Gareth’s excellent recent PB header “The Challenge for … Reform” suggested that running local councils could give the party valuable executive experience. But does this influx of Reform Councillors actually bring “outsiders” into the system? Or does it just offer “insiders” a new ladder to climb?

Meet Stephen Atkinson, newly elected leader of Lancashire County Council. First time elected this year as a Reform councillor, with a career background of having been *checks notes* Council Leader of Ribble Valley Council for the Conservative Party until March.

Or the new Council Leader for Leicestershire County Council, Dan Harrison. Elected for Reform this May, having previously been *checks notes* the Conservative councillor for the same seat until February.

The list of former Conservative Councillors now wearing turquoise rosettes is long, too long to go through in this header, but it is not just ex-Tories. Cathy Mason, formerly Labour’s only Councillor in Ashfield, defected to Reform earlier this year. She stood successfully for them in the County Council elections this year, one of the few Reform figures with Labour roots.

Several long-standing “Independents” have followed the same path. The new leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, Mick Barton, had been a Mansfield District Councillor since 2003, for the Mansfield Independents.

Far from bringing in outsiders, many of these councillors have used Reform as a vehicle to step up, either into leadership, or from district to county level.

In the past some had suggested that Farage and his supporters could do a ‘reverse takeover’ of the Conservative Party; perhaps though, we are seeing the reverse: a takeover of Reform by insider politicians sensing the opportunity for either self-preservation, or promotion.

If this trend continues, how many councillors from across the spectrum, primarily but not exclusively Conservatives, might see Reform as a vehicle to take them to Westminster?

So rather than a populist overthrow of the political class, perhaps Reform is instead enabling a reshuffle: changing which insiders are climbing the greasy pole.

Bartholomew Roberts