In a picture of a blue-skyed day in Birmingham, a diverse group of Reform supporters gathered with placards and cheesy grins to knock on doors for their party. Richard Tice, the party\u2019s deputy leader, posted the picture as evidence of the activists\u2019 commitment through thick and thin.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what resilience looks like,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThis is what belief looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n
But on closer inspection, the image looks to many observers more like something else: sausage fingers, melted faces, and AI manipulation.<\/p>\n
After Tice posted the picture on Sunday<\/a>, X users lined up to ask whether the picture was legitimate \u2013 or, as one put it, \u201cpure AI slop\u201d.<\/p>\n Reform disputed that the campaigners or the photo were fake, and a spokesperson said: \u201cThe photograph is real, however the version Richard Tice posted was slightly edited using AI, mainly to increase the brightness.\u201d<\/p>\n But others saw evidence of more comprehensive fakery \u2013 from suspiciously straight lamp-posts to signs which appear to read \u201cVote Reform, Get Stuppence Out\u201d.<\/p>\n Analysis by Peryton Intelligence, a digital intelligence company specialising in online hate and manipulation, found that the image was almost certainly generated or altered using AI.<\/p>\n \u201cThe faces (especially the mouths) of the figures all have a \u2018smear\u2019 to them,\u201d the analysis said. \u201cThe woman in the denim jacket has extra long fingers on her left hand and what appear to be six fingers on her right. The man in the white jacket (fourth from the left) doesn\u2019t appear to be gripping his sign at all.<\/p>\n \u201cThe signs themselves all smear \u2018Starmer\u2019 in the \u2018Get Starmer Out\u2019 slogan. The Reform arrow in the \u2018O\u2019 of the signs is inconsistently circular. The road sign in the back of the image has a blank white box underneath it, and there are other inconsistencies and blurs in the houses and windows behind the figures too.\u201d<\/p>\n Zack Polanski, leader of the Green party<\/a>, said: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing real about the Reform party. Their supposed policies for working people are fake, they spin stories that are fake and now we know even their campaigners are fake.\u201d<\/p>\n The photo also includes pixel-perfect vertical lines that experts view as highly suspicious, and peculiarly regular pixel patterns in the foreground of concrete pavements. These are telltale signs of AI manipulation.<\/p>\n Tice said the photograph was taken in Erdington, a suburb of Birmingham, and said that there had been a sea change of support since 2022 when they only received 293 votes in a byelection.<\/p>\n He said of his recent visit: \u201cThe support, the recognition and the mood was something I had never quite seen before. On 7 May, this part of Birmingham is extremely likely to elect Reform councillors, and in a general election it could go even further and elect a Reform member of parliament. That possibility felt distant four years ago. It does not feel distant now.\u201d<\/p>\n The is not the first time Reform politicians have fallen into trouble over the use of AI. Matt Goodwin, the failed candidate for Reform in the recent Gorton and Denton byelection gained the nickname \u201cMattGPT\u201d after being accused of <\/a>using AI to write his book after historical figures were misquoted and some of the footnote URLs contained \u201cchatGPT\u201d. Goodwin acknowledged using AI to research some data, but disputed any of his book was written using the technology.<\/p>\n