3 weeks ago
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Sam Francis
Political reporter
PA Media
Reform UK has launched its "most ambitious" local election campaign with a major rally as the party looks to turn momentum in the opinion polls into council seats.
The party has been neck-and-neck with Labour and ahead of the Tories in some polls but has been destabilised by a row that saw Rupert Lowe, one of the five Reform MPs elected last year, expelled from the party.
Reform will contest nearly all the 1,600 council seats up for re-election on 1 May, six mayoral races, and a by-election to replace ex-Labour MP Mike Amesbury after his assault conviction.
Party leader Nigel Farage told the rally in Birmingham the local elections were the "first major hurdle" on Reform's road to power.
The polls will be a major electoral test of the popularity of a party that has spoken openly about ambitions to win the next general election.
Since winning MPs for the first time at the July general election, Reform has surged in polls and claims to have signed up over 200,000 members.
Friday's local election rally was Reform's biggest event to date with the party claiming 10,000 people attended, most paying £5 price of admission the event at Arena Birmingham.
Most of the councils up for election are county councils - large authorities like Lancashire and Kent that look after services including social care, education, road maintenance and libraries.
In parts of England with no district councils, like in Cornwall, Doncaster and Buckinghamshire, local authorities are responsible for the full range of services - these also include bin collections, public housing and planning.
In some areas, local elections have been delayed until next year while councils are reorganised.
Reform UK has launched a petition against the delay in elections.
Farage said his party "remain furious that 5.5m people, with no good reason, have been denied their vote on 1 May".
On Thursday, Farage once again ruled out signing a non-aggression pact with the Conservatives at the local elections to focus resources on different seats, saying his party was "not Conservative-lite".
This week, the party announced its candidate for the upcoming Runcorn and Helsby by-election as former Cheshire East councillor and local magistrate Sarah Pochin.
Farage played down pressure on Reform to win the seat - which Labour won with a 34.8% majority at the last election.
"It's a must win by-election for Labour," said Farage. "We're going to run them close. whatever we do."
In the speech, Farage also mentioned national ambitions, including deporting illegal migrants and leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
He also voiced an intention to create a "British form of Doge," modelled on Elon Musk's non-governmental US department tasked with cutting US government jobs and other spending.
"Over the course of the last few months we've put in 3,000 FOI requests," he told the rally.
"We are armed with the facts as to just how much public money is being wasted, as to the sheer levels of indebtedness of local government."
The Reform leader said savings found by a UK Doge would fund plans to raise the threshold at which people start paying tax to £20,000.
But his deputy Richard Tice said a "county-by-county equivalent of a Doge maybe is what is required in this country" to enact a "root and branch" council reform.
