Members of Parliament are turning to reality TV shows like I’m a Celeb to boost their profiles and social media following. Matt Hancock himself having waltzed his way into the final, finishing third overall.
With that in mind, Bespoke Software Development Company sought to uncover which UK Member of Parliament (MP) has the most fake followers online?
MPs and their fake Twitter armies
| Rank | Member of Parliament | Political party | Twitter handle | No. of Twitter followers | No. of fake followers | Percentage of fake followers (%) |
| 1. | Tim Farron | LibDem | @timfarron | 292,402 | 150,881 | 51.60% |
| 2. | Matt Hancock | CON | @MattHancock | 425,241 | 184,330 | 43.30% |
| 3. | Dominic Raab | CON | @DominicRaab | 354,962 | 146,601 | 41.30% |
| 4. | Tulip Siddiq | LAB | @TulipSiddiq | 199,484 | 81,993 | 41.10% |
| 5. | Michael Gove | CON | @michaelgove | 254,546 | 100,832 | 39.60% |
| 6. | Boris Johnson | CON | @BorisJohnson | 4,758,280 | 1,731,995 | 36.40% |
| 7. | Jess Phillips | LAB | @jessphillips | 614,966 | 223,244 | 36.30% |
| 8. | Rishi Sunak | CON | @RishiSunak | 1,517,377 | 544,828 | 35.90% |
| 9. | David Davis | CON | @DavidDavisMP | 192,045 | 67,820 | 35.30% |
| 10. | Jeremy Hunt | CON | @Jeremy_Hunt | 251,223 | 88,179 | 35.10% |
For a full analysis of MPs’ Twitter accounts, please see here.
Farron’s fake following lands him in first
Taking the crown with a whopping 51.6% fake twitter following is former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron. 150,881 of his 292,402 followers were found to be fake! Even with just over half the total following of Matt Hancock in second, Farron is 8.3% ahead of Hancock.
Controversial I’m A Celeb MP takes second
Surprisingly, I’m A Celeb finalist, Matt Hancock, has the second highest percentage of fake followers. Before joining the reality TV show his fake follower percentage stood at 43.3%. Hancock battled his way through six trials, currying favour from at home viewers; the same couldn’t be said of his time as Health Secretary.
Has Hancock become more popular since joining I’m A Celeb?
| Number of Followers | Number of fake followers | Fake follower percentage | |
| Pre-show | 425,241 | 184,330 | 43.30% |
| Post-show | 435,964 | 189,644 | 43.5% |
Hancock has increased his twitter army by 10,723 followers. With a fake following increase of more than 5,000 bringing his updated fake following to 43.5%, solidifying his position in second for the title of MP with the most fake followers.
Deputy Prime Minister slides into third
Dominic Raab is in third. The deputy prime minister has amassed a Twitter following of over 350,000. However, over one third of those followers are fake, equating to 41.3%.
Methodology:
- Bespoke Software Development Company sought to discover which UK Member of Parliament (MP) has the most fake followers on Twitter.
- To do this, a seed list of politicians with a Twitter account was sourced from PoliticsSocial.com and cross-verified with listed MPs at Parliament.uk.
- The current 650 Members of Parliament were filtered by the top four political parties, and then further by (up to) the top 50 most followed members of those parties.
- MPs’ Twitter handles were then analysed using SparkToro’s online fake follower audit tool to generate an estimated number and percentage of fake accounts following each politician, respectively.
- Follower information was not able to be gathered for some accounts and so was omitted from the final count.
- Members of Parliament were ranked in descending order by their total percentage of fake followers.
- Data was retrieved on 2nd November 2022 and is accurate as of then.