Nottinghamshire's ruling Reform UK group is refusing to talk to the local media

Nottinghamshire County Council's ruling Reform UK group has cut off all contact with the Nottingham Post and the related Nottinghamshire Live website. Because this policy includes Local Democracy Reporting Service reporters, the BBC and other local newspapers are also affected by it.

Oliver Pridmore writes on the Nottingham Post site:

What has prompted this unprecedented turn of events? It was my recent article on the ongoing discussions about local government reorganisation (LGR).

The article included a claim that two Reform UK councillors said at a public surgery that they could be suspended from their county council group if they did not vote for Councillor [Mick] Barton's preference of a bigger Nottingham council covering Broxtowe and Gedling.

The article repeatedly referred to the fact that this was merely a claim and noted who that claim had come from. We also went to both Councillor Barton and the two Reform UK councillors concerned ahead of publication and explicitly told them about the claim.

Councillor Barton did not wish to comment on the claim directly, whilst the two Reform councillors who allegedly made it both sent identical messages which did not explicitly deny the claim. The article was published on Thursday (August 21) and news on how Reform have decided to react was confirmed on Tuesday (August 26).

The news comes just a couple of months after Reform's Ashfield MP Lee Anderson launched a dangerous attack on Nottinghamshire Live for running too many "negative" stories about his party. A piece on the cost of a by-election caused by a Reform councillor resigning days into office prompted Mr Anderson to describe some forms of public scrutiny as "pointless" and to disparage local journalism as not being a "proper job".

These bullying tactics are a reminder of how much Reform politicians admire Donald Trump. Yet we saw only yesterday the important role the local media can play in exposing wrongdoing by local councillors - in the case it happens that it was a Reform councillor involved.