Reform UK has banned at least three journalists who have investigated the party and Nigel Farage from its annual conference, which begins on Thursday. The Guardian’s City editor, Anna Isaac, the investigative reporter Peter Geoghegan and the broadcaster and biographer Michael Crick were told this week that their credentials to cover the event had been declined. The party has billed its conference, which will take place at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, as “the most talked about event of 2026”.
Reform figures are hoping to use it as a reset after a difficult summer consumed by questions about an undeclared £5m gift Farage received shortly before he was elected in 2024. A Reform spokesperson said Geoghegan and Crick were refused accreditation because the party viewed them as minor figures. They declined to comment on why Isaac was not given accreditation.
After the Guardian contacted Reform for comment, all three received emails saying their conference passes had been reinstated. However, when contacted again by the Guardian, a Reform spokesperson said this had been an administrative error and that they were still not accredited for the conference. They then received further emails confirming their exclusion.
Isaac broke the story that Farage had accepted an undeclared £5m gift from Christopher Harborne. Her reporting also revealed that a host of transactions involving Reform UK’s most senior figures and donations to the party caused bankers to report potential money-laundering concerns to the National Crime Agency. The story has caused issues for Farage all summer, and he has drastically reduced his time in front of the press.
He also resigned his seat in Clacton over the furore, prompting a byelection which the other main parties boycotted, leaving Count Binface as his main opponent. Farage won, and was sworn back into parliament on Monday. Geoghegan runs the Democracy for Sale newsletter on Substack and has written for the Guardian and the New York Times.
He received the news he had been banned from the conference shortly after publishing a piece revealing negative comments the pro-Reform journalist Isabel Oakeshott allegedly made about Harborne. Oakeshott declined to comment about the allegations when the Guardian contacted her. Geoghegan said: “Reform clearly wants press coverage but it doesn’t want the scrutiny and accountability that comes with it.
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