The Parliamentary By-Election of Gorton and Denton, Re

This is an application for relief by Matthew Goodwin and Adam Rawlinson under section 167 of the Representation of the People Act 1983, to which I will refer as “the Act”, in respect of what they contend was an inadvertent illegal practice. That practice was the omission of the statutory imprint on certain election leaflets for distribution in the Gorton and Denton Parliamentary by-election. Polling day is fixed for tomorrow, 26 February 2026. The by-election was called following the resignation of the previous Member of Parliament.

Mr Goodwin was nominated as and is the official Reform UK candidate. Mr Rawlinson was appointed as his election agent. For the purposes of this application, I have been referred to witness statements from Mr Goodwin and Mr Rawlinson and to statements from Mick Hume and Warren Skelton, whose roles will be apparent from what I have to say, as well as from the applicants’ solicitor, Mr James Dyche. I have also seen and read a joint affidavit of the two Claimants vouching for the truth of the witness evidence.

The evidence in the witness statements is to the following effect. In the course of the campaign, the Claimants caused to be produced and distributed a direct mail leaflet featuring a voluntarily written open letter from Ms Patricia Clegg, a 74-year-old pensioner from the constituency, who is a former Labour voter and who says she has switched her support to Reform UK.

In an effort to make it have an authentic and personal tone, the leaflet was designed to appear as a handwritten note from a concerned neighbour and the artwork for the leaflet was viewed and approved by the Reform UK campaign team. The approved version included the full, compliant, imprint required by section 110 of the Act. That imprint read:

“Promoted by Adam Rawlinson, on behalf of Matt Goodwin, both at Reform UK, Millbank Tower, 21 to 24 Millbank, London, SW1P 4QP. Printed by Hardings Print Solutions Limited, 647 River Gardens, Feltham, Middlesex TW14 0RB.”

Printing and distribution of the leaflet were commissioned from Hardings Print Solutions Limited (which I will call “Hardings”), a professional printer which had previously been used successfully by Reform UK in a number of prior campaigns, including the 2019 European Parliament Elections, the 2021 Local Elections and the 2024 General Election.

Reform UK’s Head of Editorial, Mick Hume, liaised with Warren Skelton. Mr Skelton is a director and shareholder of a company called Veow Limited. Since about February 2025, Veow Limited has assisted Reform UK as an intermediary by putting it in touch with suppliers, including Hardings. Mr Skelton acted in the present instance as an intermediary between Reform UK and Hardings, passing on to Hardings the approved artwork, which contained the full imprint, and relaying to Reform UK the proofs received from Hardings prior to printing.

The evidence is to the effect that, during the final production stage at Hardings, something unanticipated by Reform UK occurred. A different font was applied which was not the font which was used in the approved proof. While similar, it was slightly larger. This caused the imprint to be omitted in the finished run and the evidence is that this error was neither requested nor authorised by the Claimants or by anyone on their behalf and that the Claimants had no involvement in or knowledge of the physical printing process or of the omission of the imprint at the bottom of the page.

The leaflet was then sent out by Hardings without further review by Reform UK. I am told that some 81,000 leaflets were sent out, in other words to all the voters of the constituency.

The evidence is further that the error came to light at approximately 15.45 on 6 February 2026, when Mr Rawlinson was notified by the campaign manager, Jon Burns, that a member of the public had received a leaflet without the imprint. Mr Goodwin became aware shortly afterwards via social media reports. After discovery, what happened was that a physical copy of the leaflet which had been sent out was obtained and photographed and, at 17.15 on 6 February 2026, the Returning Officer and Deputy Returning Officer were notified by email. Hardings was contacted to confirm the cause and ensure that no further defective material was distributed, and Ms Patricia Clegg was contacted to confirm her continuing support for the use of her letter.

Hardings have since issued a press statement in the following terms:

“Hardings Printers has identified an error in the production of election leaflets printed and distributed on behalf of Reform UK for the Gorton and Denton by-election. We take our responsibilities in relation to election material very seriously and take full responsibility for this error occurring. Reform UK did not request or authorise the removal of the imprint. The omission arose from Hardings Printers’ production process. The party supplied artwork which correctly included the legally required imprint and a compliant proof was produced and approved. During the final trimming stage of production, the imprint was inadvertently removed due to an internal error at Hardings Printers which was not identified before distribution. We apologise to Reform UK and the voters of Gorton and Denton for this error.”

No further leaflets, the evidence indicates, were distributed which omitted the imprint after the error was identified. There has been extensive press coverage which has said what has happened and that leaflets not conforming to electoral law have been distributed.

The Claimants sought to issue this application on 12 February 2026. The Claim Form and application notice were, in the event, only sealed by the court on 16 February. On 13 February, the Claimants’ solicitors sent an email to the Crown Prosecution Service addressed to the Director of Public Prosecutions, sending a copy of the bundle which had been filed with the court the previous day. A copy of the proceedings and the evidence was also couriered to the CPS on 16 February. Also on 16 February, an advertisement with a summary of the claim made in these proceedings was published in the hard copy edition of the Manchester Evening News. The advertisement has also been made available in the Public Notice Portal.

The proceedings and supporting documents were sent to the Acting Returning Officer on 18 February. On 19 February, the court fixed a directions hearing to take place on 20 February. The Claimants’ solicitors notified the DPP and the Acting Returning Officer of the hearing.

That directions hearing took place before Soole J on 20 February. The Claimants were represented by counsel. Counsel for the Acting Returning Officer was present on a watching brief. The court directed that the Claimants should give formal notice of the claim to the other candidates in the by-election and Soole J also ordered that the Claimants’ application should take place today, before me.

At or about 17.46 on 20 February an email was sent to the other candidates informing them of the proceedings and of the hearing fixed for today.

In order to facilitate understanding of the application, it is helpful to summarise the law in this area.

Section 110 of the Act applies to any material which can reasonably be regarded as intended to promote or procure the election of a candidate at an election.

Under that section, such material must include the relevant details which are: the name and address of the printer of the document; the name and address of the promoter of the material, that is to say the person who caused the material to be published; and, where applicable, the name and address of any person on whose behalf it is published. That is section 110(3).

For printed documents, the details must appear on the face of a single-sided document or on the first or last page of a multi-page document.

Failure to include the imprint is a summary offence punishable by a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale (section 110(9) and 110(10)). However, where the person responsible is a candidate or his election agent, the Act provides that they are not guilty of such an offence but are guilty instead of an illegal practice (section 110(12) of the Act).

One effect of section 110(12) is that it brings the relevant breach within the relief jurisdiction of section 167.

Under the Act, electoral offences fall into two categories: corrupt practices and illegal practices. The Act treats corrupt practices as the more serious category. Section 168(1) provides, in relation to corrupt practices:

“Prosecutions for corrupt practices

A person who is guilty of a corrupt practice shall be liable –

(a)

on conviction on indictment –

(i)

in the case of a corrupt practice under section 60 or 62A or 62B or 112A above, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or to a fine, or to both,

(ii)

in any other case, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or to a fine, or to both;

(b)

on summary conviction, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.”

While illegal practices are serious matters, the scheme of the Act is that they are treated as generally of lesser gravity than corrupt practices and attract lesser sanctions. Section 169(1) provides, in relation to illegal practices:

“Prosecutions for illegal practices

A person guilty of an illegal practice shall on summary conviction … be liable to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale; and on a prosecution for an illegal practice it shall be sufficient to allege that the person charged was guilty of an illegal practice.”

Section 173(2) of the Act imposes a five-year disqualification for a person convicted of a corrupt practice. Section 173(3) imposes a three-year disqualification for a person convicted of an illegal practice.

Judicial relief under section 167 is available only for illegal practices and not for corrupt practices.

Section 167 provides, so far as material:

“(2)

If it is shown to the court by such evidence as to the court seems sufficient –

(a)

that any act or omission of any person would apart from this section by reason of being in contravention of this Act be an illegal practice, payment, employment or hiring,

(b)

that the act or omission arose from inadvertence or from accidental miscalculation or from some other reasonable cause of a like nature, and in any case did not arise from any want of good faith, and

(c)

that such notice of the application has been given in the constituency or, as the case may be, the area of the authority for which the election was held, as to the court seems fit,

and under the circumstances it seems to the court to be just that either that or any other person should not be subject to any of the consequences under this Act of the act or omission, the court may make an order allowing the act or omission to be an exception from the provisions of this Act making it an illegal practice, payment, employment or hiring and upon the making of the order no person shall be subject to any of the consequences under this Act of that act or omission.”

There has been some but limited consideration of these provisions in authority. An early case cited in subsequent authorities is that in the Inner House decision in Smith and Sloan v Mackenzie [1919] S.C. 546, which I will call “Smith”, which concerned a materially identical application under the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act 1883. Lord Guthrie identified three matters that courts should keep in view in deciding whether illegal practices can be excused on the grounds of inadvertence coupled with good faith. They are, first, what kind of person is the applicant; second, what is the nature of the illegal practice; and third, what attitude has the applicant taken up when the mistake was discovered.

The leading modern English authorities are Finch & Anor v Richardson [2008] EWHC 3067 (QB), which I will call “Finch”, and Mabbutt (on his own behalf and on behalf of the Conservative Party) [2014] EWHC 2244 (QB), which I will call “Mabbutt”.

In Finch, a Divisional Court, consisting of Tugendhat and Underhill JJ, granted relief for failure properly to declare expenses and making defective returns.

In Mabbutt, the national Conservative election agent was granted relief under a provision in materially identical terms to section 167, namely regulation 108 of the European Parliamentary Elections Regulations 2004, where approximately 485,000 leaflets in the West Midlands, and much smaller numbers elsewhere, had been distributed without the required relevant details. The omission there was caused by a subcontractor using a wrong and incomplete proof during production. The Divisional Court, consisting of Nicol and Popplewell JJ, held that the breach arose from “inadvertence or from some other reasonable cause of a like nature” and involved no want of good faith on the part of the agent.

I am satisfied that there should be relief under section 167 in this case. The reasons are as follows. Firstly, the act or omission would be an illegal practice for the purposes of section 167(2)(a). The leaflets were election material within section 110(1). They were produced and distributed to promote Mr Goodwin’s candidature. The distributed copies omitted the imprint required by subsections 110(3) to 110(5). The breach therefore constituted an illegal practice under section 110(12) when committed by a candidate or agent.

I am satisfied that the relevant act or omission arose from inadvertence or from some other reasonable cause of a like nature and did not arise from a want of good faith for the purposes of section 167(2)(b).

Taking those two aspects in turn, as to inadvertence or some other reasonable cause of a like nature, the evidence shows that the omission resulted from a production error at Hardings during the final production stage. The approved artwork and proofs had contained the statutory imprint. The evidence satisfies me that, during production, an error occurred due to a change in the font that was applied which was not the same font as that used in the approved proof. I am satisfied that that was neither requested nor authorised by the Claimants.

I am also satisfied that the Claimants had taken all reasonable steps, prior to the omission, because compliant artwork had been supplied and approved, proofs of the leaflet were reviewed by Mr Hume and by Mr Rawlinson, Mr Goodwin’s campaign manager, and Hardings are a reputable printer of which Reform UK had experience. The case thus has a clear analogy with the case of Mabbutt.

I am also satisfied that the error did not arise from a want of good faith. The leaflets were being openly produced on behalf of Mr Goodwin as the Reform UK candidate. I am satisfied that there was no attempt to gain an unfair advantage.

In this context, I consider that it is relevant to consider the third of the matters to which Lord Guthrie referred in Smith, namely the attitude taken up by the applicant when the mistake was discovered, which involves a consideration of whether he has treated it lightly or defiantly, and whether he has taken appropriate steps to put it right. I have already outlined the steps which were taken upon discovery of the mistake at about 15.45 on 6 February 2026. Those matters appear to me to reinforce the conclusion that there has been no want of good faith.

I am satisfied that appropriate notice of this application has been given in the constituency for the purposes of section 167(2)(c). I have already explained what has been done. In particular, notice has been given to the Acting Returning Officer, it has been advertised in the Manchester Evening News and on the Public Notice Portal, and notice has been given to the other candidates. Under section 167(1)(a), notice was required to be given to the DPP. That has been done. There have been no objections to the relief sought. The DPP has not made any representations. The other candidates have not indicated that they want to make any objections and have not appeared or been represented today. The Returning Officer has had a watching brief today but has not made any representations. No one else has made any representations or intimated any objections to the relief sought.

In all of those circumstances, I consider that it is just that relief should be granted.