Laura Newman, who was due to stand in Hammersmith Broadway, spoke to the LDRS over concerns about her treatment by the local branch
Reform UK has suspended a West London member after she criticised the local branch chair in an interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).
Laura Newman, who at one stage was due to run for the party in Hammersmith Broadway, was told in an email that her comments in the article were “damaging” to Reform’s interests and brought them “into disrepute”. Ms Newman has since said she no longer wishes to be a member, and that she only went to the press having waited weeks for a response to a complaint filed with the party HQ.
A Reform spokesperson was approached but said as standard the party does not comment on internal complaints and disciplinary procedures.
Dr Olivia Feng, Chair of Reform’s Hammersmith and Fulham branch, said Ms Newman is simply a “disgruntled member” who sought to undermine the local campaign ahead of the May 7 elections.
The article, which was published on April 23, revealed how Ms Newman had been selected as one of two Reform candidates to stand in the Hammersmith Broadway ward. She claimed she spent months campaigning and canvassing support with an election leaflet featuring her name and face drawn up.
However, just 11 days before the deadline for parties to submit candidate lists, Ms Newman said she was told by Dr Feng that she would no longer be standing in the ward. She said she was instead given the option of being a ‘paper’ candidate for neighbouring Fulham Reach, but she declined.
Ms Newman told the LDRS she was subsequently removed from all party communications, and felt she had been treated poorly by the Dr Feng.
“There’s good and bad on both [the Labour and Conservative] sides,” she said at the time. “And I thought Reform were maybe going to come in fresh, take the good of both of those parties, and run with it and do something different, and do something new and radical. We’re going to listen to people that are your working average Joe and Joanna, we’re going to listen to these people, champion these people. When actually, you haven’t really done that, though, have you?”
Ms Newman said she filed a complaint with Reform though had not received a response.
She has since received an email from Tom Waterhouse, General Secretary at the party, informing her she has been suspended pending an investigation.
The reason given was that Ms Newman had “attacked the Party in the local press”, with a link included to the LDRS story on MyLondon.
The email continued: “In the article you say the Party has been ‘ruthless’ and ‘appalling’. The criticism of Reform came at a time when the Party was seeking to help thousands of candidates win votes for the elections on 7 May.
“As the Party Leader has made clear on numerous occasions, members of Reform may disagree with each other, but in private. The Party’s Constitution outlines internal processes for resolving issues regarding the conduct of other members.
“Openly attacking the Party in this way is damaging to the Party’s interests and has brought the Party into disrepute.”
In her response Ms Newman wrote that her criticisms were about Dr Feng rather than the party at-large, adding she only went to the press after weeks of receiving no response to her complaint.
She told the LDRS she does not wish to be a member any longer, claiming Reform had gotten “such crucial communications decisions so wrong”.
Dr Feng said: “Ms Newman is simply a disgruntled member who sought to undermine our campaign at every stage when she didn’t get her way. The fact the party has suspended her and not upheld her vexatious complaints against me tells you all you need to know.”
The elections on May 7 saw Reform make huge gains across the country, winning more than 1,450 seats and taking control of a number of councils.
In Hammersmith and Fulham it stood a full slate of 50 candidates with several wards eyed up as potentially favourable.
The night however saw little change to the local authority’s composition, with Labour securing 38 seats, one more than it had pre-election, and the Conservatives picking up the remaining 12. Reform failed to pick up any seats in the borough, but did make gains elsewhere in London, most notably taking control of Havering Council.
Reform’s two new councillors in Sutton have told the LDRS at the outset they don’t wish to engage. They told the reporter to “desist from contacting them” after being asked a simple question about how they intend to scrutinise the Lib Dem administration, now they’ve been elected.
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