‘The sudden and unexpected resignation of our Chair and now the treatment of Rupert Lowe has made some of us reflect on our willingness to stand for Reform. If Zia Yusuf can’t stand up for his candidates, why should we put our head above the parapet only to have it chopped off by an inadequate leadership?’ – a potential Reform candidate speaking anonymously to the writer.
FOLLOWING the Reform Party’s axing of its rising star MP Rupert Lowe, many are asking ‘Does the party have a future?’ The answer lies as much in the party’s increasingly dysfunctional and counter-productive vetting of candidates and staff as in the policy and personality arguments at the top.
Candidates or officials who are starting out need support and help when they are attacked and come under public scrutiny. What they don’t need is their own party to turn on them. The promised ‘professionalisation’ of the party must be completed without alienating the very volunteers it depends on.
In recent years, after standing in three local council elections as an Independent, I have been working with Reform candidates. In May 2023 I was elected as a town councillor. I also ran the successful No to Northeye campaign against plans to turn a former airfield near Bexhill in East Sussex into a centre for asylum seekers. During this time people repeatedly asked me to join or stand for Reform. Finally, in November last year I attended the first local Reform meeting for the area along with many of the people who’d supported us in our No to Northeye campaign. The mood was so positive that I decided to join and put myself forward for the (now cancelled) May local elections. I was accepted and passed the vetting procedures. At the end of January we organised a well-attended social raising £900 for our fighting fund; the branch was on a roll with more than 1,300 members. Then in February, out of the blue, we were dismayed to be told by email that our competent and experienced businessman chair (and previous parliamentary candidate) had ‘stepped down’. Bemusement and anger followed. This was a man who had sliced the Tory majority in the July general election from 26,000 to 2,600, coming a very respectable third.
Some believe our chair was expelled ‘to protect Yusuf’. Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf had appeared on the BBC’s Question Time on January 30 alongside Bexhill’s new Tory MP, Dr Kieran Mullen. In a segment on diversity and inclusion, Mullen took the opportunity to discredit our Reform candidate against whom he had run in the July 2024 election. Mullen cited, out of context, two comments posted some years ago on UnHerd. These had been raked up by BBC offence archaeologists and our candidate had already apologised for them. While Mullen came prepared, Yusuf did not. Instead of attacking his Tory foe, he went straight into defence mode and unintentionally skewered our successful Reform candidate and hardworking chair.
Yusuf could have laughed and said that despite the BBC’s best efforts it hadn’t stopped his candidate from decimating Mullen’s vote and threatening his win. He might also have attacked Mullen and his woke party for being more concerned about hate crime than real crime. Or that if an apology was not good enough for Mullen, tough, it was good enough for him.
But no. Yusuf accepted his attacker’s terms and replied defensively that the candidate had been ‘stood down’. Mullen hit back, saying he had not. To which Yusuf hung our chair out to dry, stating that ‘such candidates will never again be allowed to stand for the party’.
Going for the kill the BBC, who had carefully chosen their Question Time line-up, posted the clip of this ‘gotcha’ moment on X.
About a month later we were told that our chair had unexpectedly stepped down. Now it looks as if this is not an isolated phenomenon. I’ve had similar reports from elsewhere in the South East, and I keep getting sent this post saying Stafford’s local branch is closing down.
That vetting is much stricter may be no surprise, but the dismissive approach that’s been taken is not welcome on the ground. Not only is it dispiriting, but as my colleague said, ‘Decent people are being replaced by bland candidates. Officers are being appointed who, by virtue of having little or no social media presence, pass the vetting.’
One South East local described their new Chair as ‘a bit of a non-entity . . . about as exciting as a puddle’. Another quipped: ‘Disillusioned old male accountants aren’t really going to motivate the troops!’
It may make appointees a safe bet but it isn’t good from a campaigning point of view, given the importance of personality as well as social media. The lack of dialogue is also annoying members and supporters. All this is coming at a time when people are preparing for the May local elections and the first Starmer era parliamentary by-election in the Cheshire constituency of Runcorn and Helsby, triggered by the conviction of Labour MP Mike Amesbury for assault.
Lowe’s axing is the final straw for some. Members of our local WhatsApp group are already asking which other party they should join. Nationally the impact on membership numbers has seen gains of 700 a day falling to fewer than 70 over the weekend, and now the ‘ticker’ has gone into reverse.
Quite simply Yusuf’s promised ‘professionalisation’ has yet to materialise. Social media is full of questions about his motivations and capabilities. These need to be addressed. Many of us have not had a single email from Reform since we joined, except in my case to say I have been accepted as a potential candidate. It’s not encouraging and if the party is willing to sacrifice good people who stand in elections, many of us will be reluctant to do so.
Having said all this I still believe Reform stands a good chance of winning the Sussex and Brighton mayoral elections in May 2026 if we can get our act together. To do it we must garner wider popular support. This means:
- Getting the right balance between effective central support and local autonomy;
- Drawing on the knowledge and expertise of local party members who work in social care, roads and waste management;
- Allowing space for different opinions.
We need charismatic individuals who aren’t afraid to speak out. The odd skeleton in the cupboard is to be expected, and so what! That’s what Reform should be saying.
