Matt Goodwin, the Reform UK candidate who lost the Gorton and Denton by-election last month, has defended using artificial intelligence to help write his latest book. Goodwin came second to the Green Party's Hannah Spencer, a result that some see as a sign Nigel Farage's party may be losing momentum.
The former academic faced criticism on social media after it was noted that ChatGPT was mentioned in the URL of some references in his book, Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity. The book is described as a story of how Britain is 'committing national suicide' through mass immigration and multiculturalism.
In a lengthy thread on X, Goodwin argued: 'I see no issue obtaining datasets via AI so long as they are cross-checked with the original source.' He also claimed that high numbers of children in schools speaking English as a second language were weakening the educational system.
Goodwin previously suggested that people without children should be taxed extra, and warned that 'many women in Britain are having children much too late in life'. These comments were made in a YouTube video from November 2024.
In the by-election, Goodwin received 10,578 votes, ahead of Labour's Angeliki Stogia on 9,364, while Spencer won with 14,980 votes.
