Reform UK's cumulative councillor departures reached roughly 40 by 2 July on the tracker kept by Liberal Democrat peer and elections analyst Mark Pack1. 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.
7OCT
Reform's councillor losses start to slow
1 min read
13:09UTC
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
Rhun ap Iorwerth / Welsh Government (Plaid Cymru)
Ap Iorwerth presented six priorities to the Senedd on 22 September without numeric targets or a named partner party, promising to work across the chamber where there is common ground. He says his government will be judged on results.
Michael Marra / Scottish Labour
Marra won the leadership on 19 September, and three days later his 17 MSPs backed Swinney's right-to-decide motion once their child-poverty amendment was written in. He says Scottish Labour's task is to tell voters what it stands for.
Andy Burnham / Labour Party
Burnham told conference in Liverpool on 29 September that Labour's next manifesto will commit to changing the electoral system, and invited every party into a National Commission on Electoral Reform. He has not named a replacement system, and no chair or remit has been published.
Conservative Party (frontbench peers and Kemi Badenoch)
Conservative frontbench peers argued against retrospective rules at the Lords Second Reading on 14 September, a position that protects gifts made before any cap. Kemi Badenoch rejected Burnham's electoral reform commission on 2 October, accusing him of using it to entrench the left.
Reform UK
Reform denied wrongdoing after the Channel 4 News programme, called the sting a hoax by climate activists and said it would cooperate with the Metropolitan Police. In the same month it announced £36m gifts from Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.
Steff Aquarone / Liberal Democrats (North Norfolk)
Aquarone told Rayner in the Commons on 7 September that North Norfolk District Council had spent money preparing for a reorganisation the Government has now withdrawn. He puts the cost of the cancelled merger on districts in the four areas.