According to the latest poll Reform UK Limited is the country’s most popular party, leading with 31%, which must delight its owner Nigel Farage and his ultra-wealthy backers. That national popularity has translated to the local government by-elections. In the North East, the latest Reform UK victory has been in the by-election at Nunthorpe Ward, part of Middlesbrough Council.
Nunthorpe
At the poll held on 4 December, Reform UK’s Jo Rush was elected with 35.79% of the vote. Her 563 votes just tipped the 550 of the Liberal Democrat Adrian Walker.
Rush becomes Middlesbrough’s first Reform councillor.
While Rush is a newcomer to politics, Walker is a well- known local personality heading up the Parish Council as well as being involved in several community projects that he co-founded.
After a hard-worked campaign, the Conservative Martin Lyon garnered 328 votes.
Sam Boardman (Greens) and Richard Lewis (Labour) were also-rans with 79 and 52 votes respectively. A not unexpected outcome – leafy Nunthorpe is not a Labour ward.
The 1,573 votes cast represented a turnout of 35.75%.
Was this a triumph of Reform UK over the Tories or Labour?
Neither. Labour was never in the running here.
The ward’s other councillor Mieka Smiles is Conservative, but the outgoing incumbent Morgan McClintock was a LibDem.
This election was fought, it appears, on hyper-local issues, down to, in Rush’s case, nuisance leaves.
Nowhere did Rush mention Reform UK’s policies – stopping immigration, adopting the catastrophic US-style health privatisation, or more locally cutting the statutory requirements for SEND and Adult Social Care.
South Bank
Other Teesside by-elections appeared to demonstrate the importance of candidate personalities. In South Bank on 20 November, Labour’s Sue Jeffrey, a popular local figure and former council leader in Redcar and Cleveland, bucked the trend and hung on to the Labour seat.
Skelton East
On 9 October, Reform UK’s Craig Holmes (formerly a Tory councillor) took the seat at Redcar and Cleveland’s Skelton East by-election. Despite (or because of) his pants-down public urination incident caught on camera.
Hetton
Elsewhere the triumphs of Farage Limited are more clear cut. At the Hetton Ward, Sunderland by-election on 27 November, Reform UK’s Ian McKinley won a gain from Labour with 45.2% of the vote and a fall of 24% for Labour.
Eaglescliffe West
The next challenge for Reform UK is on 11 December in the affluent suburb of Eaglescliffe West, in Stockton. The outgoing councillor is Conservative in a solid Tory neighbourhood.
This is a four-contestant poll. Despite our efforts little is known about most of the candidates.
Our information about the Conservative candidate Stephen Dodds is sparse. We do know he lives in Eaglescliffe and is an architect.
The Reform UK team backing Rick MacDonald posted a photograph on Facebook of a supposedly Conservative leaflet claiming that “Nigel Farage Plans To Scrap Conservative Benefit Caps” The text reads “So you go to work ..And your neighbour doesn’t have to.”
It’s a claim Reform UK goes on to deny but we don’t know if that leaflet was genuine or a Reform UK gimmick.
The Facebook page continues that the by-election “gives us an opportunity to elect SBC’s first Reform councillor”
The team claimed they had been out canvassing for four days straight.
“Please get behind our fantastic local born candidate Rick MacDonald who’s lived in Eaglescliffe all his life and we can make history”
Local wards for local people. And an absence of policies or issues.
Perhaps an indicator of local sentiment is the prompt removal of the ubiquitous St George’s flags from street lamps.
If Eaglescliffe is a two-horse race between Conservatives and Reform UK, voters whose politics lie to the left of Ghenghis Khan have a choice between Labour and the Green Party.
Again we know little or nothing of the Labour candidate Frank Saul, except that he lives in Thornaby, not Eaglescliffe.
We know the most about the Green candidate Danny Reed, the least likely to be returned. We even managed an interview with him.
Reed is a lecturer in Marketing at Teesside University. Originally from North Shields he fell in love with Eaglescliffe when he was involved in an amateur play there. He also fell in love with the play’s producer – and she married him. He settled in Eaglescliffe ten years ago.
His main concern for the ward is the infrastructure lacking with new building developments: the doctors, public transport, roads, schools and shops inadequate in a neighbourhood suffering under development sprawl.
Reed wants to see easier access for residents wishing to comment on planning applications, and a bus network more in keeping with residents’ needs. For instance, a hop to Ingleby Barwick next door means a trip into and out of Stockton town centre.
He is backed by a lively team of ten campaigners, he tells us. He has a busy Facebook page.
Will his campaign succeed? No, but using an election to promote a party is no bad thing.
It’s something the LibDems could consider. They are not fielding a candidate in Eaglescliffe. They currently have no councillors in Stockton.
Strategy
Is there any strategy to the Reform UK by-elections? The tactics seem inconsistent and depend largely on the candidate. Does it matter if Nunthorpe’s leaves are the issue of the day there while elsewhere even the candidate’s name is barely mentioned?
Not really. Because the Reform candidates are surfing on a national tidal wave of public opinion that makes local issues irrelevant.
Reform has hammered home the “Stop-The-Boats” slogan without a coherent challenge from any other major party. The mantra is a way to blame black and brown skin for all the country’s ills – without being called racist.
Much of the electorate seems tone deaf to the Reform scandals that are stacking up: funded by just three mega-donors; new councillors leaving or being fired; the shambles of their private healthcare idea.
We have a rare opportunity to see into the future. If we look at the unbelievable rise and resurrection of Donald Trump, these local election mini triumphs could well be just a taste of things to come.
So buckle up.
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