James Buchan, previously a Reform councillor for Dartford Borough Council, has defected to the Conservatives, having apparently entirely lost confidence that Reform can do anything worthwhile for the people they are supposed to represent at all.
In a statement Mr Buchan added: “I stood for election with the sole aim of working for my community and getting things done for local families.
“Having had the opportunity to see Reform from the inside I’ve concluded that the party doesn’t really have the experience or ambition to do that.”
He further accused Reform UK of “relying on rhetoric and slogans, which isn’t going to help real families in communities like Stone House”.
“The more I saw of Reform, the more uncomfortable I felt to be part of it,” he added.
It sounds like he was worried that Reform’s performance was so impossibly bad that he couldn’t even sincerely tell his friends that he was acting in their best interest whilst under the control of Reform.
Kent Online goes into more detail of how as a Reform insider, Buchan came to realise quite how badly Reform were treating the vast majority of the people they claim to represent:
Slating Reform UK’s national policies, he continued: “I looked at friends, family and so many other honest, hard-working people and realised that Reform UK has a pretty unfortunate way of treating people.
He too was one of the majority of Britons who found Reform’s claim that they’d retrospectively remove the already-granted right to remain in the country from folk who’d entirely legally earned it abhorrent, saying.
“Things like a proposal to remove ‘Indefinite Leave to Remain’ from all non-EU residents who are working here perfectly legally is an example that could be devastating for decent people who have built a life here and contribute to our country.
It sounds like that as time went on he found that he’d be ashamed to be part of their cruel and incompetent administration.
“It creates a huge amount of fear and anxiety and I want to be able to look my family in the eye and say ‘that’s not who I am’.”
The Conservative council leader welcomed him into their fold, saying:
James wanted to be able to look his family and friends in the eye and tell them he has served them well, and he knows with Reform he couldn’t do that.