Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform UK party, has sent a letter to Conservative county councillors urging them to join his party before May’s local elections. In the letter, Farage warns of Reform’s “formidable” ground campaign capabilities and claims that a “huge number of [Conservative] county councillors genuinely agree with us and what we stand for.” He has given them until 6 November to make the switch, warning that they will face a Reform candidate standing against them if they do not.
Farage insists that his party is assembling a “national election winning machine at historic speed” with hundreds of branches already established and more than 90,000 active members ready to campaign. In response to Farage’s letter, a Conservative party spokesman said that “a vote for Reform this coming May is a vote for a Labour council,” blaming Reform for delivering a Labour government.
Two Southend councillors defected from the Conservative party in September and there are reportedly “other councillors in talks with us,” says Farage. Kevin Bentley, the leader of Essex County Council, dismissed Farage’s letter as “desperate.”
Meanwhile, Jaymey McIvor, a former Conservative councillor and general election candidate, has announced that he has joined Reform UK. The Conservatives expelled McIvor on October 9th following a disciplinary hearing; he was selected to stand for them in Hemel Hempstead in the general election but was later dropped and suspended. McIvor claims that he quit the Conservative party because they were “too weak to deal with its handful of toxic individuals” and that Reform UK “puts people and country first.
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