Reform UK Faces Humiliation Over Badenoch Chess Claims
Reform UK faced criticism after incorrectly accusing Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch of lying about being a national chess champion at age seven. Evidence showed she had clarified in a previous interview that the competition was small and limited in participation.
Why it matters
The incident illustrates the intensity of political mudslinging and the role of fact-checking in modern British political discourse.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. via Associated Press Reform UK h ave been left red-faced after wrongly accusing Kemi Badenoch of claiming she was Nigeria’s national chess champion when she was just seven years old.
The right-wing party made the claim in a video posted on X on the eve of the Conservative conference in Birmingham.
It said: “Kemi Badenoch said she was Nigeria’s national chess champion at age 7. So we sent a reporter to Nigeria to find out the truth. She lied.”
However, the party was corrected in a community note posted below it.
It said: “Kemi Badenoch did not claim to be Nigeria’s national chess champion.
“In the February 2024 Times interview transcript she said she won ‘a national competition for chess’ at age 7 in Nigeria but immediately clarified ‘there were only two girls who entered’.”
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