Mark Matlock was accused of being an 'AI candidate' (Image: X.com)
Reform UK's candidate for Clapham and Brixton Hill, accused of being "AI generated" in the run-up to the General Election, has launched a stinging attack at those fuelling the rumours.
Images of Mark Matlock's campaign poster began circulating online, with the Green Party candidate telling Byline Times in the days before the election: "I haven’t seen or heard from the Reform UK candidate for Clapham and Brixton Hill constituency. He wasn’t at the hustings."
Shao-Lan Yuen added: "I’ve heard suspicions that the image on his leaflets are AI generated." Mr Matlock didn't appear at the count on election day, sparking more rumours as to whether he was a genuine candidate.
At the time he posted on X: "Unfortunately I will not be attending the count tonight as I have pneumonia. The hospital I visited was closed before it’s closing time. I said to the nurse on a buzzer I am struggling to breath and she said call a number. Vote reform this is madness".
One X user replied: "If you couldn't get into hospital, how did you get the diagnosis? You're just a made up candidate You've been rumbled mate".
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Another referenced the fact that Mr Matlock's post showed he was in a Gloucestershire hospital at 7:43pm on election night, despite the fact that his seat was in south London.
They wrote: "If you were intending to attend the count in Clapham (London) why were you in Gloucestershire?"
After Labour's landslide win, Mr Matlock took to X to quash any rumours that he wasn't a real person.
He wrote: "To all those people on Reddit wondering if I’m real or if Reform has fake candidates ? Keep smoking the crack pipe and wondering what sexuality you are. How do you think anyone could be nominated if you don’t exist ? Do you people know anything about anything?".
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Bell Ribeiro Addy won Clapham and Brixton Hill, with the Reform candidate coming in fourth (Image: Getty)
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Later he confirmed to Private Eye that "I am a real person", claiming that he used a computer-generated image for the campaign leaflet because he didn't have a picture of himself in Reform's turquoise tie.
Mr Matlock told the outlet that he lived in the south Cotswolds. In the end Mr Matlock finished in fourth place with 1,758 votes, as Labour's Bell Ribeiro-Addy soared to the winning seat with a comfortable win over the Lib Dem, Green and Tory candidates.
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