Jill Hughes, the Brexit Party candidate for Batley and Spen, lists some impressive accomplishments on her LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook accounts. After 23 years of working in banking in London and New York, she left to become a “No 1 Bestselling author” and “one of the UK’s leading Wealth Mentors”. But with a bit of examination, both of those claims seem to be highly questionable.

First, let’s look at her claims of being a bestselling author. In the ‘About The Author’ section of her Amazon account, she claims to have “co-authored a No 1 Best Selling Spiritual self help book called ‘Inspired by the Passion Test’”. It’s true that Hughes contributed a section to this book – along with 15 other writers and the two main authors. But was it ever a ‘No 1 Bestseller’? We can find no evidence of this. The book itself has just a single customer review on Amazon and we cannot find it described as a ‘bestseller’ anywhere outside of Jill Hughes’ own descriptions.

It is similarly difficult to find any evidence that Hughes is ‘one of the UK’s leading Wealth Mentors’. While this claim might be somewhat vague and difficult to disprove, there’s very little evidence of her activity in this area. Her website is ‘under maintenance’, her Twitter account for this purpose has just five followers, and she only registered ‘MoneyMagnet.Global Limited’ with Companies House on October 10th of this year. This is despite her having listed herself as the ‘CEO’ of Money Magnet on her LinkedIn since November 2017, and having self-published her book, ‘Spirit of Prophecy’ under that name in March 2018. Though not illegal, it is odd to describe yourself as ‘CEO’ if you’re actually a sole trader.

A cautious investor might be slightly concerned by this philosophy of wealth from a Wealth Mentor:

Outside of the professional sphere, Hughes has made some other odd statements. In 2016, she claimed to be a spiritual guide from Sirius, a star 8.6 light years away from earth:

And in the acknowledgements to her book Spirit of Prophecy, she promotes the idea that extraterrestrials are living amongst us and cooperating with world governments:

“the E.T’s, some of them less than Apple Pie wholesome or Positive pumpkins, are already here working with our world Governments, but that’s all hush-hush for now.”

The ‘About the author’ section on her Amazon listing also declares some other interesting beliefs:

“To this day J.J.Hughes believes in elves/fairies/mermaids/unicorns and all things Elemental and Other Worldly…She has had numerous prophetic premonitions – usually about death, which so far despite a few close shaves she has escaped. She came to believe in reincarnation in her mid-twenties when her old horse Red made a re-appearance, this time as a palomino called Hooray Henry”

Hughes has already received some pushback from local pro-Brexit activists, who claim they have no idea who she is:

But she wasn’t impressed with the idea that where candidates have lived should matter to local voters:

“What is the obsession with the PPC must live in [sic] … Batley… or where ever? …We live in a Global-Digital world now-geographical locations are less and less relevant”.

This is probably unsurprising given that Jill Hughes grew up in nearby Bradford, and doesn’t seem to have lived in Yorkshire since attending university. Her Twitter bio describes her as ‘Bingley born Bradford schooled’, but her Facebook page says she is “Honoured to be PPC for Batley and Spen, West York’s where she comes from.” 

We’re happy to correct the record on any of these points if Jill Hughes or the Brexit Party would like to provide supporting information, but we think the voters of Batley and Spen deserve to hear a lot more about this candidate’s qualifications and beliefs.

You can find out more about the Brexit Party – and how to beat them – by reading our factsheet here.