Senior Reform UK figures in county defect to Advance UK

A leading figure in Reform UK in Herefordshire has defected to another party regarded as further to the Right.

Andy Dye stood for Reform against sitting Conservative MP for North Herefordshire Sir Bill Wiggin at the July 2024 General Election, coming third behind him and the eventual winner, the Green Party’s Ellie Chowns.

The former paratrooper also set up and chaired the party’s local branch.

What had been the Facebook page of Reform UK Herefordshire has now become the page of “Advance UK Herefordshire”.

Mr Dye announced on the page: “I no longer believe that the Reform party leadership has the courage, commitment, political will or a clear plan to implement real change or govern alone.”

The branch’s former deputy chairman Dean Smith, also an ex-soldier, has made the same move to Advance UK, he added.

Though Reform UK now has five MPs , they are “ineffective”, and while the party also made significant inroads into local government last May,

“Reform councils are full of adopted councillors and are not delivering”, Mr Dye said.

Nationally, “policies are either half-baked or non-existent, there is zero engagement with the grass roots, there is no shadow Cabinet”, he added.

“Despite what they say, a pact [with the Conservatives] seems inevitable. For the United Kingdom, that would be game over.”

He said Advance UK, set up last year by former Reform UK deputy leader Ben Habib, “is the only party that is preparing the required legislation to reverse decades of deliberately degenerate policies and bad governance in order to save our United Kingdom”.

In August, tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, leant his support to the new party, saying it “will actually drive change”, while Reform UK leader Nigel Farage “is weak sauce who will do nothing”.

Advance UK said it had reached 30,000 members by last September, ahead of being registered as a political party with the Electoral Commission last month.

“Our very existence as a free and sovereign people hangs in the balance,” its website homepage says.