Former Reform cabinet member in Leicestershire joins Restore

Leicestershire County Council's minority Reform UK administration has lost a councillor and former cabinet member, reports the Leicester Mercury. Charles Whitford, the member for Markfield, Desford and Thornton, has joined Restore Britain.

I last blogged about Whitford when he lost his cabinet position over emails he sent to residents. I quoted the Mercury

In the emails ... Cllr Whitford claimed the people raising the flags were doing so to "reject" the "destruction of British values" amid an alleged "influx of soon to be millions of mainly Muslim men of fighting age". One recipient described the councillor's response as "flat out Islamophobic". ... 

Cllr Whitford also claimed that immigrants were coming to make the UK a "Muslim state", leading to one of the residents accusing him of "whipping up hatred" with his words.

There's been a trickle of Reform councillors joining Restore this week, and if Whitford is in any way typical of them, Reform will be more credible for their leaving, even if Restore does siphon of some their voters too.

Despite the publicity we give to every councillor who leaves Reform – some of them, it has to be admitted for entertaining reasons – it should be remembered that they now have more councillors than they did after last May's local elections. As well as regularly winning by-elections, they are the big net gainers from defections – see Augustus Carp's latest round up for details.

Later. Now comes news that a Reform councillor has resigned from the county council altogether. It's Andrew Thorp, who represents Narborough and Whetstone.