Nigel Farage has threatened action against the Tory leader over membership numbers.

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Nigel Farage has said he intends to take legal action against Kimi Badenoch for allegedly falsifying Reform UK’s membership numbers, demanding an apology from the Conservative leader.

“I will not take it lying down. It’s an absolutely disgusting thing for her to say,” Farage said on Friday. “I would like to apologize to Mrs. Kemi Bade for this minor outburst.”

“I will take some action in the next couple of days,” he said on a conference call with reporters, adding that he was still deciding what form it would take.

Reform chairman Zia Yusuf revealed to the Financial Times the code and data supporting the party’s membership numbers on Friday, providing strong evidence that the numbers are accurate.

The reform leader’s comments came in response to a lawsuit filed by Aden Reform produced “false” numbers on Thursday after Farage said his party’s membership had surpassed the Tories’ for the first time.

In a post on Aden X, the reform counter responded that it was “coded to come on automatically”.

“We’ve been looking at the back end for days and we can see that when people point this out they’ve changed the code to link to another site,” she added.

The public struggle is the first time the ADB has attacked tax and reform, which is seen as one of the biggest threats to the Tory party as it tries to rebuild itself after its crushing defeat in July’s election.

Yusuf Posted A poll on X on Thursday asked “Should King Farage sue Kemi Baden for defamation?”

Farage is renewing calls for an external audit of Tory membership figures, saying he has evidence that the Conservatives’ own membership figures are false and include people who have left the party or died.

The reform leader said he would conduct an annual audit of his party’s membership numbers, although the Tories agreed to do the same.

“She’s made a huge mistake and she’s completely wrong about us,” Badenoch said. “She made life very difficult on Boxing Day afternoon and she regrets it very much.”

The row drew attention to the fact that UK political parties are not required to publish their membership numbers and there is no external body to check or verify the published figures.

Although most parties publish their tally in their annual accounts or on their websites, the Conservatives do not.

Reform Online’s membership tracker showed on Friday that the party had about 142,500 members, compared with 131,680 held by the Conservatives last month.

The FT showed code to calculate and display Reform Online’s totals, as well as a dashboard created by NationBuilder, a third-party app the party uses to manage memberships and donations.

The rally provided strong evidence that the online counter correlates with the number of members who signed up for reform.

Expanding its membership is the primary task of reform as it strives to transition from a fledgling to a credible political party.

To run a successful ground campaign in May next year, Reform will need thousands of supporters to survey voters and gather information, as well as stand in hundreds of council seats.

Farage said on Friday that he believes “most” people who join Reform will “never be in a political party in their life”.

The Liberal Democrats and Greens disclose their membership numbers on their websites. The Lib Dems say they have “over 90,000” members, while the Greens have “over 59,000”.

The Labor Party claimed to have around 370,000 members in March this year.

The Conservative Party did not immediately respond to a request for comment.