AS Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK party registers gains in British opinion polls, its candidates are coming under greater scrutiny, with several accused of making racist and misogynistic comments.
The veteran pro-Brexit populist has claimed that Reform is "now the real opposition" to predicted general election winners Labour, after a YouGov poll published
on Thursday put them a point ahead of the ruling Conservatives.
YouGov may be the only pollster to show a lead for Reform over the Tories but the hard-right party stands to gain from the support of right-wing voters disgruntled with 14 years of Conservative rule.
Earlier this year, Reform was polling in single digits.
It only obtained its first member of parliament in March, when former Tory deputy chairman Lee Anderson defected after being reprimanded by the Conservatives.
He was sanctioned after refusing to apologise for falsely claiming that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was "controlled by Islamists".
Reform now has 609 general election candidates, nearly double the number from 2019, when it was known as the Brexit Party.
According to Hope Not Hate, which campaigns against racism and fascism, Reform has ditched 166 candidates this year, with many having to be dropped for making offensive or racist comments.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's snap election call last month left Reform rushing to find nominees before final nominations were due last week, following its pledge to run in all of the country's 650 constituencies.
"The real danger lies in the haphazard approach of the party to candidate recruitment and vetting," said Georgie Laming, director of campaigns at Hope Not Hate.
One candidate was dropped in April for being "inactive", but the party had to apologise when it later transpired that he had in fact died.
"Time and time again, Reform UK candidates are exposed for racism and extremism," Laming said.
Farage said on Thursday that the party had failed to fully vet all its candidates. "Don't forget, I've come in at the last minute. We have not had time to do full vetting of candidates," said Farage on LBC radio.
He is standing in the seaside resort of Clacton in eastern England after previously ruling out a bid to seek election.
The party had earlier conceded it was fielding some "paper" candidates, with Reform chair Rich-ard Tice saying the "press and scrutineers" were doing the vetting for them.
In the week since final candidate lists were published, the party has dropped at least two candidates over revelations of racism.
One used slurs against black people, among other offensive comments found by the Times newspaper.
Another liked an Islamophobic post calling Khan an "undercover jihadist".
Since then, dozens of accusations have been made against other Reform candidates running for seats in Westminster.
One apologised after the BBC revealed he had posted online claiming that Britain would be better off if it had "taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality", and another calling women the "sponging gender".
Reform defended the comments, with one spokesman saying they were "written with an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths".
Multiple candidates have liked and retweeted posts supporting Enoch Powell, a firebrand right-wing politician in the 1960s who stoked fears of racial war if immigration went unchecked.
One candidate was found by LBC comparing "Islam and Nazis" as being "the same".
Another retweeted a post saying Labour leader Keir Starmer was "owned by Muslims".
Others have, like the party's leadership, voiced climate change sceptic views.
One candidate's biography on the Reform website called net zero a "dangerous false ideology" and cited the UAE and Russia's questioning of the "science of climate change".
Farage, who wants the vote to be an "immigration election", has been accused of dog-whistle politics himself.
He said UK-born Sunak, Britain's first prime minister of colour and of Asian heritage, did not understand "our culture".
The writer is from Agence France-Presse