From Lawnmower Mishaps to Expenses Scandals: 10 Fresh Embarrassments for Reform UK 

Support our mission to provide fearless stories about and outside the media system

Packed with exclusive investigations, analysis, and features

SUBSCRIBE TODAY

A week is a long time in politics and never has that been more the case than with Reform UK.

In recent weeks we’ve been closely following the party’s dozen councils they took control of back in May and detailing the many scandals, resignations, cancelled meetings and culture wars they have been getting themselves involved in.

After each piece we publish, we’ve been inundated with yet more examples of what’s been happening as Nigel Farage’s fledgling party meets the reality of actually managing local government, as well as holding ministers to account nationally.

Here’s a roundup of just some of what we’ve seen over the past week.

1. Reform’s anti-home working policy ‘will cost millions‘

Reform’s hardline anti-home working policy is already crashing into the reality of modern Britain.

At Durham County Council, where the party took control in May, it has emerged that they would need to find an additional 13,500 square meters of office space to accommodate all council staff working full-time in the office – as the party seems to be demanding – according to analysis of council data.

Durham would face between £3-5 million in extra annual costs, including £1.3 million in running costs and £2-4 million in financing costs for new accommodation, all on top of an existing £23 million budget deficit, digging by writer Paul Ilett has found.

When you factor in having to replace staff who would quit over the policy, Reform’s anti-WFH policy looks very expensive indeed. One for their Department of Local Government Efficiency? 

2. Flexible on flexible working? 

Mind you, Reform councils may be starting to have doubts about scrapping flexible working policies, as they start to realise the reality of working life in 2025.

In Reform-run North Northamptonshire, which would require 9,700 square meters more office space to implement the policy, adding approximately £328,000 annually to their costs, the council’s new Reform leader, Cllr Martin Griffiths, appears to already be backtracking, reversing previous pledges to insist all staff come into the office.

A mole working for the council tells Byline Times that Griffiths either realised the cost and impracticality of the policy or never intended to implement it and was simply “playing to the gallery.” 

The council staffer, who asked to remain anonymous to protect their job, said: “The more rational approach [to Working from Home] has been fed back to staff from senior officers. My concern is that the damage is done anyway and people will be spooked and work elsewhere.”

There are concerns that the damage has already been done and staff members may seek employment elsewhere due to the anti-working-from-home stance.

EXCLUSIVE

BBC Bosses Draw Up Plans to Win Over Reform Voters by Changing News and Drama Output

The Director General Tim Davie and other executives discussed altering BBC “story selection” in order to secure the “trust” of supporters of Nigel Farage’s party

Adam Bienkov

3. Reform councillor in expenses probe

A Reform UK councillor in the Crediton area of Devon has been reported to police – by his own Reform colleagues – for potentially breaching election campaign spending limits.

The local Crediton Courier reports: “Neil Stevens, who won the Alphington and Cowick seat in May’s Devon County Council elections by just 72 votes, has been reported by a fellow Reform UK councillor for the alleged overspend, and for a suspected false election expenses return submission.

Reform councillor Ed Hill told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he had told Mr Stevens the cost of podcast equipment had to be included in his expenses return, and warned this would take him over his spending limit. He claims this advice was ignored. 

Neil Stevens’ brother Tony Stevens was also reported to police as part of the complaint. 

Cllr Hill, who was also elected for Reform in May, was chairman of the Exeter branch – but was removed from the post for what the party says was bringing it “into disrepute”, the BBC reported.

4. Disgraced ex-cop

Andrew Hamilton-Gray won a council seat in Loughborough for Reform UK with almost 40% of the vote, despite having been dismissed as a police officer without notice in 2019. 

BBC East Midlands reported: “It has now emerged that a police misconduct hearing in January 2024 found he had called in sick, to travel to Spain, when he should have been working as a PC.

“The misconduct hearing found that was one of two occasions when he reported [being] sick to pursue his outside business interests.” 

Perhaps when Reform now talks about ‘lazy public servants’, they are speaking from experience.  

5. Disgraced ex-cop No. 2

At least one other sacked (ex) police officer is now a Reform council candidate.

Stuart Ball’s dismissal from Avon & Somerset Police followed an incident in 2019 where he claimed “finder’s rights” over a basketball his son found in Sports Direct.

The Bath Echo reports that a police misconduct panel heard that Ball ordered a shop assistant to the police station, and got into a “heated” exchange with the shop manager who asked him to leave. 

“The manager took the ball to Wells Police Station the following day and complained about Mr Ball’s behaviour, whereupon Mr Ball accused the manager of theft and threatening violence.

“Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Ball said he had only identified himself as a police officer after the manager had become frustrated, to try to calm the situation.” 

EXCLUSIVE

Resignations, Cancelled Meetings and Culture Wars: How Reform UK Councils Are Descending Into Chaos

Nigel Farage’s band of newly-elected councillors are already starting to struggle, reports Josiah Mortimer

Josiah Mortimer

6. Reform’s spiritual healing

Kathryn Ann Shaw, the newly elected Reform councillor for Upton in West Northamptonshire, describes herself as a hypnotherapist who says she offers “EMDR [Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing] , Reiki, and neuro-linguistic programming” services. 

In an introductory post to local Reform supporters on Facebook, she wrote extensively about “healing and hope,” mental health support, alternative therapy, and community mentoring.  

All of which reads a little like an ad for her services, which may be needed given there’s not much trace of her therapeutic practice, Lauren-Shaw Therapies, online. 

She also appears to have set up a new company, ‘Universal Playground’, a week after getting elected.

7. Chief Whip’s pile-on 

Reform’s chief whip Lee Anderson MP triggered a wave of online abuse against a Facebook user, after the latter called Anderson a “scab”, presumably over ex-miner Anderson’s role in the miner’s strike under Margaret Thatcher. 

Anderson posted the user’s profile picture and name, showing a relatively elderly man with EU stars around the image, saying: “His profile picture tells you all you need to know about him.”

Hundreds of Anderson’s supporters then proceeded to mock his appearance in the comments. Anderson posted the jibe on Facebook and X, where he has hundreds of thousands of followers.

Several Reform fans then proceeded to target the user’s Facebook page with abuse. 

A Byline Times reader who complained to the House of Commons authorities over the post were told they would not be investigating, presumably as it (technically) happened outside Parliament. 

8. Forget improvement

Reform-run Derbyshire County Council has decided to rename its “Improvement and Scrutiny Committees” to simply: “Scrutiny Committees.” 

Perhaps they no longer think they can meet their pre-election promises to improve the area. Such ambition! 

9. Unwanted advances

We saw even weirder stuff than usual from Reform’s Richard Tice in the House of Commons last week. 

Politico reported on Thursday (19th June): “Reform deputy leader Richard Tice suggested his boss [Nigel Farage] might like to take Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner for dinner. 

In a bizarre exchange he “noted that Farage and Rayner had been named ‘Britain’s sexiest politicians’ on the “Illicit Encounters” website, and asked Commons Leader Lucy Powell: “Does she recommend they have dinner together?” 

Powell replied that Rayner has a full diary “washing her hair and the like”.

10. Lawn Moaner

A Reform councillor in Derbyshire has mowed down plantlife on a roundabout that had deliberately been left to grow by the council to promote biodiversity. 

The (non-Reform controlled) borough council had to issue a “no mow” warning to residents after double-jobbing Derbyshire County Council and Erewash Borough Council councillor Dan Price took his own lawn-mower onto the Cotmanhay roundabout last week to cut down all the plants. 

He said: “I am a hands-on councillor. I want to do things differently”. 

BBC Derbyshire reported: “Price, the whip for the Reform UK group on the council, said he took action at the site near Ilkeston after ‘many complaints’ at the overgrown island and has said he will carry out more cutting.”

Several readers argued that if the grass was left for ecological reasons, the councillor should face prosecution for the damage. 

On Threads, Paul Murray wrote: “He’s taken a space filled with life and biodiversity and left it dead. What’s the odds he’s the sort who digs up natural grass and puts down astroturf?” Ouch.

This piece originally said Stuart Ball was a councillor. He is a Reform council candidate in a by-election. Thanks to the reader who pointed this out.

Keep the tips coming. Do you live in a Reform-run area? Get in touch in confidence on josiah@bylinetimes.com 

Subscribers Get More from JOSIAH

Josiah Mortimer also writes the On the Ground column, exclusive to the print edition of Byline Times.

So for more from him…

Subscribe to Byline Times