With the Conservative Party desperately trying to revive their fortunes during Conference week in Manchester, ReformUK have announced the defection of a slew of local Tory councillors – with 20 members from across England crossing the floor.
Among them is Cllr Jack Rydeheard who represents the Elton ward in Bury. Up until this morning he was serving as Conservative Group Leader on Bury Council – a position he was only recently elected to.
Cllr Rydeheard, whose photograph still sits proudly at the top of Bury Conservatives’ website at the time of writing, said today: “After spending a lot of time in deep reflection, and after almost 10 years in the Conservative Party, I have taken the decision to join Reform UK.”
Sophie Corcoran, political commentator and former Conservative campaign manager spoke to Quays News: “I’ve known Jack for a long time, he’s a very talented and very committed councillor. He brought me to Bury to help him get elected in 2021 and I witnessed first hand his devotion to both the Conservative Party and his residents.”
She went on to say: “He’s one of the few Conservatives I knew who felt so comfortable whoever he spoke to, whether it was in a higher income neighbourhood or a council estate.
“I know he will be a big loss to the Bury Conservatives as he brought so much energy – they are certainly poorer without him.”
Reform’s barrage of announcements today have been criticised by some in the Conservative hierarchy – Simon Clarke took to X to accuse the defectors of “breaking faith with their electors.”
Quays News also contacted Cllr Sean Thorpe – a Labour cabinet member at Bury Council about Cllr Rydeheard’s defection.
Asked whether he was expecting to see more defections he said:
“There are some [independent councillors] who have been explicit that they would vote Reform.”
He went on to say that “This political stuff is a bit of a sideshow, but it does have a sinister undertone… the people attacking to the right are creating division in a Borough where we have a lot of good social cohesion and we’ve been rocked by what a terrible event that happened last week” – reffering to last week’s attack on a synagogue.
You can listen to our conversation here:
Away from the north west, there have been defections to Reform from the Conservatives in Kent, Yorkshire, Dorset, Suffolk and more. Tory Leader, Kemi Badenoch described the defections as the party “shedding a lot of the baggage” and insisted that her party were still having a “good conference”.