May’s Local Election map, with the 28 seats originally held by Reform UK.

Whether it’s personal squabbles in Cornish pubs or serious political disagreements over the democracy in the Cornwall branch of Reform UK, there are serious questions lingering over the party’s future in Kernow.

In October, five Cornwall councillors who previously belonged to Reform UK left the party and formed the Cornish Independent Non-Aligned Group. This includes Rob Parsonage, the former leader of Reform UK on the council, along with Rowland O’Connor, Karen Knight, Anna Thomason-Kenyon, and Christine Parsonage.

According to reporting by the BBC, the five councillors defected from Reform UK because of their inability to raise local issues, such as the Cornish housing crisis and the depletion of public services. Furthermore, the councillors were told that they were not permitted to green-light any planning applications that catered to renewable energy production.

Back in July, then–Reform deputy leader Rowland O’Connor stated that Cornish devolution would “add a new layer of bureaucracy and a potentially higher level of administrative costs, diverting resources away from vital economic initiatives,” thereby pushing against the very motions that many in the movement for Cornish autonomy say would support the issues he is now campaigning for.

Now, the new leader of Reform Cornwall, Paul Ashton, insists the party is not in crisis and denies the claims made by his former allies that there were instructions from Reform HQ to toe a national line. Ashton, councillor for St Austell Poltair & Mount Charles, runs a private healthcare company, Karrek Community CIC, and was one of 28 in the new Reform group on Cornwall Council. Now that five councillors have left to form an independent group, this leaves them trailing behind the Lib Dems, whose group is comprised of 26 councillors.

During the breakup of the group, an extraordinary incident was leaked to Cornwall Live, which documented a Reform row at The Highwayman, a pub in Dobwalls, South East Cornwall. After an event at the pub entitled An Afternoon with Ann Widdecombe, disagreements became heated, as one Reform supporter shouted at former leader Parsonage: “Go away, you horrible, odious, odious little man.” The argument that led to this outburst concerned democracy across branches of Reform UK in Cornwall, in which it was also stated that “there are people in Cornwall who are disgusted with Reform” because of some party figures’ focus on “personal ambition or personal status.”

This issue comes alongside the resignation of the aforementioned defector Christine Parsonage from Cornwall Council late last month. Parsonage, who lives 40 miles away from St Columb Minor and Colan — the ward she represented for six months — resigned for health reasons but had begun to receive significant criticism from members of Newquay Town Council for her absence from meetings. Her resignation leaves her ward to a by-election on 18 December.

This collapse follows a trend of disorder within Reform UK across Britain. Last month, The Guardian released a recording of Reform councillors in Kent in which Reform’s Kent County Council leader, Linden Kemkaran, was captured telling her council colleagues to “fucking suck it up” when making “big decisions” such as those regarding the council’s budget. The replies from the leader’s fellow Reform councillors attempted to address the lack of democratic decision-making in the party’s affairs. The subsequent suspensions from Kent County Council following this have hampered Reform’s image as a party capable of governance. Overall, Reform has lost 5% of its councillors across England since the elections in May, which has been labelled “unusual” and “alarming.”

Ashton is set to lead the diminished party into its new phase, but the party’s current trajectory raises major questions about its ability to govern, as well as the internal coordination of Reform as a political force.

Image Via: Creative Commons.