Reform’s day in court

They say no one is above the law, but Reform UK has tested that theory by ignoring the legal data rights of the very voters they claim to represent. That changed this week.

I spent the day at the High Court, watching as Nigel Farage’s party tried to get our case thrown out despite admitting they broke the law by taking so long to respond to people. From Richard Tice’s embarrassing u-turns on their use of NationBuilder software to the party’s untenable claims that they hold no data on any of the data subjects in the group, the day in court was a masterclass in how transparency is the only antidote to division, and included some revealing statements from Reform’s lawyers.

During the day, Reform put forward interpretations of GDPR that are highly problematic and which, if they reflect Reform’s practices, could lead to further breaches of the law. Reform’s barrister claimed in court that they delete electoral register data regularly in line with their Privacy Policy and therefore, by the time their heavily delayed DSAR responses finally arrived, they had already deleted all the personal data

Needless to say, we believe Reform’s argument is not consistent with the law. It would make an absolute mockery of our right to know what data an organisation holds about us if they could just delete it and send a blank response the next day. Not only is this not compliant with GDPR, but intentionally deleting data to prevent disclosure to a person who has asked for that data can be a criminal offence under the Data Protection Act 2018.

Reform spent most of their time in court trying to argue that our claim should be dismissed on several grounds. Their lawyers insisted that Good Law Project did not meet the criteria for being a representative organisation – but we think their arguments on this point have little merit. We’re also confident that we act in the public interest and are active in the field of data rights. We do not believe Reform advanced any arguments that could negate that.

Reform tried to paint our legal action as a political crusade, but the simple fact is that we helped individuals make DSARs to the five major political parties before the 2024 General Election. Reform was the only one who fell so short of their obligations under GDPR that it has required court action to get them to comply.

The judge, the Honourable Mr Justice Murray, reserved his judgment at the conclusion of the hearing. We are optimistic that we will receive judgment by late March or early April 2026. We’ll keep you updated.