Reform UK has ‘momentum’ for Northants May elections, says insider
With less than 100 days to the local elections in May, Reform UK has now established seven branches in Northants
By Sarah Ward
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A national survey published yesterday evening has Reform UK leading the polls for the first time over Labour. According to the YouGov polling, 25 per cent of the electorate would place their vote with Nigel Farage’s party at a Westminster election.
This is worrying news for the government and in Northants it follows on from a decent performance in last year’s general election in which 18 per cent of the votes cast in the county went Reform’s way. The party came in third place in a number of Northants constituencies and collected just over 61,500 of the 336,300 total votes.
Since then it has gained two unitary councillors due to defections and a few town and parish councillors have also followed suit and it now has a branch for each of the county’s seven parliamentary constituencies. The newest branch is South Northamptonshire, having recently formed branches in Daventry and Kettering.
Northamptonshire coordinator Sean Lever told NN Journal:
“It is pretty obvious we have the momentum. I had a look yesterday and we are at about 190,000 members. So our membership is still increasing and as we get nearer the election we get more and more people coming to us who want to stand.
“Our message is - ‘Don’t stand by’. If you want change you have to put your name forward and stand. That’s been my message to the branches.”
He said the party is currently in the stage of finding candidates and unlike some other political parties there are no specific criteria to who will get on the ballot.
He said:
“The only criteria is you are willing to stand. We don’t pick and choose between different types of people, we are open to everybody - we do it on merit.”
However he says there is strict vetting. In the 2024 general election the party had a number of embarrassments after candidates were suspended over offensive remarks.
Sean said:
“Crucially they are all vetted. It is very important to us that we get the right calibre of people and that’s why we’ve got a rigorous vetting process in place for people who apply.
“We are certainly getting some rejections - not everyone who has applied has got through. I’d been a member of the Conservative party for a number of years and I've been a councillor and I was never vetted. We don't want any problems later, so we’ve got to get the right people in.”
He said those coming forward were not typically from a political background:
“In fact quite the opposite. The people we are getting are from all walks of life and doing various different jobs. I think we need that broad skill base from the community rather than the people who have been in office for too long, we need to bring some fresh talent into local government.”
The candidates will be selected by the local branch:
“It’s a bottom up party - so it is up to the local branch to make a decision. Typically that would be a local decision. It is not done by the central party - they do not parachute people in.
“We are getting people from the local community coming forward saying ‘I want to stand in my local town or village’ - so that’s nice to see.”
He says the ambition is to stand a candidate in every seat in the two unitaries. The boundaries have changed in this election and there will be significant reductions on the number of councillors on each council, with around 150 elected in total.
Policies?
The party’s website currently has a blank page when it comes to policies and Sean Lever says policies for the local elections will be decided in the coming weeks. They will concentrate on local issues.
He says:
“In terms of local government, we have got quite big spending, there is a lot of debt around and local authorities are not concentrating on the things they should be voting on.
“For example we have the loan in Northampton for the shopping centre. I think most of us would think ‘Well why is the local authority lending money to a private developer to rebuild a shopping centre?’ We don’t think that is something the local government should be doing.
“They should be concentrating on providing quality services to the people that pay for them. “Not getting involved in superfluous projects.”
Far right?
Anti fascist and racism campaign group Hope Not Hate say that Reform UK must be classed in the “non-fascist far right” category in that it “accepts the essence of democracy, but opposes fundamental elements of liberal democracy”. It says in an article from September:
“Another key element of radical right politics is a belief that the nation is in decay or crisis and radical action is required to halt or reverse it. The “nation”, however defined, usually includes an in-group that perceives themselves to be under threat and an outgroup/enemy. For Reform UK, this outgroup is currently asylum seekers, Muslims and Islam more generally.”
NN Journal asked Sean Lever about Hope Not Hate’s view and he said:
“They can say what they like. It is not of any interest to me.”
Asked how he would describe his party’s views he said they would be ‘common sense’.
It is clear that a patriotic language and a far right ploy of fear is being used in the local messaging.
We have seen an invite to last month’s Northampton North branch meeting from chair Richard Albany-Ward which said:
Our country is crying out for a new political party and system. The rape gangs scandal is not being properly addressed. Labour is wrecking the economy, the pound is falling and net zero is leaving us poorer and in danger of blackouts. And the boats keep coming bringing illegal migrants. If you look around you will see that the interests of the British people are being put last.
We would like to invite you patriots to join us to do something to stop this destruction of the country we love.
We are going the way of Germany in the 1920s with this huge rise in fascism and far right politics, add in ridiculous billionaires and their unfortunate salutes spreading around social media and I have severe concerns for the future of our country.
Britain is a nation of different Nationalities and religions... These people are our people and should not be marginalised. Next we will see camps constructed by far righters and trains taking marginalised Brits to be gassed out.
Their method of fear over facts is working on too many people and I am more and more ashamed to be British every single day.
Thank you for reporting on this .. we need journalists to hold Reform UK to account although it is a hard task .