Reform’s Startup Culture Raises Risks Ahead of Local Elections

Reform’s mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns, left, sings the national anthem alongside Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at the party conference on Sept. 6.Photographer: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

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April 12, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC

Earlier this year, as Reform UK official Shaun Wilkinson was shortlisting candidates for May’s local elections, he watched in astonishment as a superior remotely replaced one pick in the shared spreadsheet with a recent Conservative defector who he’d rejected.

Wilkinson told Bloomberg he believed the former Tory was brought in because she was friends with another defector, Reform’s mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, Andrea Jenkyns. The party dismissed that charge as “completely untrue” and said the defector was allocated a vacant seat. Jenkyns didn’t respond to a request for comment.