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a day ago
- Business
- Times
Reform's Andrea Jenkyns: ‘I'm usually where there's trouble'
Midway through my conversation with Andrea Jenkyns she becomes tearful. We're in her new office at Lincoln county council — the Union Jack hanging beside the green, blue, red and yellow of the county flag. 'I'm sorry for being emotional,' she says. The newly elected first mayor of Greater Lincolnshire is recalling the day, in July 2022, when Boris Johnson resigned as prime minister. Jenkyns describes herself as a 'Boris loyalist'. She lost her seat in Morley and Outwood, West Yorkshire, in last year's general election and then defected to Reform UK in November. As a hardline Brexiteer, and as a whip in Johnson's government, she fought to the last to save him. On the morning of Johnson's forced resignation, so despondent was the mood — 'it was all falling apart by then' — that some of her colleagues in the whips' office were refusing to attend his speech outside 10 Downing Street. 'That fired me up. We're the whips, we go down with the praetorian guard. 'Come on,' I said, 'who's coming with me?' I felt very emotional because Boris and Carrie are decent people, great parents, you always see them with their children, and I respect them.' As Jenkyns approached the Downing Street gates that morning, wearing a dazzling bright yellow dress, she saw Steve Bray, an anti-Brexit activist and longtime tormentor. 'He'd been hounding me for five or six years, even when [her son] Clifford was in his pram, with his big megaphone, even making Clifford cry. He can be very nasty, very provocative. And he was playing Bye Bye, Boris [from a speaker], shouting — and you couldn't even hear Boris speaking. And I thought, 'Do you know something? You guys have got what you wanted now. Just give him enough respect as prime minister to make his resignation speech.' It's about fairness, really. And I did the finger to Steve Bray. I don't swear. Well, I say the 'S-H-I-T' word if I walk into something or I'm clumsy, but that's it. But this affected me enormously. I just thought, 'Sod you, Steve Bray,' and that's what I did.' A few days earlier she had been made an education minister in a desperate, last-gasp reshuffle by Johnson as the waters closed over him. The image of her with her middle finger raised contemptuously outside Downing Street was interpreted as an 'up yours' to the voting public. It was shared on social media and travelled far and wide, leading to her inevitable condemnation by teaching unions and her disparagers on the liberal left. 'I regret what I did, but I still feel very sad about what happened to Boris. It's about loyalty. To me, it's about being loyal to friends and family.' She pokes at her plate with a fork — a lunch of jacket potato, baked beans, grated cheese and coleslaw — and wipes her eyes. 'People in the party stabbed him in the back.' The paradox of Jenkyns's career is that she values loyalty above all else but as a Conservative MP was serially disloyal: together with fellow Brexit ultras, she continually rebelled against and undermined Theresa May as prime minister; she submitted the first letter to Graham Brady, then chairman of the 1922 Committee of backbench MPs, demanding the resignation of Rishi Sunak early in his premiership. 'There's a pattern here,' she jokes. 'I'm usually where there's trouble.' She was contemptuous of Sunak, whom she believed schemed to destabilise and then oust Johnson. 'Rishi was instrumental in my view. He had his tentacles on it but never seemed to wield the knife.' Later, when he was prime minister, she went to see Sunak to suggest a Conservative-Reform pact in red wall seats. 'I have empathy, and I could see a man who was struggling. I gave him a hug and he hugged me back and I really felt for him in that moment. I saw the human, not the prime minister.' She is much less complimentary about the current Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, although she respects and likes Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, who waits for the moment to challenge for the leadership again. 'I saw Kemi in the background as a minister. She was lazy. She didn't have a natural way with people. And I think in politics, you've either got to have such strong leadership skills and conviction or you've got to have a natural way to connect with people. And I don't feel she's got either.' Being where trouble is, and a provocateur, has personal consequences: Jenkyns has received multiple death threats and been advised to install CCTV at home. 'God, I started being called a racist during the Brexit years and a bigot and far right. Being called thick, thick as mince. I still get called that.' As an MP she received emails from constituents threatening not only herself but her son, who recently turned eight and has autism and ADHD. She considered leaving politics altogether when she received what she described as the 'most vile message ever, saying about my child being raped. And as a parent, God, that was horrific. And I was thinking, is it worth it?' She concluded it was, not least because she knew Nigel Farage wanted to recruit her as a senior belligerent in his people's army. 'I came over to Reform because of Nigel. When Nigel says something is happening out there, I agree: Reform are surging because they've become the voice of common sense. The number of people on the campaign trail who were saying, 'Andrea, you're speaking up for me.' We're not hard right or far right. It's common sense — it's family, believing in your country, law and order, strong borders, free speech. I genuinely believe Nigel will get into No 10 — because I've just seen it on the campaign trail, we are pulling voters from left and right.' Jenkyns believes 'people are sick of all the woke stuff'. They are restive and weary of being preached at. 'Being told how to think, being shouted down on social media when people are struggling. They don't want to feel they've lost their voices. That's the last thing we want to give up, quite rightly. And it's why this pushback is happening.' • Andrea Jenkyns: defecting to Reform made me feel alive Despite the surge in Reform support across the country, the campaign in Lincolnshire 'nearly broke' her. She was accused of being an illegitimate candidate because she lived in Yorkshire; she in turn accused the local Conservatives of dirty tricks. 'I wasn't moving my special needs son out of his school until I knew the outcome of the election,' she says, explaining that she is 'living between two places like a student', in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. 'I rented a place through a landlady, a widow, so I live with her because I couldn't afford to pay my mortgage and pay full rent as well. And she likes dogs. It's impossible, isn't it? A single parent. I've got a good set-up in Yorkshire. My sister, Deborah, lives nearby, so Clifford would be going there. Deborah can't drive because she's nearly blind, but she moved up from Wales to be near me. She's my rock of support, like my mum was. Clifford would visit at weekends and stay.' She and Clifford will move full time to Lincoln as soon as she has sold her house in Yorkshire. Nevertheless, a complaint about her was made to the police. 'It got really horrible,' she says. 'I'm used to the rough and tumble of politics but when you get the police called on you, you think, 'Oh, God, I've done nothing wrong here, but what's going to happen?' ' In the event, Jenkyns won the mayoralty resoundingly by 39,548 votes ahead of Rob Waltham, the Conservative candidate. On stage that night she wore a sequined jumpsuit. 'After all the rubbish I'd been through, I wanted to make a statement and own this one. I went for the sparkly number.' Jenkyns isn't a stranger to Lincolnshire: she spent her early childhood in Beverley, East Yorkshire, but when she was seven the family moved across the Humber Bridge. Her primary school was in the village of New Holland and she went to Matthew Humberstone, a state comprehensive in Cleethorpes. She later studied international relations as a mature student at Lincoln University. From 2009 to 2013 she served on the county council. As the youngest of three sisters Andrea was particularly close to her father, Clifford, after whom her son is named. He was a former army lorry driver who ran several companies, including a furniture business, and became a 'madcap inventor'. When she was 18 he entered his daughter in a beauty pageant and she reached the final of Miss United Kingdom. 'He was amazing — my hero really. We were like two peas in a pod.' An 18-year career in retail began when, as a 16-year-old, she started working at Greggs as a 'Saturday girl behind the counter earning £1.71 an hour'. And she has a hinterland, being both an accomplished soprano and a singer in a pop band. She released an album in 2006, cryptically titled Ilyis, which is an acronym for 'I love you in secret'. The name came to her in a dream: 'I kept hearing this whispering, 'Ilyis, Ilyis, I love you in secret,' and I wrote a song around it.' She is a longtime vegetarian, although she's happy to cook meat for her son ('My little one loves meat'), and her affection for animals goes back to those early years in Yorkshire. 'When one of my father's businesses went bust we moved into a council house in a little village and he bought a field — for £200 in the Eighties! He bought us a horse from a local Gypsy camp. We had chickens, geese, ducks. It was like a wonderful, magical animal kingdom to me. I never used to have dolls in my pram. I would dress up our Jack Russell in clothes and push her about.' Jenkyns is a Christian, though not a regular churchgoer, and believes in an afterlife. On one occasion she says 'Mum or God' was 'guiding' her. Like her son, she has been diagnosed with ADHD, is hyperactive and struggles to concentrate: 'I've written off seven cars over the years.' In conversation she digresses often, switching abruptly from one subject to the next before looping back in search of the point she had been trying to make. She can be engagingly self-deprecating. 'I'm not a feminist,' she says unprompted. 'I'm a meritocrat. If someone wants to wolf-whistle at me, at 50, bring it on.' But there is darkness in her life. She suffers from fibromyalgia, a debilitating musculoskeletal condition; glossopharyngeal neuralgia, which causes sharp, episodic pain in her head, ears and throat; and is an acute insomniac, waking at 1am or 2am. 'I cannot relax my brain,' she says. Her ex-husband — and Clifford's father — is the former Conservative MP for Filton and Bradley Stoke, Jack Lopresti. They divorced in April 2024. Now she shares a bed with her 'little one', Clifford. When she wakes, she might have 'mummy cuddles' with him or check on the dogs. Sometimes she writes songs in her head as she is lying there counting down the hours to daylight. At other times she thinks about political strategy: she likens herself to a chess player, assiduously plotting her next moves. Jenkyns sought election for parliament when her father died after contracting an MRSA infection in hospital in Wakefield. She had already served as a county councillor, but her father's death politicised her. 'It was awful care. After this I wanted to help my dad and stop any more deaths from MRSA.' In 2022 her mother, Valerie, who worked in accounts in her husband's businesses, also died in hospital, from sepsis. From the moment she was elected to parliament there was something flamboyant and iconoclastic about Jenkyns. She was provocative, unpredictable and unashamedly right wing, a hardline Brexiteer. Her victory was notable because she defeated the incumbent, Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor at the time and one of New Labour's golden generation, in effect ending his political career. 'It felt like a David and Goliath challenge,' she says. 'At the age of 38 I'd moved back in with Mum in West Yorkshire — 'Tory Val', they called her — and spent two years on the campaign trail. It was amazing. I felt that energy on the doorstep and knew something was changing. Balls underestimated me. He thought I was just the girl next door. Constituents used to call him Man Friday — because he'd only drop in on a Friday. That first day in parliament, David Cameron and George Osborne got me standing on the desk and everyone was cheering for knocking Ed out.' Quite soon, however, the mood at Westminster changed. 'I began seeing the bitchiness. I held a flat-warming and somebody put out an article in The Sun saying no one had turned up. But we had about 50 people turn up. I thought, 'Why are people lying?' You realise these are not necessarily your friends. It's very competitive. And it's worse on your own side.' Her victory over Balls, by just 422 votes, prefigured the collapse of the party's red wall at the 2019 general election — and now something is stirring again in Labour-held red wall seats. 'Something is going on out there,' Farage said to me last summer when I spent a day on the campaign trail with him on the Essex coast, and Jenkyns uses the same phrase, adding that people have lost the faith they never really had in the two main parties, which are 'broken, and in the case of the Conservatives, beyond repair'. • Ed Balls: The night I lost my seat There is, in person, something guileless about Jenkyns. I believe her when she says she is motivated 'not by political ambition but the cause'. A refusal to compromise is the theme of her career. 'I didn't get very high at Westminster. If I'd played the game… but I can't kowtow to people. I'm very black and white.' Her dream was to be a health minister, but Brexit became her great animating cause. She describes her politics as 'centre right'; others might identify her as uncompromisingly hard right, which she rejects. She believes in 'low taxes and being frugal with people's money'. 'I'm strong on law and order. The armed forces, crown and country. I'm very traditional about the family. On abortion, I'm very 'pro-life'. I believe it's an individual's choice but it's not something I could live with myself. I wouldn't outlaw it but it's got too liberalised. But on animal welfare I'm probably more to the left.' As mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, working in collaboration with the Reform-controlled district council, she wants to demonstrate that the party is more than an anti-system protest movement. Like Farage, she has denounced net zero and diversity initiatives, saying they should be abolished. But I put it to her that very little of the council's budget is spent on such matters, and she agrees. Is her positioning, therefore, merely rhetorical? 'It's about using a national platform to try and influence and move the dial.' This reminds me of something Farage told me last summer before the general election. Discussing Georgia Meloni, the populist-right prime minister of Italy, he said, 'She's disappointed some of her more radical supporters, but you know what she's done? By becoming a stable prime minister, she's actually moved the needle on a variety of issues in Italy and made them respectable.' Moving the needle, moving the dial, whichever metaphor is used, the intention is the same: to 'make respectable' issues that were once marginal, unconscionable or considered irredeemable. Jenkyns similarly wants to be a stable mayor — to demonstrate administrative competence and rigour. She accepts that power brings responsibility and increased scrutiny. 'It's game over if we don't succeed,' she says. 'I know what's at stake.' She concedes that some of her statements have been deliberately outrageous. I mention her recent comment that asylum seekers should be put in tents. 'I was talking about illegal migrants, not asylum seekers,' she cuts in. 'You've misquoted me there. But it should be like in France, a contained area [of tents]. Look at the stats, look at the people coming through. The majority are males, economic migrants. And people are struggling. When my fixed rate finished my mortgage went up £800 a month, which is a lot. I know what it's like as a single mum, to juggle your money. It's about fairness for the British people. I'd never say that about asylum seekers. The tent thing was intended to be provocative to make the public realise that people have had enough. People should not be put up in hotels when the British are struggling to pay their taxes. I know I'm a glutton for my own punishment, but the thing is, I always know what I'm saying. I have this brain, like a chessboard, that's thinking so many steps ahead. I know what I'm doing. The only impulsive moment was sticking the finger up.' With that, on a radiant spring afternoon, we decide to go for a walk to Steep Hill, the fourth steepest street in the country, which leads up to Lincoln's magnificent gothic cathedral. No sooner have we left the council building than we are stopped on the street by a young man who asks Jenkyns for a selfie. 'Thank you so much for speaking up for us, Andrea,' he says, addressing her like an old friend, and they both smile as he holds up his phone. 'This keeps happening to me,' she says as we continue our walk. 'Something is going on out there. People have had enough.'
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Reform UK's new mayors take centre stage: Nigel Farage's troops join other regional leaders for talks with Angela Rayner... as Deputy PM warns 'you have to deliver'
Reform UK's newly-elected mayors joined other regional leaders in London today for talks with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner. Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Greater Lincolnshire mayor, and Luke Campbell, the Hull and East Yorkshire mayor, both attended the meeting alongside 12 other mayors. It was the first time the Reform politicians had attended Ms Rayner's 'mayoral council' since their stunning election victories at the beginning of this month. Dame Andrea is a former Tory MP and ex-education minister who defected to Reform in November last year. She secured a return to frontline politics by beating her former party by more than 40,000 votes to win the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty for Nigel Farage 's outfit. Hull-born Mr Campbell is a former professional boxer who won gold for Team GB at the 2012 London Olympics. He was elected Hull and East Yorkshire mayor with a majority of almost 11,000 votes on 1 May. At today's meeting at Lancaster House, Ms Rayner warned Dame Andrea, Mr Campbell and other regional mayors they had to 'deliver' for local voters in their roles. Both Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire are newly-created combined authorities. According to the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government, the Deputy PM told local leaders they must be held to account as they take back control of decision-making. She urged them to deliver on matters closest to voters' hearts and play their part in the Labour Government's 'Plan for Change'. Ms Rayner also stressed that, with increased power and resources, there would be increased responsibility and expectations for all mayors to deliver real results. She said: 'We are ripping up the long-standing 'Whitehall knows best' rhetoric that has for too long stifled growth with a 'one size fits all' approach. 'That's why we are driving forward deeper, strategic devolution, so mayors can make decisions that will actually deliver for their communities. 'Deeper devolution isn't about empty headline-grabbing promises, but doing the hard yards to make meaningful improvements to the day to day lives of working people in line with our Plan for Change.'
Free Malaysia Today
12-05-2025
- Politics
- Free Malaysia Today
Hard-right Reform wins local UK polls in blow to PM Starmer
Reform won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes. (AFP pic) RUNCORN : Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour party today in local elections that dealt a blow to Britain's two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities including one mayoralty. The group's strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year's general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. 'For the movement, for the party it's a very, very big moment indeed,' Brexit champion Farage said of Reform's first-ever by-election win and Starmer's first electoral loss since he took office last July. Reform also picked up dozens of council seats from both Labour and the Conservatives as Britain's political landscape shows signs of splintering. In the fight for six mayoralties, Reform won Greater Lincolnshire with Labour holding three. Labour, however, only narrowly held the North Tyneside mayoralty after a 26-percent swing to Reform. New Greater Lincolnshire mayor Andrea Jenkyns said the 'fightback to save the heart and soul of our great country has now begun'. 'Now that Reform is in a place of power, we can help start rebuilding Britain. Inch by inch,' she said. The polls were the first since Starmer became prime minister and Kemi Badenoch took over the reins of the struggling opposition Conservatives last year. Just 1,641 seats across 23 local authorities were up for grabs – only a fraction of England's 17,000 councillors – but early results suggested Reform was transferring leads in national polls into tangible results at the ballot box. 'The big question we wanted to know after these results was are the polls right in suggesting that Reform now pose a significant challenge to both the Conservatives and the Labour party? The answer to that question so far is quite clearly yes,' political scientist John Curtice told the BBC. The centrist Liberal Democrats and left-wing Greens also expected to make gains, as surveys show Britons are increasingly disillusioned with the two main parties amid anaemic economic growth, high levels of irregular immigration and flagging public services. Reform, which has vowed to 'stop the boats' of irregular migrants crossing the English Channel, is hoping that winning mayoralties and gaining hundreds of councillors will help it build its grassroots activism before the next general election – likely in 2029. Squeezed from both sides Brexit champion Nigel Farage said Reform's first-ever by-election win was a 'big moment' for the party. (EPA Images pc) British politics have been dominated by the centre-left Labour party and centre-right Tories since the early 20th century. But 'British politics appears to be fragmenting', Curtice wrote in the Telegraph this week. He said yesterday's polls were 'likely be the first in which as many as five parties are serious players'. Labour won a huge parliamentary majority in July with just 33.7% of the vote, the lowest share for any party winning a general election since World War II. The Conservatives won just 24% of the vote, securing only 121 seats in the 650-seat parliament as the party endured its worst election defeat. Reform picked up five seats, an unprecedented haul for a British hard-right party, although one of those now sits as an independent. After today's win, their tally now stands at five again. The Liberal Democrats in July won 61 more MPs than at the previous election and the Greens quadrupled their representation to four. Labour won Runcorn with 53% of the vote last year, meaning it was one of its safest seats, while Reform got just 18%. At a result declared shortly before 6am today, election officials said Reform's Sarah Pochin secured 12,645 votes to 12,639 for Labour candidate Karen Shore. Turnout was 46%. The vote was sparked after sitting Labour MP Mike Amesbury was convicted of assault for punching a man in the street. Labour spokesman said by-elections are 'always difficult for the party in government' and the events surrounding the Runcorn vote made it 'even harder'. On Tuesday, Reform UK topped a YouGov poll of voting intentions in Britain with 26%, three points ahead of Labour and six up on the Conservatives. Labour has endured criticism over welfare cuts and tax rises that it claims is necessary to stabilise the economy. As Labour edges rightwards it is facing a growing challenge from the Greens on the left. Under threat from Reform on the right, the Tories are also being squeezed on the left by the Liberal Democrats, the traditional third party, which was eyeing gains in the wealthy south.
The Guardian
10-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
From Send to cycle lanes, how Reform may try to change English councils
Nigel Farage's Reform UK is now in charge of a number of councils across England, including 10 where it has overall control. Its haul of 677 council seats also means it is on the brink of power in at least four others where it emerged as the largest party. It also has two regional mayoralties – Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire – with budgets and powers. But the coming to power of the rightwing populist party also means, for the first time, that its promises to radically reshape Britain will be tested and felt by communities. Here are some of the areas where there could be change: Major solar and wind energy projects face threats from Reform-controlled councils whose members are instinctively hostile to net zero policies. 'We will attack, we will hinder, we will delay, we will obstruct, we will put every hurdle in your way,' said the party's deputy leader, Richard Tice, of such projects. A solar farm in Romney Marsh, Kent, which could power 20% of homes in the county, is in the crosshairs of party, which controls the council. In Staffordshire, a proposed windfarm in the county's moorlands area and a solar farm in Cheadle will be opposed. But Reform's plans will also meet hostility from within communities. In Greater Lincolnshire alone, net zero industries contribute about £980m to the local economy, accounting for 12,209 jobs, according to analysis by the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU). Legally, the picture is also unclear. Reform could try to block pylons and large solar farms through the judicial review process, though the new planning and infrastructure bill aims to make the challenges harder. Farage's unsubstantiated claims that doctors are 'massively over-diagnosing' children with mental illness and special educational needs has sparked fears that Reform UK councils could further restrict or make dramatic cuts to special educational needs and disabilities provision (Send). The 10 councils where Reform have overall control are projected to have a combined deficit by March next year of £489m. It is as much as £95m in the case of Kent and £71m in Derbyshire. Reform councils could call for changes to the law to reduce access to education, health and care plans, which are much sought after by families of some children after years of state underinvestment in education. However, any moves to push for cuts or reshaping of policy also potentially risks sparking a backlash from both its own voters and splits within the party. Andrea Jenkyns, the mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, has spoken about her son having ADHD and appeared to contradict Farage. James McMurdock, a Reform MP in Essex, also cast himself as a champion of parents struggling to get Send support for children. Reform councils who unlawfully try to restrict access to Send support will face the prospect of being challenged at tribunals by families. In an echo of the axe taken by the Trump administration in the US, Farage has already warned: 'If you are working in DEI or climate change then perhaps alternative employment is where you should be looking.' The party's hostility to 'gender ideology' could have repercussions for councils working with charities such as Positive Health, which runs sexual health promotion, education and HIV training for Lincolnshire. Any savings from cuts to supposed DEI-related schemes are likely to be minimal. Derbyshire and Lincolnshire have each pointed out they don't have DEI schemes. Farage has said that Reform-controlled councils will 'resist' accepting any more asylum seekers, pitting then on a potential collision course with Westminster. Zia Yusuf, the party's chair, has also said its legal team is examining planning law mechanisms to challenge the use of hotels for asylum accommodation. The moves would have consequences in places such as Kent, where the county council has been at the forefront of handling provision for unaccompanied minors. But again the law would not be on the side of councils. The responsibility falls to the Home Office, which selects the hotels and contractors for the scheme. Reform has said only the St George and union flag will be flown at council property, although it backtracked when it came to the question of county flags. The policy appeared to be aimed at the flying of rainbow flags in solidarity with LGBT+ people and to celebrate Pride. It would also spell the end of councils flying Ukrainian flags, serving as a reminder that Farage has frequently been accused by Labour of 'fawning' over Vladimir Putin. Other potential culture wars could arise over council funding of museums or galleries with exhibitions that are deemed to denigrate Britain's history or the empire. Opposition to 15-minute cities – an urban planning concept that has become a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists – and support for 'pro-motorist' policies have long been red meat to Reform. Farage lashed out in the local election campaign at 'cycle lanes that no one uses' while Reform's likely leader of Worcestershire county council, Alan Amos, claimed: 'All the other parties have bent over backwards to please a small minority.' At the same time, Amos was eager to emphasise that Reform was eager to support bus travel, a hot issue in a number of counties where Reform's voter base has tended to be older. When it comes to cycling, existing policies at many councils are already advanced while there is strong public support for cycling schemes.
Daily Mail
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Reform UK's new constituents warn party MUST deliver as Nigel Farage faces battle with council staff on Net Zero, DEI and WFH
Reform UK's new constituents have warned the insurgent party they must deliver following their sweeping local elections victory. Nigel Farage 's outfit gained more than 650 council seats and took control of 10 local authorities in last week's contests, to send a lightning bolt through Westminster. They also won mayoral ballots in Greater Lincolnshire and in Hull and East Yorkshire, while also winning the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election. Among those councils seized by Reform was Durham County Council, where the party won two-thirds of seats. The council was previously run as a coalition between the Tories, Liberal Democrats and independent councillors. Mr Farage visited the area during the election campaign and attended a celebration event in Newton Aycliffe after his party's stunning success. He used a speech to send a warning to council staff working on climate change or diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives - or anyone who wants to continue working from home - should 'seek alternative careers very quickly'. But voters in Durham told MailOnline they wanted to see any money saved from such schemes ploughed back into local services. They also revealed why they had turned on Labour amid high levels of immigration and winter fuel payments being axed for millions of pensioners. Diane Guy, 63, a dressmaker from Ushaw Moor, County Durham, said: 'I voted for Reform as I can't stand Keir Starmer and I didn't want to vote Labour. 'We have to try something new. The North East has always been Labour but people feel as though they have shot themselves in the foot so are looking elsewhere. 'Now is Reform's chance to prove themselves and if they prove themselves, they may do well at the next general election. 'I like Nigel Farage, he doesn't waffle like other politicians. I can understand why he wants to stop migrants. 'I don't have a problem with genuine migrants and asylum seekers coming here but we need to stop those who have come here on boats. We will see what happens, watch this space.' Donna Snailham, 42, who is unemployed, from Durham, said: 'I would have voted for Reform but I missed the vote. They are our last hope. It is shocking what Labour have done. 'This isn't our county anymore. We came out of the EU to stop people coming here but it is getting worse. This country is knackered. Great Britain isn't great anymore. 'Some of the biggest problems in Durham is that everything is catered to students from accommodation to entertainment. I hope Reform will change that. 'I agree with scrapping DEI and putting it back into local services. Mental health services were scrapped and local services declined. 'I was part of a local support programme and that stopped suddenly. We need more things in Durham for young people.' Rosemary Newby, 79, a retired council worker from Ushaw Moor, County Durham, said: 'I'm disappointed with the whole of the council. 'Labour have taken our money away from us, they have scrapped the winter fuel allowance. People are living in hardship. 'It's a good idea to cut diversity, equality and inclusion staff and to put it back into services. We need more investment in our services. 'Years ago, you used to have someone cleaning the streets but that doesn't happen anymore. We have potholes that have been left, nothing has been done about them.' Ms Newby said people are now looking for alternatives as they were 'fed-up of the last council'. 'Everyone always voted for Labour, but it's gone a different way. They are fed up of Labour. It will take them a long time to get back to where they were. 'We were devastated when they took the winter fuel allowance off us. That was really helpful, and a lot of people wonder why that was taken.' Sadie Harnett, 30, a carer from Spennymoor, County Durham, said: 'When Reform won their seats, they were asking the council leader what to do. 'They had no idea what they were doing. I expected them to get that many seats. I'm not surprised they did so well. 'It's due to immigration. People can't see past the immigration issue in the UK. When I speak to people who vote for Reform all they speak about is immigration. 'We live in Spennymoor and it's 99 per cent white. In the last few years, we have had some asylum seekers move in.' Ms Harnett said she 'didn't have any nice words for Farage', adding: 'He wants to make changes to climate change and DEI but what is the point? 'What does anything matter if you don't help the environment. I find it scary, I'm ready to move.' Her mother, Frances Hartnett, 57, who is unemployed, said: 'Are they going to know what to do? 'I understand why people have voted that way. It's down to immigration. People are getting sick of being called racist. 'Starmer hasn't ingratiated himself to the public. He's annoyed a lot of people. I would say it's a protest vote for Reform but it's not. 'The older generation will say it's because of their pension tax. If he stops migrants coming into the council area then we will lose all the carers and the nurses.' Pete Stewart, 78, a retired local government officer, of Stanhope, County Durham, said: 'I will vote for Reform next time as I am peed off with Labour and Conservatives. 'People are fed up with the two-party system, someone has to break out of that. Conservative and Labour are so close together that it's a wasted vote. 'We have ex-servicemen sleeping in doorways but there are immigrants being housed in hotels. That, to me, is vile. 'Anyone who is here illegally should be sent back. Reform's policy makes sense.'
