uk party has the reform uk party has overtaken the conservative party in terms of membership numbers. is this a sign that leader nigel farage could be destined for number 10 at the next election? a company that pays prince harry a £1 million salary is in hot water, as workplace is described as toxic, and newly released guidance from the crown prosecution service has suggested it may not be a crime for transgender people to hide their biological sex. and have you overindulged this christmas? mr motivator will be here to help you kick start your health in the new year with. joining me this evening is gb news senior political commentator nigel nelson, journalist and communications advisor linda duberly and journalist, agony aunt and novelist hilary

freeman. hello. how are you? all good. >> merry christmas and a merry christmas to you, too. >> when do we stop saying merry christmas? >> not probably yesterday. is that it, mr happy hanukkah? >> yeah. you guys have covered no particularly bad hangovers. >> no no no no no, you're ready to. just too much work to drink straight back into work. yeah. too much christmas pudding. but beyond that, i'm about 95% cheese and cake at the moment. okay, then. okay, we'll keep it. keep it in yourself. >> all right. we've got a big fun show, boxing day show coming up. but first, your news headunes up. but first, your news headlines with sam francis. >> very good evening to you. the top story tonight. well, us officials say there are early indications that a passenger plane that crashed, killing 38 people, was downed by a russian air defence system. sources say the azerbaijani airlines flight was hit by a missile, crippling the jet before it crashed in kazakhstan. mobile footage shows

the jet in a steep descent. passengers praying as oxygen masks fell in the cabin and the wreckage engulfed in flames. the kremlin denies any deliberate action, instead blaming a bird strike. but azerbaijan is demanding that russian authorities admit the responsibility. 451 migrants crossed the english channel illegally on christmas day, according to official figures from the home office. six more small boats carrying at least 250 migrants have also reached uk waters today. the latest arrivals have been brought to the border force processing centre in dover and with calm weather conditions expected to continue, border force says it is on heightened alert for potential surges in further crossings. reform uk's membership has overtaken the conservatives today, just months after nigel farage's return as party leader. their tracker shows more than 135,000 members, a 300% surge since farage's comeback in june. younger

supporters, cheaper fees and frustrations with the tories are all driving that growth. and farage claims reform is now the future of british politics. meanwhile, the conservatives last reported around 120,000 members and have since faced criticism for a lack of direction under leader kemi badenoch. well, the reform leader nigel farage has been speaking to us here on gb news about those figures. >> incredible. over 15,000 people have joined us and given us their 25 quids over the last four days. this is an historic moment when the newest party in british politics overtakes the oldest existing political party in the world, something is happening. so of course i'm delighted. >> and boxing day shoppers are avoiding the high street today, with footfall down reportedly over 12% compared to figures last year. retail parks did fare slightly better, but overall activity across the uk is more than 10% lower than in 2023. analysts blame the shift to

onune analysts blame the shift to online shopping, rising costs for physical stores and changing habhs for physical stores and changing habits driven by year round promotions. but barclays still estimates that we will have spent £4.6 billion today, although most of it, as in previous years, will be online. those are the latest headlines for now . for now. >> for the very latest gb news direct to your smartphone, sign up to news alerts by scanning the qr code or go to gbnews.com/alerts. >> i want to start this show by saying congratulations to nigel farage and the reform party for today, surpassing the conservatives last known membership numbers in what seems like a lifetime ago, when i was out passionately marching against brexit, i didn't think i'd ever be saying those words. and whilst i may still not be convinced brexit was the right call, my position is certainly more nuanced than a former sense

of moral and intellectual superiority, which makes me wince in shame. hey, i watched the bbc, i read the guardian. i was a labour voter. i was one of the goodies. of course, what i think i really was was lazy, i was passive. how many of us are captured by tribal politics, voting and thinking a certain way? because our family did, our friends did, our colleagues did, our media did. it certainly made for an easier life. and i understand the appeal of easy in a different reality. right now, i'd happily be at home watching married at first sight, but somewhere along the way, in the madness of the last decade, i was forced out of my complacency. i was forced to start thinking perhaps it was the same for many of you out there, and whatever it was that did trigger you brexit, gender ideology, anti—semitism on the left, the culture wars, illegal immigration, covid lockdown. once you realise your obsequiousness was taken for granted once your eyes had been opened on one particular issue,

once you noted how information was doled out by politicians and the legacy media possibly misrepresented or maybe not presented at all, i imagine you wondered what else you might have got wrong. you can't go back to sleep. woke, indeed. and that, i believe, is the silver lining of some of the madness that has shaken our society this last decade a paradigm shift, a forging of a more engaged citizenship who don't automatically toe the party line of a two party system, who'll do some research and explore and talk, look for facts, question those facts, question the questioning of those facts. but what then? how do you organise around them? how do you participate in a democracy? rather than let democracy be something that just happens to you? if your new mantra is policy, not party, then what do you do when they don't match? in my case, i voted for what i hoped was the best of a bad bunch. it's not exactly inspiring, and that's why i'm congratulating reform for their milestone. i'm not a reform

voter, but whatever you think of nigel farage, he's turned his ideas and concerns and policies into a major political party. today, reform's existence has become more a fixture than an aberration. i don't think that necessarily points to him becoming the next prime minister. party membership doesn't indicate electoral victory. labour had over half a million members when jeremy corbyn led them to their greatest electoral loss since 1935, and even though it's a lot less now at 370,000, labour just secured their largest majority since 1997. a house on stilts? maybe, but that house is likely to stand the next few years. kemi badenoch may contest the numbers. personally, i think that's a misstep. and maybe she's right that the tories are still ahead with thousands of new members since her election, and maybe lowering the fee to a tenner for under 25 is a trick, although i think engaging younger people is good. and certainly it's fine to question what that money actually gets them compared to membership of other political parties. but that's not the main point. there

are now more people, more engaged, more invested, more educated in how this country is run about the policies that will run about the policies that will run it. and that's not a bad thing. critics say labour may have gotten away with few policies going into the last election, but that same trick won't work again in the future. people now have one more contender for their vote. hopefully there will be more political parties will be less able to take our votes for granted. political parties will be less able to take our opinions for granted. maybe one day there'll be a political party that makes me excited to vote for them. our political system hasn't yet caught up to this new paradigm of a fragmented electorate, but an engaged one. reform success, though, serves as an example of what's possible and gets us that bit closer to. let's get the thoughts of my panel gb news senior political commentator nigel nelson, journalist, agony aunt and novelist hilary

freeman, and journalist and communications advisor linda jubilee. nigel, if i may start with you, as i don't know if you still vote labour, but obviously that's seems to be confidential. >> but i support the labour party. you support the labour party? >> fine. do you think there has been this paradigm shift over the last few years? >> oh yeah. no question about it. i mean, everything you're saying there about people being more enga