Drip feed of Reform UK controversies puts party’s policy drive in shade

It was a week that started with a candid admission from Nigel Farage. When asked if Reform UK’s vetting process was finally up to scratch, the party leader said: “I accept that at the last general election basically there was no vetting really.” He was speaking after the latest of what a senior colleague had described as a “series of abhorrent incidents”.That latest incident had involved a Welsh Senedd candidate, Corey Edwards, who was forced to step down last Friday after a picture of him appearing to do a Nazi salute surfaced online.Yet while Farage went on to tell reporters at a Heathrow press conference on Tuesday that they would find Reform was “doing pretty well now”, just two days later another frontline party member was in hot water.On Thursday it was the turn of Simon Dudley, a Conservative defector and former head of Homes England, who was sacked as Reform’s housing spokesperson after saying during a discussion about the Grenfell Tower fire that “everyone dies in the end”.Dudley and Edwards are only the latest Reform figures to get the chop over the last two weeks. The attrition rate has been particularly high in Scotland, where the party appears to have lost at least five election candidates. Its recently appointed press officer in Scotland, Amanda Crawford, also quit, complaining she was being prevented from doing her job properly.Four Reform candidates in Scotland either stepped down or were suspended barely a week after they stood with Farage, on 19 March, at the unveiling of a list of those contesting the upcoming Holyrood elections for the party.In England there was the loss of one of Reform’s highest-profile mayoral candidates, Chris Parry, who was suspended after describing members of a Jewish neighbourhood watch group as “cosplayers” and likening them to “Islamists on horseback”. The comments were made after there had been an arson attack on ambulances run by a Jewish charity.Farage had already expended political capital on defending Parry, who was Reform’s mayoral candidate for Hampshire, over previous comments, including saying the deputy prime minister, David Lammy, should “go home” to the Caribbean. This time, Farage’s frustration with Parry was all too evident, with the Reform leader exclaiming: “I haven’t got time for this nonsense.”The almost continual drip-feed of controversies over Reform officials has had the effect of overshadowing key announcements, when the party is keen to show it has put the work and resources into costed policies that it believes make it a serious contender for government.Dudley’s sacking was announced at a press conference on Thursday intended to set out Reform’s commitment to the pensions triple lock, while Parry’s comments came amid campaigning by Farage in the north-east of England. Edwards’ departure became the focus of questioning at the Heathrow press conference which was held to announce plans to cut flight taxes.The sackings have led to questions about whether the party’s leadership is truly harmonious.One person whose ears will have been burning from Farage’s dismissals of the party’s previous vetting regime is Richard Tice. The MP is currently the deputy leader but led the party before Farage took the helm in June 2024, weeks before the general election.On Thursday, the optics were awkward once again when Farage announced Dudley’s sacking, but was at pains to distance himself from the original appointment. “I haven’t spoken to him,” Farage said. “He is under Richard Tice’s department. Richard appointed him as housing spokesman given his depth of experience in developing new towns but the comments were deeply inappropriate.”Reform was no longer a “one-man band”, Farage insisted. But his remarks raised some eyebrows given that Reform had initially appeared to stand by Dudley. Less than two hours before Farage’s announcement, Tice had retweeted comments by Dudley in which he apologised but sought to reiterate the point he had been trying to make.The party had released a statement on Wednesday seeking to defend the Grenfell comments and claiming they reflected a “broader point that the regulatory pendulum has swung too far in response to the tragedy”.Asked on Thursday if he had changed his mind about Dudley after initially appearing to support him, Tice told the Guardian it was “my call this morning” and he had told Farage of his decision so that he could announce the sacking.