Matt Goodwin, the Reform UK candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, has been accused by a young woman who worked for GB News of making inappropriate comments he believed to be sexually harassing, the Guardian can reveal.
A junior staff member complained to HR last year, alleging that Goodwin made inappropriate comments about her appearance, sources said. Goodwin, 44, voluntarily apologized after the complaint was raised.
The woman is understood to have complained to the network’s HR department in 2025. She later left the network for unrelated reasons.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is understood to have been told by a senior member of GB News about the complaint before Goodwin was selected as the party’s candidate for next week’s by-election.
Several sources told the Guardian they were aware of the woman’s complaint against Goodwin and that GB News had investigated the complaint.
A source at the broadcaster said: “She was very upset at the time, and her colleagues were upset on her behalf that she was very upset by her situation.”
Goodwin denies wrongdoing. His lawyer confirmed to the Guardian that the complaint had been filed. They said it was related to two alleged verbal comments months apart and no formal disciplinary action was taken.
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They said it was a “small office thing” that was resolved as a difference of understanding or miscommunication. The investigator found both the young woman’s and Goodwin’s accounts of the situation to be credible, crediting Goodwin for apologizing after the complaint was raised.
Farage is understood to have decided that the complaint was not serious enough to warrant a reconsideration of Goodwin’s selection. A source at GB News told the Guardian that Farage’s complaint was “just rubbish”.
Weeks after the complaint was raised, Goodwin was announced as a candidate for the by-election, which was prompted by Andrew Gwin’s resignation due to health reasons.
Goodwin faced criticism during the campaign for previous comments, including a 2024 suggestion that “young girls and women” should be given a “biological reality” check, while Labor MP Natalie Fleet proposed a “handmaid’s tale” future.
He has also been criticized for comments he made on a podcast with right-wing academic Jordan Peterson last year, in which he said there had been a “feminization of higher education”, which Peterson described as a potential cause of “politically correct tyranny”.
Some have described Goodwin as a controversial choice for the by-election, after he recently claimed that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British. After announcing his candidacy, he was quickly endorsed by far-right activist and criminal Tommy Robinson.
In a blog entry written in 2023, Goodwin suggested that the government “remove personal income tax for women who have two or more children”.
Goodwin spent most of his career as an academic before turning to politics. He has spoken at various Reform UK events over the past year, and he has a substock blog with 90,000 followers where he posts articles explaining his views.
Vidyarananna when he took voluntary retirement as a professor at the University of Kent in 2024 He left.
Reform UK did not respond to a request for comment. Goodwin and GB News declined to provide an on-the-record comment.
