What did Reform UK candidate Matt Goodwin say about Manchester in 2023?

Reform UK has accused the Labour Party of sharing a “misleading” video showing its candidate for the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election, Matt Goodwin, saying he was “unfortunate enough to be in Manchester a few days ago”.

The clip of Mr Goodwin speaking at Reform UK’s 2023 conference was shared to the Labour party’s social media channels this week, and has since had over 1.5 million views. It features text saying: “This is what Reform’s latest candidate thinks about where he’s standing to represent.”

But responding to the video, Mr Goodwin has said that he was referring instead to the Conservative party conference, which took place in Manchester a few days before the footage was filmed.

Mr Goodwin does not appear to have explicitly mentioned the conference in his 2023 speech—we’ve set out the words he used regarding Manchester in full below.

But it is true that his Reform UK speech was made less than a week after he attended the Conservative party conference in Manchester—a fact which is not mentioned in Labour’s video—and we’ve seen no other specific evidence to suggest he was talking about Manchester as a city rather than the conference.

A number of readers have asked us about the video, but fact checking claims like these can be difficult, because it is the underlying meaning of the comments in question which may be disputed.

We’ve asked Labour whether it has any further evidence that Mr Goodwin’s comments in the video referred to the city of Manchester rather than the Conservative party conference, but have not received a response. We’ve also asked Mr Goodwin and Reform UK why he has described the video as “selectively edited” and whether they have any further evidence he was talking about the conference, but again have had no reply.

That means that beyond what he said at the time, we have to rely on what Mr Goodwin has said he meant, what Reform UK and Labour have said publicly and what we know about the wider context, including the timing, of his remarks.

What does the footage show?

The clip shared by Labour, which lasts for 10 seconds and is a continuous bit of footage, shows Mr Goodwin speaking at the Reform UK party conference in London in October 2023. It was published after Mr Goodwin was selected to stand as Reform UK’s candidate in the forthcoming by-election in Gorton and Denton, in Greater Manchester.

A Reform UK video of Mr Goodwin’s full speech shows that the comments highlighted by Labour come from the start. Mr Goodwin says “Good afternoon conference”, and then immediately afterwards the sentence which is shown in full in Labour’s video: “I was lucky enough, or unfortunate enough, to be in Manchester a few days ago, and the energy in this room is 10 times what it was in Manchester, so congratulations.”

He then goes on to say “I’ve never had this many people in any of my university lectures by the way”, before moving on to other opening remarks.

Labour’s video adds a caption saying “this is what Reform’s latest candidate thinks about where he’s standing to represent”, and the video was shared in posts saying “in his own words…”. It does not offer any further context to Mr Goodwin’s remarks.

In a direct response to Labour’s post on X this week, Mr Goodwin said his remarks had been taken out of context, adding: “I was referring to the dying Tory Party conference that was held in Manchester—as you know.”

What has Reform said?

A Reform UK spokesperson told the Telegraph the video had created a “misleading narrative”, and claimed it was “clearly intended to influence the outcome of the election”.

On Wednesday Mr Goodwin said Reform UK had given “formal notice” to Greater Manchester Police in relation to the video under Section 106 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, which bans a “false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct” before or during an election campaign, unless the person making it “can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true”.

Reform UK also reportedly told the Telegraph that if the police did not investigate it would consider bringing a private prosecution.

On Thursday Greater Manchester Police told Full Fact: “We can confirm we have received a report and after assessment, informed the complainant there is no offence identified.”

We’ve contacted Mr Goodwin and Reform UK for comment.

What has Labour said?

We’ve not had any response from Labour to the questions we’ve put to it about this claim, and we’ve not seen any specific response from Labour to Mr Goodwin’s assertion that his 2023 comments referred to the Conservative party conference.

But the Telegraph has quoted a Labour spokesperson as responding to Reform UK’s complaint by saying: “Nigel Farage has repeatedly bemoaned the ‘policing of tweets’, yet he is now begging the authorities to look at a clip of his divisive candidate’s own words. It is as laughable as it is sad.”

They also claimed: “Matt Goodwin and Reform have long had a disdain for Manchester and the North.”

Labour has also shared a post it says was written by Mr Goodwin in 2009 but which has since been deleted, in which he said he found “it difficult to believe that Manchester finished above Rome, Madrid & London in the most livable cities list”.