Tories, Trolls and Tommy Robinson Fans: Meet Reform’s Top Local Candidates

At last year’s general election, Reform UK was repeatedly embarrassed by the controversial views of its parliamentary candidates. In its aftermath, Nigel Farage said his party had been let down by “amateurism” in its vetting process – only for Reform to then put Jack Aaron, who said Hitler was “brilliant” at inspiring people, in charge of future candidate selections.

This Thursday there will be local elections across the country, and Reform looks set to win big. The party, perhaps unsurprisingly, is facing questions about its vetting procedures once more. Here’s an inexhaustive list of Reform’s very finest candidates.

The Tommy Robinson fans.

Farage has always been keen to distance Reform from Stephen Yaxley Lennon, AKA Tommy Robinson, seeing the serial offender as kryptonite for his attempts to create a respectable party.

Not so, Reform’s council candidates.

Arthur Hume, who’s standing in Amble, Northumberland, posted on Facebook describing Robinson as a “latter Day Enoch Powell” who would “ultimately be proven correct by events”.

Hume also said in a post that Andrew Tate “has a point”.

When questioned about these views by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Farage said: “I allow different opinions in my party. What I don’t allow are people who I think are filled with hate.”

But Hume isn’t the only one with “different opinion”. Listing every Reform candidate who has shown support for Robinson or other far-right figures would be exhausting.

In Doncaster alone, anti-extremism researchers Hope Not Hate found seven candidates who had posted Hitler memes, antisemitic conspiracy theories and white nationalist articles on social media. These include Gerald “Ged” Squire, who wrote in support of Robinson no fewer than 41 times last year, or Isaiah-John Reasbeck who just last year said: “Bradford has one of the biggest Muslim populations in Europe it is also one of the biggest shitholes in Europe draw your own conclusions” [sic.].

Same old Tories.

Many people see clear water between Reform and the establishment parties. But more than 60 Reform council candidates are ex-Conservatives – the party in charge of the country all of five minutes ago.

The most high profile Reformed Tory is Andrea Jenkyns, who is standing for mayor in Lincolnshire. The former minister was ennobled in Boris Johnson’s resignation honours having lost her seat at the last general election. Now she’s changed party, insisting she will “not be another career politician”.

Jenkyns shot to infamy for giving the finger to protesters as she entered Downing Street for Boris Johnson’s resignation speech, telling them: “He who laughs last, laughs loudest. Wait and see.” It will be interesting to see who’s laughing on Friday morning.

Another ex-Tory is Reform’s candidate for the Runcorn byelection. Sarah Pochin used to be a Tory councillor. Running as a candidate for the party in the 2017 general election, she said she supported means-testing the winter fuel payment – a policy Farage described as “vindictive”.

The Brexit bad boy.

“Maverick businessman” and Brexit financier Arron Banks is Reform’s mayoral candidate in the West of England.

In 2018 Banks’s fortune was estimated at up to £250m. He made his money in insurance but his business interests also include diamond mines in South Africa. In 2018 an investigation raised questions over the true value of a “significant find” he announced in Lesotho, with an expert saying it was “geologically impossible”. Banks described the report as a “political attack”.

In 2018 Bank’s insurance firm Eldon Insurance was fined £60,000 for breaching data laws during the Brexit referendum, along with campaign group Leave.EU. In 2021, Banks lost a court case against HMRC. He owed the tax-man over £160,000 on almost £1m given to Ukip from 2014-15.

The one who joked about Grenfell and the KKK.

Ron Firman (West Northamptonshire) joked on X about Grenfell Tower fire survivors losing “so many pretend relatives”. Another user responded: “What time we meeting later lads, do I need my white sheet? Can I borrow a pitch fork?” To which Firman responded “You forgot my burning cross” – an apparent reference to the Klu Klux Klan. The party told local newsletter NN Journal, which dug up the comments, that it would not be commenting on the matter.

The ex-GB news host.

Darren Grimes was a Lib Dem in 2015 but later became a prominent Brexiteer, and has worked for a number of rightwing media and political projects.

Grimes ended his five-year stint at channel GB News earlier this year in order to become an independent content creator, claiming he didn’t want to be “censored” by regulators like Ofcom. In his work for the channel following last summer’s riots, Grimes claimed that a teenager had been jailed for “flying an England flag near a mosque”. In fact, the individual in question pleaded guilty to having firelighters and planning to set the mosque ablaze.

Grimes was one of five men at the channel accused of sexual impropriety by reporting in Byline Times in 2023.

He is standing for Reform in Stanley, County Durham.

And the one who actually got suspended.

Stephen Hartley (Banbury Hardwick) was suspended from the party after it was revealed that he called serial sex abuser Jimmy Savile a “working class hero”. Speaking to the BBC, Hartley said he had doubts over whether the allegations made by Savile’s victims were true, and said his suspension was “fair enough”. So it is possible to get suspended from Reform after all.