Reform UK launches local election campaign

Reform UK has launched its campaign ahead of the local election in North East Lincolnshire next month, with its deputy leader Richard Tice saying the party is "better at saving money" while providing "better services for residents".

Residents will vote to elect 15 councillors, one in each of the area's wards, on 7 May. Reform UK has a candidate in every ward.

During the campaign launch, Tice claimed Reform UK-led councils had the lowest average council tax rise.

He said: "If you've got better quality councillors negotiating hard on behalf of residents, then actually you can keep those council bills down to as little as possible whilst still providing good value services."

Reform UK has run 13 upper-tier local authorities in England since 2025.

Full Fact analysis found councils run by Reform UK saw the lowest average annual council tax rise, at 4.33%, compared with other parties controlling upper‑tier authorities.

However, the range of council tax rises in Reform-led areas varied from as low as 1.99% in Durham, to 8.98% in Worcestershire.

Tice said: "We're better at saving money, renegotiating contracts, getting better value and providing, at the same time, better services for residents."

Reform UK has not stood in council elections in North East Lincolnshire before, but has a councillor, Oliver Freeston, who defected from the Conservative Party two years ago.

Freeston told the Local Democracy Reporting Service that elected Reform UK councillors would bring "a wave of positivity" to the authority.

"These are people that come from the real world, they're people with experience. We've got quite a mixed range of ages," he said.

"I think these people, a lot of whom have never been involved in politics before, have been brave enough to put their head above the parapet because they know they need to make change."

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Tice said: "People who stand for Reform, they believe in our values, in our conviction, our policies and they're the policies that are going to get this country back on track."

Freeston added: "We're not special, we're not racist, we're not anything like that.

"We're just ordinary people who are fed up with the way the country's going."

He said Reform "can effect change because we are ordinary people representing the common sense folk of North East Lincolnshire".

A full list of candidates standing in the North East Lincolnshire local election can be viewed on the council's website.

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