Another week of triumph for Nigel Farage’s Reform, who, after returning to five seats in the Commons following the Runcorn by-election, are now back down to four after another MP quit.
James McMurdock removed himself from the party’s whip at the weekend after it emerged the Sunday Times had been delving into loans procured by companies registered in his name during the government’s Covid bounce back scheme.
McMurdock initially warned journalists to “be very careful” in what they reported about his dealings. Then he hinted he would be just stepping back while the party carried out its own investigation into the loans. But now he has suggested he will permanently quit the party after receiving “specialist legal advice from an expert in the relevant field”.
“In light of that advice, which is privileged and which I choose to keep private at this time, I have decided to continue my parliamentary career as an independent MP where I can focus 100% on the interests of my constituents,” he legal-eagled.
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Meanwhile, Pochin, the woman who previously returned Reform’s parliamentary party to a quintet, has legal issues going on in her own patch. It has emerged that Amanda Clare, a Reform councillor charged with assault and criminal damage over an incident at a Pride event in Cheshire last month, is a staffer for the newbie MP.
Clare, a councillor for the Winsford Dene ward on Cheshire West and Chester council as well as a caseworker for Pochin, is set to appear before a Crewe Magistrates Court on August 8. She has been suspended from her position in Pochin’s office.
Curiously, though, the normally loquacious Farage, as well as Richard Tice, Lee Anderson and the rest, have had nothing to say on either McMurdock or Clare, despite having plenty of media channels through which to do so. Pochin has also not commented on her staffer.
The latest events means 12 Reform councillors have now been either suspended or have resigned from their positions since their elections in May, while two MPs have left the party in the last year and the status of hokey-cokeying chair Zia Yusuf is too exhausting to keep track of. Viva the Reform revolution!
