'Bloody hard': Reform UK insider reveals the staggering number of candidates rejected as party tastes victory

All this attention on Reform is proving to be a double-edged sword, one party insider tells GB News.

With thousands of candidates lining up to join the insurgent party, the vetting process has become more strict, he said.

The insider explained: "When you have to find 4,000 candidates, you have to vet and double-check because we're going to be under more scrutiny than anybody else."

He added: "It's hard bloody work."

Describing the process as "hardcore", the insider says they are "failing 50 per cent of people who apply for candidacy".

It's not just the challenge of scale that Reform has to overcome - it has a history of letting in "dodgy" candidates, notes Tim Montgomerie, a long-standing Tory who recently defected to the party.

He previously told GB News: "They [Reform] have had a problem in the past with certain dodgy candidates getting through. So the party must vet candidates so that they don't have one good May [election] with lots of candidates being elected only to find out those same candidates cause trouble over the following months."

Montgomerie added: "Vetting those candidates will be at least as important as getting them elected."

His concerns are not unfounded. Reform UK, previously known as the Brexit Party, has been embroiled in several controversies regarding its candidates.

For example, candidates Edward Oakenfull, Robert Lomas, and Leslie Lilley were all dropped by Reform over offensive comments, but due to the timing, they remained on the ballot paper.

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And Steven Beatty, former candidate for Didcot & Wantage, was outed by The Times as being one of 41 Reform candidates connected on Facebook with the leader of the British fascists Gary Raikes.

When GB News put these concerns to Reform MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock James McMurdock, he said: "We're taking that very, very seriously."

He acknowledged that there's no "quick answer", especially as Reform "encourages people to step forward so we have the widest and biggest pool of candidates" ahead of the upcoming elections.

However, the party is "conscious" of quality rising in lockstep with quantity, particularly as it looks to become a credible alternative to the two main parties, McMurdock tells GB News.