Reform UK will look for a new candidate for a Nottinghamshire County Council seat after newly-elected councillor Desmond Clarke resigned just six days after winning it.
Clarke took Newark West ward in the May 1 poll by 153 votes, beating the incumbent, Conservative candidate Keith Girling, a councillor for 20 years.
The win enabled Reform UK to take overall control of the council.
The reasons for the resignation by Clarke, a social worker, remain unclear.
In a Facebook post Vote Reform UK said “significant recent changes to Desmond’s personal circumstances” had led him to conclude that he was not in a position to “deliver the level of service to the people of Newark West that they deserve and require.”
Clarke is the latest of Reform UK candidates to quit. Donna Edmunds elected to Hodnet Ward in Shropshire resigned from the party after three days in post. She was suspended after describing Reform UK on X as a “cult” and had made clear her intentions to leave the party if she was elected.
Luke Shingler elected to Galley Common ward, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council for Reform, announced his intent to serve as an Independent due to changes in his professional circumstances a few days later.
All political parties can field ‘paper’ candidates – people who are just there to boost party candidate numbers and don’t expect to win – to create a sense of national presence, said Matthew Mokhefi-Ashton, a politics lecturer at Nottingham Trent University.
“They run in seats they know they’re never going to win, because you’ve got to look like a serious party of government who represents the entire country,” he added.
Mokhefi-Ashton pointed out this would be an advantage for a smaller political party which Reform UK still is.
The date for the Newark West by-election has yet to be announced.