Nigel Farage was aware of the complaint when he selected Matt Goodwin as Reform's by-election candidate
Reform’s Gorton and Denton by-election candidate Matt Goodwin was accused of sexual harassment by a female GB News staffer.
As reported by the Guardian, the junior staffer complained to HR last year alleging Goodwin, who is a GB News presenter, had made inappropriate comments, including one about her appearance.
Goodwin denied acting inappropriately, but reportedly apologised after the complaint was raised. The woman later left the network for unrelated reasons.
Nigel Farage is understood to have been aware of the complaint before he announced Goodwin as Reform’s parliamentary candidate.
A source at GB News told the Guardian that Farage had characterised the complaint as “just Matt being Matt”.
A GB News source said the woman “was very upset at the time, and her colleagues were upset on her behalf that she was so distressed by the situation”.
A lawyer acting for Goodwin confirmed that an employee had raised a grievance, relating to two alleged verbal remarks made months apart. The lawyer said the company had taken no formal disciplinary action.
They described the incident as a “minor workplace matter” that Goodwin and the woman resolved as “a difference in perception or miscommunication”.
Weeks after the complaint was made, Goodwin was selected as Reform’s Gorton and Denton by-election candidate. This indicates that Farage didn’t think an accusation of sexual harassment was serious enough to warrant a rethink of his candidacy.
A Reform spokesperson dismissed the claims as “a desperate, last-minute smear by The Guardian, timed to damage Matt Goodwin days before polling day.”
Goodwin has also come under fire for sexist comments claiming that young girls and women should be given “a biological reality check” as many women are having children “much too late in life”.
Speaking on a podcast with Jordan Peterson, Goodwin agreed with the alt-right Canadian psychologist’s claim that universities have become hotbeds of “politically correct authoritarianism” because they are full of “childless women”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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