Over on X, Dan Barker shared, “Thrilled to join the real conservative movement with Reform UK. Reform’s all about the regular folks of our nation.”
Barker, a Tory through and through from Sale, got the Conservative nod this past December 2023.
The Reform Party’s all smiles, announcing Barker’s gonna run as their guy in the Manchester mayoral race come 2 May.
Their words: “Reform’s over the moon to welcome Dan Barker. Top-notch candidate. He’s gonna do Manchester and Reform proud.
“He’s got it figured out – if you’re betting on this city, this country’s future, Reform’s leading the charge, while the Tories are stuck in yesteryear.”
This news hits just as Lee Anderson, the former Tory deputy chair, made his switch to Reform UK, not long after getting the boot from the Conservatives for dropping Islamophobic comments about London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan.
Anderson didn’t mince his words, giving the Tories a piece of his mind as he left.
Chatting then, he said: “I just want my country back – and yeah, the highbrows might not like it.
“But it rings true for the people close to me – friends, family, voters – even my folks said they’d only vote for me if I was with Reform UK.”
Back in November 2018, Reform UK, with a nudge from Farage, started life as the Brexit Party. Catherine Blaiklock was at the helm first but bowed out in March 2019 amid a squabble about her Islamophobic tweets.
Farage stepped up soon after, brushing off the fuss as “growing pains” and saying Blaiklock was never meant to stick around as the head honcho.
Reform UK’s got a punchy tagline: ‘Let’s Make Britain Great’. They’re pushing for strict immigration rules, slicing taxes, chopping NHS queues, and giving the BBC and the House of Lords a makeover.
Plus, they’re itching to scrap the government’s Net Zero strategy, slapping it with the label ‘net stupid’.
