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Reform UK is under investigation by the Information Commissioner for potentially breaking data protection law, after being accused of lying to the watchdog.

It follows a complaint from a voter who received unsolicited communications from Nigel Farage's party. Byline Times reader Charles Parkinson made a legally-binding subject access request - asking for what data the party held on him - to Reform UK on 27 March this year.

After receiving no response despite multiple follow-up emails, he took his complaint to Britain's official data watchdog, the Information Commissioner's Office in June.

In October, the ICO replied to Parkinson's complaint, saying they'd been told by Reform UK that the party had attempted to contact him via email but was unable to reach his mailbox. The ICO officer said: "Attached…is a copy of the Reform Party's response to your complaint, which they have asked us to pass on to you due to their struggles in contacting you."

The ICO passed on a document apparently showing evidence Reform UK had tried to contact him. But the supposed email is dated 1 March 2025 - weeks before Parkinson had even contacted the party on 27 March.

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Parkinson has now escalated this matter within the ICO, requesting a review, on the basis that Reform UK appears to have misled the ICO - he alleges, to avoid discharging its legal obligations under the UK's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Parkinson told the ICO: "The attached is very clearly not an email and is instead a very poor attempt to pull the wool over your eyes. They very clearly did not try to contact me at all and failed to discharge their duties under GDPR."

He has accused Reform UK of fabricating evidence to mislead the ICO and dodge the law, describing it as "very clearly fraud."

Reform's Data Protection Officer told this outlet: "I would not have responded to Parkinson's DSAR because it is in my view abusive."

They quoted the email from Parkinson which stated: "Reform UK is a racist bigoted party with values reflective of the Nazi party. Reform has no place in British politics. You demonise vulnerable parts of society, much like the Nazis did with Jews and other marginalised groups."

Reform cited ICO guidance which says that a request may be "manifestly unfounded" if "the request is malicious in intent and is being used to harass an organisation with no real purpose other than to cause disruption."

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The spokesperson for Reform added: "I vigorously reject the 'allegations that Reform UK provided fabricated evidence to the ICO in response to a subject access request and erasure request made by a member of the public…' We would never do such a thing under any circumstances To accuse us of this over such a trifling DSAR is egregious and utterly ridiculous."

"I have wasted the best part of the day dealing with this and I have quite frankly had enough of individuals like Parkinson. Dreaming up conspiracy theories etc."

And they claimed Parkinson's allegations of fabricating evidence were "utter nonsense."

The issue of their supposed response to him being sent before he even made his claim would be "a case of cock up and not conspiracy." They claimed they in fact responded to him on June 20th. But they could not find evidence of the supposed March correspondence because: "I have no access to my former c...