needing basic personal data like dates of birth, our automated software was not able [to] process Reform’s candidates with the data that was provided when it was provided,” the spokesperson said.

Mr Farage lashed out at the company, claiming to have paid it £144,000 only to have been “stitched up”. The Reform leader blamed Vetting chair Colin Bloom, who was faith engagement adviser for the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson. “This is an establishment stitch-up. The owner of the vetting company has deep links to the Tory party, and they have some serious questions to answer,” Mr Farage said.

Reform chair Richard Tice said: “A professional vetting company was paid a six-figure sum in April to vet Reform candidates. They promised a deep dive, particularly on social media, and adverse press checks, received our candidate data but then delivered absolutely nothing. Suddenly, a round of stories appear in