The Reform UK Leader met with supporters and candidates in South East London this week and said voters had “lost faith in the Tories”
Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage said his party has a “real chance” of winning both Bromley and Bexley councils in the upcoming May elections. Mr Farage met with supporters and Reform candidates in both boroughs at a campaign event this week.
The MP for Clacton began the afternoon on April 8 with a walkabout in Welling, before meeting those standing for Reform at the Bird in Hand, a Bromley pub. He told candidates: “If you get out and work hard and knock on doors, we will win.”
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “I’m not overly confident, but do we have a real chance of winning both? I absolutely believe we do.”
Mr Farage put his confidence down to two things. He believes many Bromley and Bexley residents who have always voted Conservative have now lost faith in the Tories. He said: “There’s something about the area. I’ve grown up and lived 60 years just down the road.
“There is now a disconnection with the Conservative Party that for generations they’ve voted for. They just don’t feel it represents them anymore.”
The Reform UK Leader also said last year’s Bromley by-election win was a “big one” and a “real indication” that Reform would pick up votes in this year’s elections.
Alan Cook became Reform’s first directly-elected London councillor last July when he won the Bromley Common and Holwood by-election. Cllr Cook said he was “looking forward” to the prospect of becoming the next leader of Bromley Council.
He added: “There’s so many things we need to get stuck into and turn around. We need to address the fact that [Bromley Council] is projected to be bankrupt in 2028. We will get rid of all the net zero aspects of the council’s expenditure.
“We will also look at parking throughout the borough. It’s one of the things which the current council says is making us money, but it’s a tiny amount of money that is potentially damaging every single business in every parade and high street.”
Cllr Cook suggested that if Reform were elected to power in Bromley next month, he would bring forward a proposal to establish free parking in Bromley’s high streets to help businesses.
Cllr Cook and the other two Reform councillors in Bromley were heavily criticised by their fellow council members for not proposing an alternative budget earlier this year. One Tory councillor said this was “shameful” and suggested Reform “could not be trusted” with control of Bromley Council.
Defending the budget decision, Cllr Cook said: “We need to get more information. Once we’re running the council, we’ll get a lot more information and we can make a better decision based on that as opposed to going in half cocked.”
Bexley and Bromley’s Reform candidates were thrilled to meet their party leader, with each of them lining up to take a photograph with Mr Farage as part of the event. One of these candidates was 21-year-old Paul Dhesi who is standing in Plaistow ward in northern Bromley.
Mr Dhesi, who has lived in Bromley since he was 11, said the country was in an “absolute state right now” and Reform was the only party with the answers to fix it. He said: “I grew up, I went to school here and the decline if you’ve been living in Bromley is evident because of things like crime.”
He accused the police of “not doing their job” of keeping out the “riffraff” from Bromley. Mr Dhesi added: “We are the only party right now that is doing things like this, getting to know the people that will hopefully be voting for us on May 7.”
While at the Bromley event, Mr Farage discussed other London-wide issues including the prospect of outer London boroughs such as Bromley and Bexley wanting to split from the Greater London Authority (GLA).
He also said the current state of crime in the city was “absolutely terrible” and claimed the number of his own family members that had been either attacked, mugged or robbed in London in the last five years was “truly extraordinary”.
He said: “Just look at mob rule in Clapham last week. If you don’t prosecute shoplifters and you sack 17-year employees of Waitrose who try to stop shoplifters, don’t be surprised when the level of what people prepared to commit crime thinks is acceptable goes up.”
Mr Farage and London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan have often clashed over the state of crime in the capital, with the Reform Leader claiming the city is “lawless” while Mr Khan has pointed to stats which state London recorded the fewest homicides last year since monthly records began.
Mr Farage disputed the accuracy of the UK’s crime statistics, saying they were gathered through an “out of date, form-filling exercise with envelopes through doors” that “only the over-50s fill in”.
He added: “The stats do not bear out reality and the priorities of policing are all wrong and Khan is guilty of turning a blind eye to much of this. We also know there is a grooming gang scandal in London that is going to break at some point. Again they’ve tried to cover it up and it’s not on.”
Mr Farage was also questioned about the issues at Kent County Council which came under Reform rule a year ago. The Mirror recently reported that Reform is running a “horror show” in Kent, with several councillors being booted out of the party less than a year since being elected.
Mr Farage defended the high turnover of council members, saying there was “always turnover in local government”. He told the LDRS: “If you look across the country in the last year, I think Labour have lost 300 councillors, the Tories have lost 200 councillors and we have lost 48.
“There’s always turnover in local government. Taken across the board, there are 10 councils which we have majority control, two minority but ten majority, and our council tax rises are lower than the other comparable parties. We’ve saved 300 million quid, we’re off to a good start.”
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