Ten Reform party councillors in Derbyshire have resigned in protest at Nigel Farage’s ‘autocratic’ control of the rising party and its direction of travel. Farage has dismissed the revolt as the action of what he calls a ‘rogue branch’ of Reform, but there are stirrings of discontent in the grassroots of the fast-growing party that may signal more than minor teething troubles.
There are legitimate questions to be asked both about Reform’s structure and the way that Farage’s robust personality impacts upon it
During the Reform UK East Midlands conference, a former Tory MP for the Dudley seat – Mario Longhi – defected to Reform and was introduced by Nigel Farage as, ‘a loyal member of the Conservative Party for the last goodness knows how many years’. Some interpreted the spectacle as a fresh example of the Reform leadership’s preference for headhunting disaffected and opportunistic former Tories, rather than platforming loyal ordinary members.
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