3SEP

Three more of Reform's May intake quit

2 min read

12:41UTC

Mark Pack's tracker added Tanya Brasted, Robbie Withey and Eleonora Gough in September, taking departures from the councillors Reform UK elected in May to 30.

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Key takeaway

Reform's May intake has now lost 30 councillors, three of them logged in September alone.

Three more councillors elected for Reform UK on 7 May left the party during September, according to the tracker kept by Mark Pack ¹. That brings departures from the May intake to 30 ².

Tanya Brasted left the North East Lincolnshire group after the council removed her from its cabinet amid an allegation that funds had been misappropriated. No finding has been made against her ³. Robbie Withey gave up his party membership in Aberdeenshire, and Eleonora Gough quit the Solihull group with a public statement calling it "toxic" ⁴.

Pack's wider list, which counts every Reform councillor rather than only those elected in May, now runs to roughly 120 ⁵, against the 56 he had recorded in early August . The individual reasons vary and do not add up to a single story: a cabinet removal here, a quiet resignation there, a public complaint about a group's conduct, a deputy group leader walking out in Plymouth , a defection to the Social Democratic Party in Wakefield .

None of it costs Reform a by-election, because a councillor who changes party keeps the seat for the rest of the term. The council arithmetic therefore moves before any voter is consulted, and a party that selected several thousand candidates inside a few months carries no long apprenticeship through which the mismatches would have shown up earlier.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Reform UK won a large number of council seats in May 2026, but a steady stream of its new councillors have since left the party, whether by resigning, defecting to another party, or being removed. Mark Pack, a political commentator who tracks these departures, recorded three more in September: Tanya Brasted in North East Lincolnshire, removed from her council's cabinet amid a fund allegation with no finding made against her; Robbie Withey in Aberdeenshire, who quit Reform UK membership; and Eleonora Gough in Solihull, who left calling her local Reform group toxic.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The three September departures split across three distinct mechanisms rather than one common cause: Brasted left after the council removed her from its cabinet amid a fund allegation, Withey resigned his membership outright, and Gough quit calling her local group toxic.

Mark Pack has previously attributed the wider pattern to defection, suspension and resignation rather than any shift in how people actually voted, and these three cases individually illustrate all three mechanisms at once.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Reform UK's May 2026 councillor cohort keeps shrinking through resignation, defection and suspension rather than any further votes, a distinct channel from electoral loss.

Sources:Mark Pack

Mentions:Reform UK →Eleonora Gough →North East Lincolnshire →Aberdeenshire →Solihull →Social Democratic Party →Democratic Party →Byline Times →Mark Pack →Wakefield →Plymouth →

First Reported In

Update #17 · Reform's £4m arrived as cash, not crypto

Mark Pack· 3 Sept 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

Caused by

Reform sheds 56 councillors since May

Brasted, Withey and Gough add to the tracker Pack maintained since 3 August.

Occurred 3 Aug 2026

Read story →

This Event

Three more of Reform's May intake quit

Reform is shedding members of the intake that won it its councils, and none of the departures triggers a by-election.

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.