Stratford Reform UK chair and new councillor James Crocker promises end to ‘stuffy council meetings’ as his party wins 23 out of 57 Warwickshire seats
Following Reform UK’s groundbreaking win in the Warwickshire County Council election today (Friday), chair of the party’s Stratford branch, James Crocker, told the Herald he was ‘over the moon’.
Speaking to us from The Bear pub at Swan’s Nest, where he was enjoying a drink with the Reform team shortly after leaving the count at Stratford Leisure Centre, Cllr Crocker sounded in reflective rather than jubilant.
“Obviously we’re over the moon with how Reform has performed overall,” he said. “I was very confident we were going to win a few seats, but I didn’t really predict how many.
“But there are mixed feelings too because not all of the team were victorious. A few of our candidates came a close second, so I’m feeling a bit gutted for them as everyone had worked so many hours over the last couple of weeks.
“Particularly Neil Lawrence in Bidford and Welford who lost by 16 votes.”
In the 2021 county council elections, Conservatives won 11 of the Stratford district seats, while Liberal Democrats won three.
Today that has been upended, with Lib Dems winning seven, Conservatives retaining four, and Reform picking up two - Arden and Studley - from the Tories.
Cllr Crocker won Arden convincingly - with 1,273 of the votes compared to nearest rival, Conservative India Tibbs, who picked up 988.
The picture for Reform in the county was even healthier. Of the 57 seats up for grabs they took 23 seats.
However, the party failed to hit the magic number 29 - the number of seats needed to have a majority at Shire Hall.
The election also saw good results for the Liberal Democrats (14 seats) and Greens (seven).
The Conservatives had a day to forget as they went into the election with 41 councillors and came out the other side with just nine.
The results means that although Reform will not have overall control of the council, as the largest party they could govern as a minority administration. Although they could also team up with the Tories to create a majority coalition. Another scenario could see Labour, Lib Dems, Tories and Green form a coalition giving them control, although this is unlikely.
Cllr Crocker was still taking it all in, and was unable to say what would happen next.
He confessed with frankness: “I know nothing. Quite honestly, at this moment, my message to our team locally is that we take one step at a time. Right now, I can't really tell you anything, give us a day or two.
“We were focussed on winning seats. Over this bank holiday weekend, I'm sure there will be plenty of discussion.”
Cllr Crocker said he believed Reform’s success came on the back of traditional Tory voter disillusionment.
“I regard myself as a conservative with a small C that can't vote Conservative, large C, anymore and have been that way for a long time now,” observed Cllr Crocker. “A lot of people get that and feel the same way.”
Pinpointing in particular a lack of frankness on issues, Cllr Crocker continued: “The Conservatives are not talking about the issues that matter to people. They're sidestepping them. It's too difficult, too controversial.
“But they know that Reform UK will deal with the difficult issues.
“I feel as if I'm a politician now all of a sudden… But we are prepared to talk about those issues that are otherwise an elephant in the room,” said Cllr Crocker getting into his stride.
“People have listened to us at the local level, and I hope it's the same at the national level as well.”
Identifying the key issues as immigration, development and crime, Cllr Crocker continued: “The number one issue is immigration. And let's be specific, illegal immigration. It's the lack of control. That is what upsets people - the unfairness of it. That’s what people tell me.
“The other issue that probably wasn't so obvious to me at the beginning of this campaign is the level of crime in certain pockets of Warwickshire. They are bigger and more serious than I personally had fully appreciated. Such as certain areas of Earlswood area - especially after nightfall.
“I’d also say overdevelopment is a concern. Too much house building, especially on greenbelt. It’s a national issue, and affects everybody locally.”
Most of the new Reform councillors have not held public office before, but Cllr Crocker is confident they have worthy representatives.
“We've got real talent across the board,” he said. “I say that with confidence looking at who’s won, it's going to be quite a strong group that we've got. We will figure it out quickly, because I know that we're organised and we're pretty smart, dare I say it.”
Addressing the number of political novices that will be holding seats, Cllr Crocker continued: “Every councillor that is an incumbent councillor started somewhere. Most of the councillors who have actually lost their seats have been in place for a very long time and were very experienced and lost today for very specific reasons - in that they haven't really achieved what people wanted them to achieve. Experience doesn't take you very far if you don't achieve anything.”
Crediting Sarah Whalley-Hoggins - who recently switched from Tory to Reform and is Stratford district councillor for Brailes & Compton - with inspiring the team, he continued: “The addition of Sarah has been huge. She brings so much know-how immediately to the team. She has made a critical difference over the last few days. Had she been with us a bit longer, we might win a couple more seats possibly. But she is mentoring and coaching us.
“She knows where the bodies are buried, and is going to be very useful in letting us know exactly how to proceed.”
He continued: “There'll be an element of the first day at school for a few people, but give us a few weeks, we will get into this.”
Agreeing with Nigel Farage’s assertion that the results mark ‘the beginning of the end of the Conservative Party’, Cllr Crocker observed: “I've been saying this over the last few years. Speaking as an ex-Conservative, this has been coming for a long time.”
Looking to the future for Reform, Cllr Crocker said: “There's an irony in that I think some of us came into this for negative reasons - in the sense that we were just so dissatisfied with everything that we could see going on around us.
“But the really great news is that we've got people who are prepared to speak out. We've got talented, articulate individuals who are going to be a complete breath of fresh air, who will actually inject oxygen into the conversation.”
Cllr Crocker also hoped his party members would shake up the action in council chambers.
“They will make some of these divisive stuffy council meetings far more interesting and far more useful for people on the outside. Our councillors are going to challenge the consensus. We are going to challenge the status quo. How far we get with this, time will tell.
“You've got a very different breed of politician now entering local politics that I don't think you've seen before - certainly not in my lifetime.”
Cllr Crocker concluded: “Ultimately I’m a very optimistic person. I want to see headlines where people are proud to have a Reform UK councillor. So we are going to try and do things as quickly as humanly possible to bring a bit of enthusiasm and positivity.”
