More triumphs for Reform, from Cornwall to Kent

More news emerges of Reform’s implosion way out west, where, as Rats in a Sack reported earlier this week, the party’s former leader on Cornwall Council has quit the party along with two other councillors.

Rob Parsonage resigned from Nigel Farage’s mob along with his wife Christine, as well as their colleague Anna Thomason-Kenyon. They will now join forces with the party’s former deputy leader on the council, Rowland O’Connor, and fellow ex-Reformer Karen Knight. Both quit the party last week, to form the breakaway Cornish Independent Nonaligned Group.

But now it has emerged Parsonage’s exit followed a very public row in a pub in the evocatively-named village of Dobwalls. After Reform members had been enjoying ‘An Afternoon With Ann Widdecombe’, insults were loudly hurled at Parsonage, including “Go away, you horrible, odious, odious little man”. A video of the incident has been leaked to the CornwallLive website.

The hurly-burly seems to have been triggered by an argument about senior branch roles locally, one which got so heated that pub staff stepped in to ask them to stop rowing in front of families with children. The increasingly heated row then turned to – something no doubt close to the hearts of those who entrusted Reform with their votes in May – who was in control of which of the party’s Facebook pages.

In one exchange, Alison Groves, Reform’s county organiser for the west, is heard to say: “Can you please identify what I have done to cause control [sic] then? List them? I tell you what, is it the aliens?” Various legal threats were made before staff stepped in.

Parsonage has since left Reform, telling CornwallLive of the incident: “There was an emergency exit behind me, so with all the shouting coming at me, I ignored it and went out through the emergency exit into the car park.”

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Yet more Reform councillors jump ship in Cornwall

Rats in a Sack

Back in Kent, meanwhile – the flagship council Reform said would be a “shop window” into how the party would govern well – three more councillors have been kicked out, taking to five the number to be booted out of the party over a leaked video in which leader Linden Kemkaran swore and told party members to “suck it up” regarding her decisions.

The dismissals of Brian Black, Paul Thomas and Oliver Bradshaw brings to five the number of expulsions from the Kent Council group in just four days. A short statement issued by Reform UK HQ in London said the decision to expel the trio came after a meeting called “at the request of the leader”, Kemkaran. “These individuals have shown a pattern of dishonest and deceptive behaviour which the party will not tolerate from its elected officials,” it said.

The row follows disquiet over Kemkaran’s plans to hike council tax to the maximum permitted five per cent, having been elected promising swingeing spending cuts would be easy.

Still, at least Kent’s Reform councillor lasted nearly six months. Over on South Kesteven Council in Lincolnshire, a councillor who quit the Conservatives to join Reform earlier this month has stepped down from the party… after just 20 days.

Mark Whittington left the Tories to much local fanfare on October 7, telling local media that “the Conservative Party is over. Only Reform can deliver the change Britain needs.” His move was warmly welcomed by Reform’s mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, who told LincsOnline: “This is further proof that Reform UK is the natural home for those who want real change in Britain. I warmly welcome him to the growing Reform UK family.”

Now she is presumably signing his farewell card: after fewer than three weeks in the party, Whittington has quit, saying his reasons were personal and “related to my Twitter and Facebook posts regarding my recent health issues”.