National drift
Reform has issued a new national list of 21 new Reform recruits among its ranks of local councillors, bringing the full total to 963.
Middlesbrough
In Middlesbrough, councillors Joan McTigue and Christine Cooper have both dropped their independent status and joined Reform, making the council’s Reform contingent an army of three, including Nunthorpe newbie Jo Rush.
Oddly, Cllr McTigue’s switch to Reform is not mentioned in the Local Government Chronicle or Teesside Live reports, although Cllr Cooper’s is.
The Reform Redcar branch Facebook page congratulates Cooper but makes no mention of McTigue.
Teesside Live mentions that McTigue is still listed on the council website as an Independent, but then so is Cooper.
Cllr McTigue has already confirmed to us on the phone that she is now in the Reform group of councillors. We’ve reached out to her again for further comment on the confusion.
STOP PRESS Monday 19 January.
Cllr McTigue’s Reform membership entry in her Register of Interests has been removed.
We have reached out to Cllr McTigue again for clarification. Given the data available, it appears that she has made a swift exit from Reform.
Cllr McTigue is a controversial figure, but given her collections for a project in India and destitute refugees in Middlesbrough, an early departure from Reform would not seem surprising.
Redcar and Cleveland
Last October, Redcar and Cleveland welcomed its first Reform councillor Craig Holmes, after he won a by-election at Skelton East ward, despite a public-urination photo that went viral. Holmes was formerly a Tory councillor in Redcar.
He might soon be joined by a Reform councillor from Zetland ward, where a by-election takes place on 19 February. The resigning councillor was elected as Labour before he left the party to sit as an Independent.
Reform is fielding Mike Manning in the forthcoming poll. An ex-soldier from Liverpool, he has had a career in IT and has lived in Redcar for 40 years. The Reform candidate announcement comes after a doorstep blitzkrieg since last autumn of their “Britain Is Lawless” leaflet, stirring fear of crime.
Reform face stiff competition. A strong contender from the LibDem stable, Alison Barnes held the seat from 2019-2023 and the Children’s Services portfolio in a previous cabinet.
The Labour candidate is Mitchell Rynn. Redcar born and bred, he lives in Zetland Ward. After studying film at Salford University, he’s now a fraud agent at a High Street bank.
Rynn’s priorities, he tells us, are maintenance of the seafront, protection of the green spaces, and tackling potholes, blocked drains and speeding.
The Tories and Greens have yet to declare their candidates.
Durham
Reform’s promise to run a more efficient Durham County Council is under scrutiny. News is out that Councillor Andrew Husband, charged with running their DOGE-style cuts campaign, has two companies under administration, owing £1.5mn including £500,000 in tax, Covid loans and staff pay.
Warwickshire
With all ten Reform-run councils now planning to raise council tax, do they still need to take their Musk-style chainsaws to their budgets?
Apparently so. Warwickshire County Council is considering cutting free school transport to children over the ages of seven or eight. Only SEND pupils will be exempt.
The council has its priorities. In July, they voted to spend £150,000 on political advisers.
Kent
Kent County Council has also hired a political adviser. The new recruit, Michael Hadwen, former head of campaigns at Reform, defended Enoch Powell’s racism in a 2018 tweet reported by Hope Not Hate. He criticised the “systemic problems caused by unchecked multiculturalism” and claimed, “Enoch was right”.
That council spent £11,000 on removing flags from lampposts so they could erect Christmas lights.
Hampshire racism
Chris Parry, Reform’s candidate for the now-postponed Hampshire and Solent mayoral election, has come under regular fire for his racist comments. For instance, he claimed Minister David Lammy’s loyalty lay with the Caribbean rather than Britain; and he has criticised Naz Shah MP’s swearing-in on the Quran.
Leicestershire islamophobia
At Leicestershire County Council, Reform councillor Carl Abbott expressed his worries about “seeing children in primary schools being taught to pray the Muslim way”.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service reported that Abbott said he feared it could lead to the radicalisation of children.
Abbott made the comment during a Prevent counter-terrorism briefing held by Leicestershire County Council earlier this month.
SEND
Reform has set up a working group on the SEND “crisis”, chaired by ex-Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns.
SEND stands for Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. The working group has suggested using empty churches for educating SEND children. Would they be re-equipped with full educational facilities and appropriate access?
It seems the idea is to use the churches on schooldays when they are “empty”. So are they planning to contain the SEND kids in un-renovated premises, with one toilet, no kitchen, no heating, and a graveyard for a playground?
Zahawi’s new home
Among the steady flow of top Tories to Reform, a new recruit is enjoying maximum publicity. Nadhim Zahawi, the former Tory MP, has jumped ship into the arms of Nige and co.
Zahawi was sacked by PM Rishi Sunak from the party’s chairmanship.
There were also questions about his claims for expenses as an MP: especially the heating for his stables (run as a business by his wife).
The media has exhumed Zahawi’s tweet from 2015 stating:
“I’m not British Born Mr @Nigel_Farage I am as British as u r. Yr comments r offensive & racist. I wld be frightened 2 live in a country run by U”
Robert Jenrick jumps/pushed
On 15 January Tory leader Kemi Badenoch MP fired Robert Jenrick MP from the Tory Party for plotting to join Reform. Then he joined Reform.
Despite having been a candidate for the Tory leadership (against Badenoch), Jenrick may have found his true home in Reform.
He’s a master of the casual racist comment. On visiting Handsworth in Birmingham, he said,
“I didn’t see another white face. And that’s not the kind of country I want to live in.”
With that kind of language, will he soon be snapping at Farage’s heels?
London
In pursuit of that Mr Moderate image, Reform (or just Farage?) have/has selected their/his London candidate for the city’s 2028 mayoral election.
Laila Cunningham is expected to run against the incumbent Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan. Like Mayor Khan, Cunningham is a Moslem (her parents are Egyptian immigrants), an ethnic identity that has stirred controversy in the Reform ranks.
Many right-wingers – including Stephen Yaxley Lennon – preferred Ant Middleton of Who Dares Wins fame.
Cunningham does not however hold much sympathy for her community in the faith. In a YouTube interview on the Heretics Channel she said,
“I want to see visa bans for Pakistan.”
Advance
Farage’s “moderate” brand is not going down too well with some of his members, and there’s a flow of defections away from his party to the new show in town, Advance, which has an even more right-wing and radical agenda.
Advance has been established by Ben Habib, a former acolyte of Farage and ex-Deputy of Reform. A couple of ex-Reform Doncaster councillors have already defected to the new grouping. Stephen Yaxley-Lennon claims he has signed up.
Elon Musk has expressed his support.
Ukip
In 2014, when he was still running Ukip, Farage said that he was “proud” to have taken a third of BNP votes.
It seems the BNP influence has remained.
No longer connected to Farage, Ukip has applied to the Electoral Commission to have its logo changed. The image has created uproar in the press given its similarity to Hitler’s Iron Cross.
Epstein
Finally, some raised eyebrows in Washington DC. As interested parties trawl through thousands of documents in the newly released Epstein files, they have discovered that Farage is mentioned 41 times in connected emails. Not in the context of Epstein’s paedophile proclivities, but in his support of Brexit.
Will Tees Valley Mayor Houchen defect?
The Financial Times and The Teesside Lead newsletter have both reported that Farage met with Tees Valley Mayor Lord Ben Houchen in December last year. The reports mention that Farage’s office has again reached out to Houchen suggesting a lunch meeting.
The speculation is that Reform is trying to persuade Houchen to quit the Tories and join them.
This comes as no surprise to many in Tees Valley.
An insider told us that Reform has courted Houchen since the General Election and that Houchen knows that he can jump at the precise moment that suits him.
