Artist Stanley Chow takes legal action against Reform UK over unauthorised use of Andy Burnham portrait

Manchester-based illustrator Stanley Chow has launched legal action against Reform UK and a number of its politicians over their unauthorised use of his artwork during the pivotal Makerfield by-election campaign. 

The portrait at the heart of the dispute is a now iconic image of Greater Manchester Mayor and by-election candidate Andy Burnham, originally created by Chow and commissioned ahead of the 2021 Greater Manchester mayoral election. Burnham has deployed the portrait extensively across his mayoral campaigns and now in Makerfield, establishing it as the visual shorthand for his political movement over the past six years.

In recent weeks, however, senior Reform UK figures including leader Nigel Farage and spokesperson for home affairs Zia Yusuf, alongside Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon and his campaign manager Adam Rawlinson, have posted the image on social media, doctored with text and imagery expressing anti-immigration and anti-asylum seeker messages. 

Since being published, the posts have gone viral across X and Facebook, as well as digital advertising vans and billboards deployed in the Makerfield constituency. The campaign has also included paid advertising, with reporting from Politico indicating that Reform has spent significant amounts of campaign funding on Facebook ads featuring the artwork. Chow was neither consulted nor gave permission to Reform UK for the image’s usage. He has now instructed Brabners to support him in his action against Reform. A letter of claim has been submitted to the party setting out the basis of the copyright infringement and seeking redress. This includes potentially seeking an urgent injunction.

Chow is an internationally recognised illustrator whose minimalist portraiture has been recognised in publications like The New Yorker and exhibited globally. His artwork spans music, film, sport and popular culture but he maintains a close creative connection to Manchester, where he still lives and where his work is widely seen as being part of the city’s cultural fabric. 

The social media posts have formed part of Reform UK’s campaign in the Makerfield by-election, which is scheduled for 18 June 2026 and was triggered following the resignation of Labour MP Josh Simons. Reform UK’s candidate, Robert Kenyon, is expected to be Andy Burnham’s main challenger. As part of its campaign against Burnham's stance on immigration, Reform has deployed Chow's portrait, weaponising it to advance an anti-immigration message that the artist does not endorse.

For Chow, the matter extends beyond copyright infringement. His objection to Reform’s usage of the portrait in this context — being used to advance anti-immigration messaging — is rooted in his own family background as a second-generation immigrant to the UK. It is not just a professional concern but personal too. 

Chow said: "For me, this is straightforward — my work has been used without permission to share a message that I fundamentally disagree with. While I am a proud Mancunian, I'm also a second-generation immigrant born and raised here to parents from Hong Kong. To see my portrait, created to represent something positive about Manchester and Andy's vision for the city, being used without my permission to push agendas, including an anti-immigration message, is fundamentally unfair and wrong. It misrepresents what the image stands for and what I believe in. I want to be clear about that, and I want to set the record straight."

Colin Bell, Partner at Brabners said: “This is a clear case of copyright infringement. It’s important because an artists’ work, created with care and intention, has been used and edited without permission and without acknowledgement or remuneration. That's not acceptable. Stan is entitled to an injunction — or undertakings to cease and desist and take down the infringing works — compensation and a public apology. We're advising Stan in his pursuit of this claim to secure redress and to make clear that artists' work, rights and reputations cannot be treated in this way without consent, including as leverage or collateral in political campaigns.”