Reform UK's cumulative councillor departures reached roughly 40 by 2 July on the tracker kept by Liberal Democrat peer and elections analyst Mark Pack 1. The pace has slowed sharply from the 22 lost in the fortnight after May's elections . The figure counts resignations, defections and expulsions since the May local elections, and the deceleration matters because a party that tripled its councillor base needs to hold those seats to run the councils it won. A separate tracker citing nearly 100 departures blends different cycles and is not comparable.
3SEP
Reform's councillor losses start to slow
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Reform UK's cumulative councillor departures reached roughly 40 by early July on Mark Pack's tracker, a marked slowdown from the 22 lost in the fortnight after May's elections.
PoliticsDeveloping
Key takeaway
Reform's councillor losses have slowed to roughly 40 since May, easing fears of a structural collapse.
Deep Analysis
In plain English
Reform UK won a large number of council seats in England's May 2026 local elections. Since then, some of those councillors have quit, been suspended, defected to other parties, or resigned. Mark Pack, a Liberal Democrat peer who tracks these numbers, counted roughly 40 cumulative departures by 2 July. That is a much slower pace than the 22 lost in just the first fortnight after the election. This pattern, a fast wave of losses followed by a slowdown, also happened to UKIP after its own council surge a decade ago, as parties expanding quickly tend to lose their weakest recruits first.
Root Causes
Rapid attrition after a surge election typically front-loads onto candidates who were selected quickly and with limited vetting, the fastest and easiest departures to identify and remove or who resign first.
Once that initial cohort has left, the remaining councillors are disproportionately those who survived early scrutiny, which is the structural reason the departure rate slows over time even if underlying discipline problems persist.
Sources:Mark Pack
First Reported In
Update #11 · Farage to quit Clacton to force by-election
Mark Pack· 8 Jul 2026
Read original →Causes and effects
This Event
Reform's councillor losses start to slow
The bleed of Reform councillors is easing, suggesting the post-election churn was a spike rather than a structural collapse of its local base.
Led to
Reform loses Old Catton to the Tories
Reform's roughly 40 cumulative departures by early July presaged the Old Catton defeat.
Occurred 16 Jul 2026
Read story →Reform sheds 56 councillors since May
The 3 August count of 56 continues the departure trend recorded at roughly 40 on 2 July.
Occurred 3 Aug 2026
Read story →Different Perspectives
Scottish Labour members
Scottish Labour's published leadership nominations show 33 MPs and MSPs backing Michael Marra against 12 for Joe Fagan, with members voting until 17 September and a result on 19 September. Elected members do not cast the ballot, so the nomination gap measures the parliamentary party rather than the membership that will decide it.
Electoral Commission
The Electoral Commission published its Q2 2026 donations register on 3 September, recording Reform UK's £5.44m as the highest of any party and Ben Delo's £4m as two cash gifts. The register records a donation's form and amount, not the origin of a donor's wealth, so a cash gift shows the same as any other.
Reform UK
Danny Kruger, Reform UK's MP for East Wiltshire, called the Bill "a flagrantly partisan attempt to kneecap Reform UK" during the 2 September debate, objecting to its trade-union exemption. Reform enters its Birmingham conference having topped Q2's donor register at £5.44m, £4m of it in cash from Ben Delo, a form the new ban does not reach.
Ian Davidson, Acting Returning Officer for Clacton
Davidson's office printed a 90cm ballot paper for the record 34-candidate field, with nothing in electoral law capping candidate numbers or the £500 deposit each pays. He expects the paper's size to raise printing costs and slow the count into the early hours, a strain that follows from the major parties' boycott, not from turnout.
Labour Party
Labour gained Penistone East from Reform on 20 August but lost Harraby South to Reform the same night, a wash that undercuts any claim of momentum. The party can point to beating Reform in a genuinely fought contest, but not to a pattern running only in its favour.
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats took two of Reform's May wards, Almondbury on 13 August and St Neots Eynesbury on 20 August, the latter on a 29.8-point rise in their own vote share. Both results let the party claim it is the beneficiary when voters turn against Reform, not Labour or the Conservatives.