Over 60 Reform UK candidates in local elections are Tory defectors, study finds

The former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, pictured with Nigel Farage last year, is Reform UK’s candidate for the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

More than 60 of Reform UK’s council candidates standing in this year’s elections are defectors from the Conservative party, according to research from the Labour party.

Reform has also selected an ex-Conservative for its candidate in the upcoming Runcorn and Helsby byelection, while the party’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshire is the former Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns, who lost her parliamentary seat in West Yorkshire last July.