Reform councillor George Madgwick accuses ITV of 'interfering' with Portsmouth local elections
He claims that ITV reporters ‘probably cost us seats’
Reform councillor George Madgwick has said that ITV journalists “interfered with elections” while working undercover in Portsmouth.
As part of the ITV convert investigation, reporters discovered that Cllr Madgwick, who is a councillor on both Hampshire County Council and Portsmouth City Council, was a member of the private Portsmouth Patriots Facebook group.
He then told the reporters that members of the Patriot group “literally come out flyering with us” during the May 2026 local elections.
However, Cllr Madgwick has now said that, as the ITV reporters also joined Reform members while they were campaigning on the streets, they had “gone over the line and interfered with elections”.
He said: “The key intricate point here is these two reporters spent time campaigning with us. They put flyers through doors, they knocked on doors. So they may have positively, or negatively, affected our campaigns.
“These two reporters were responsible for the key milestones in campaigns for the three areas that we actually ended up losing by a small amount - Fratton, Baffins, and Drayton.
“They were responsible for a postal vote bundle. They were responsible for knocking doors and reporting back data. Did they do it? Probably not. They probably cost us seats.
“This isn't reporters just come in and recorded a meeting or something like that. This is infiltration and election interference.”
Cllr Madgwick said that in the ITV documentary that used footage recorded by the undercover reporters, which aired on October 18, Portsmouth came off “pretty well”.
He said: “Some of the things in the documentary were unpleasant to listen to and I condemn all of that rubbish that was said by some irresponsible people that have now left our party.
“I'm happy with our team and happy with our responses and we'll keep fighting on. But this is all a distraction because they want you to not vote, not support Reform because we are the party that is the most likely to take over this government.
“Everyone in Portsmouth around the area knows that I support Portsmouth Patriots anyway. They're not a bad organisation at all.”
An ITV spokesperson told the BBC that: "ITV's programme Undercover: A Year In Reform was produced in compliance with the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, relevant laws, and its broadcast is in the public interest.
"All journalists were instructed to operate within this framework and did so under the supervision of the programme's producers."