Reform UK candidate Helen Burns confirmed as real after questions raised of her legitimacy

It’s an investigation which has gripped people on TikTok, but now it looks like the mystery around whether Reform UK’s Glasgow North candidate in the recent general election, Helen Burns, is actually a real person has finally been solved.

Comedian Kim Blythe has gone viral in recent weeks for trying to track down Burns, who seemingly has no online presence and did not show up at the declaration of the results – which saw her finish fourth with 1,655 votes.

Blythe even tried to visit Reform UK’s London headquarters while on a work trip, only to find that the address is a virtual office.

Reform UK has branded the speculation that they fielded fake candidates as part of their 609 individuals put forward for election as “preposterous”, with a party spokesman telling The Telegraph: “It’s as if people have never heard of paper candidates before.”

And it’s TheTelegraph which is now claiming to have solved the mystery of Helen Burns, securing a windy voice note from the candidate – who actually lives in Leicestershire - in which she criticises “fake news” and states “I do indeed very much exist”

“I stood for a constituency in Scotland as the county holds a very special place in my heart. We have travelled to many areas in Scotland over the past 20 years and indeed got married in a small hunting lodge near Aviemore in 2019.

“This was featured in Scottish Wedding magazine,” she said.

Responding to The Telegraph’s discovery, Blythe remained sceptical as she noted the newspaper didn’t manage to obtain a photo or video of the Reform UK candidate, but rather “the dodgiest voice note”.

She commented: “Am I being cynical or did that sound like she didn’t know her name?

“The thing I hate the most about this is the pure arrogance, like, calling this ‘fake news’ and Reform saying this is ‘absurd’ is mental.

“Because even though you exist as a person, you very much did not exist as a candidate. You were nowhere to be seen anywhere.”

Blythe also showed screenshots of her messaging an account on Facebook Messager for a Helen Burns - who she is “pretty convinced” is the Reform UK candidate – on Monday, two days before The Telegraph claimed it had ‘beaten internet sleuths” in tracking down the elusive and mysterious individual.

Blythe added: “She is an ex-councillor, and she didn’t have a party, she’s an independent – this is Helen Burns.”

And Helen Burns isn’t the only Reform UK/recent general election candidate to face questions over her very existence, as Mark Matlock – who stood in Clapham and Brixton Hill – told The Independent he is “a real person” following online comments about an image of him being ‘AI-generated’.

“I got pneumonia three days before election night I was exercising taking vitamins so I could attend but it was just not viable. On election night I couldn’t even stand.

“The photo of me was taken outside the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. I had the background removed and replaced with the logo and they changed the colour of my tie. The only reason that was done was because we couldn’t get a photographer at such short notice - but that is me,” he said.

Update - 12 July 2024 - 16:39: Kim Blythe has announced it is the "end of the road" for her campaign to find Helen Burns, after she confirmed that while the previous Helen Burns she contacted on Facebook Messenger was "the wrong Helen", she had later made contact with the right Facebook account for the Reform UK candidate.

Blythe, who had also been sent a digital copy of Burns' article in the now-defunct Scottish Wedding magazine, said in a new video update: "Helen still has her wedding photos as her profile picture, so she was pretty easy to find, but I thought I'd send [a] message, just to be sure."

The comedian then shared a response from Burns confirming she was the election candidate, thanking her for giving her "my 15 minutes of fame" and asking "what took you so long to find me".

Might be your lack of a public profile, Helen.

Blythe responded to Burns to say the Reform UK candidate was "a hard woman to track down", but turned down her offer of a drink in Glasgow in September.

Blythe continued: "Three things before I go: one, I'm not meeting her for a drink, f*** that; two, ghost candidates shouldn't exist, shouldn't be a thing, and that's been the whole point of this series; and number three, Reform UK are gobs*****."

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.