The conspiracy theorists who now hold local council seats across the UK

Popularity may sound enticing, but it doesn’t come without problems. Especially when that popularity has sprung up quickly. Suddenly you have a lot of new people around you that you know very little about. The law of large numbers dictates that this will bring some unwanted baggage along the way. Or perhaps wanted baggage, but of the variety that is a little more overt than you might have desired.

Such was the case during May’s election cycle, where Reform UK made significant gains in English Councils, and both Scottish and Welsh Parliaments. The Green Party also performed strongly by their standards, and the Liberal Democrats took some modest steps forward. Cumulatively, this represents a massive upheaval in British politics, and it’s worth taking a look at some of those fresh faces coming into the fray to see if any of them fall foul of some of our favourite skeptical red flags.

So, grab your bingo cards, eyes down!

Climate change denial

Considering that scrapping Net Zero is one of Reform’s key policies, it seems to be a rule rather than an exception when it comes to climate change denialism amongst their members. For an example, check out Suffolk County Council’s June Mummery proclaiming that “There is no climate crisis” despite the mountains of evidence to the contrary. She also seems hugely confident that the number of polar bears is actually increasing, although that was posted on Mastodon (where she has zero followers) and got no reactions whatsoever, so the sonic implications of deforestation analogy may apply here.

For what it’s worth, the number of polar bears is not increasing, according to Polar Bears International, which is disappointingly an organisation of human experts concerned about the subject of polar bears, and not a collective of well-travelled but poorly pigmented ursines.

Chemtrails

He’s been around for a bit longer than May (December 2025 to be precise), but Reform’s David McLennan is worth a mention for his bizarre belief in the chemtrails conspiracy theory, which makes the baseless claim that airplane condensation trails are actually deliberate releases of chemicals by governments or other groups for secret, and always nefarious purposes. McLennan replied to a post on X about chemtrails saying:

I’m in Scotland and you can SE [sic] the vapour trails across the blue canvas slowly, surely, definitely turn into clouds to hide the sun. Gates and Davos are trying to cull the global population.

In what seems to be an ongoing trend though, his online content appears to focus much more on racism and Islamophobia than this particular fringe belief.

Homophobia

The conversation around trans people of course continues to be a culture wars hot button, and once again it seems more of a feature than a bug for Reform. Some however are taking additional backward steps to their perceived halcyon days of old school homophobia. One example is Kirklees Council’s new recruit Tracy Clayton, who is reported to have posted multiple homophobic, transphobic, and Islamophobic comments on X, including one post that appeared to add “pedosexual” to LGBTQ+.

There’s also the case of litigious-penis soundalike Sue Eacock, who is accused of anti-LGBT posts on social media, although the screenshots provided in the article seem to indicate her first priority is racism.

A dishonourable mention should also go to new Councillor in the ward of Bryn with Ashton-in-Makerfield North, Robert Kenyon. His social media accounts (yes, plural, he had a shadow account) were littered not just with homophobia, but a wider range of hateful, misogynistic, and just plain creepy comments. The most notable of these were in the direction of Carol Vorderman, clearly preferring a bowel to a consonant (or one from the bottom during the numbers round).

9/11 trutherism

Not quite as old-school as chemtrails, but now reaching a quarter of a century in age, 9/11 conspiracy theories don’t feature too much in political discourse here in the UK. Or at least they didn’t until the arrival of Jay Cooper (Bootle West ward, Sefton Council), who re-shared a video called: “Ultimate proof. 9/11 is not what we thought it was.” His stance as a 9/11 ‘truther’ seems to be just one of many conspiracy theories that he buys into, and not the most distasteful of them (see below).

The Green Party also got in on the action here with Saiqa Ali (Lambeth Council) claiming that 9/11 was a false-flag operation. It seems that her motivation for such a stance was fuelled by something more sinister – more on this later.

Holocaust denial

Meet Jay Cooper. Oh, you already met him above. So, apparently when participating in some carefully considered online debate after the death of Charlie Kirk, Cooper made reference to the Holocaust being “a hoax” and suggested it was “propaganda”. This is all despite him apparently being unable to spell ‘holocaust’. For reasons beyond the typographical transgression, his comments caused an understandable furore, which resulted in his resignation from Reform UK, and justifiable scrutiny over Reform’s vetting process (or lack thereof). Presumably they were fine with his other conspiratorial posts, including fake pictures of Kier Starmer in a hijab, along with claims that Labour is “importing voters”, and bringing “terror” into Britain. Cooper remains a Councillor for Sefton.

Psychic abilities

In order to cleanse the palate a little after the bad taste left above, let’s delve into the back catalogue for a quick look at Kent County Council member and political party-hopper Amelia Randall. Clearly in order to succeed in politics you have to believe in your own abilities, and in the case of Amanda, she believes that some of the abilities she possesses are supernatural. According to Amanda:

I do psychic readings with and without tarot cards and Angel Harmony readings. I also do numerology forecasts and am learning astrology.

She still seems to be available to do readings, although her company “Mystic Psychic Limited” appears to have been dissolved by Companies House due to failure to file accounts. Just the sort of fiscal responsibility you’d hope for in an elected official!

We can safely assume she hasn’t learned much in terms of supernatural foresight yet as she’s been unable to decide which party to affiliate with. She only lasted for four months in Reform UK before jumping to the sinking ship of UKIP, then finally deciding to host her own, apparently very exclusive party, ‘Better Way Of’ in March of this year (official registration still pending it appears). In case you’re worried about us just focusing on a mostly harmless belief, don’t worry, she’s also very much on board with Reform and UKIP’s anti-immigrant policies, and was the key organiser of Kent protests in September of last year.

Covid denialism / antivaxxers

We’ve already met Robert Kenyon, and it turns out when he’s not being creepy about Carol Vorderman he’s also known for vaccine denialism (annoyingly labelled as vaccine ‘scepticism’ by the Guardian), with a host of statements including “Wait longer, take vitamins, stop having boosters.” The English Chronicle also reported that up to a third of Reform UK Council leaders had voiced some form of concern about vaccines.

Racism / Islamophobia

If you’ve followed any of the links above, you’ll already have been drenched in a torrent of offensive comments and policies. It’s no surprise that the party of ‘Stop the boats’ are awash with anti-immigrant sentiment, but there are special notable mentions amongst their new blood.

Stuart Prior resigned from Essex county council days after being elected, due to such gems as describing white people as being the master race and having larger brains, plus a litany of other awful remarks.

Not to be outdone, Reform councillor for Bolton, Derek Bullock, is alleged to have openly called for the shooting of people of Pakistani origin, although Bullock claims that the post in question is fake, despite the same article documenting other offensive material which has not come into question.

We also have Nathaniel Menday (Reform Councillor, Sheffield) who shared pictures of swastikas and Mein Kampf, Ben Rowe (Reform Councillor, Plymouth) who urged protesters throwing bricks at police defending a mosque to “get rid of that filthy building” during the 2024 Southport riots, Glenn Gibbins (Reform Councillor, Sunderland) who allegedly wrote a post on Facebook that said “Carnt [sic] believe amount of nigerians in town…..should melt them all down and fill in the pot holes!!”, Andrew Mahon (Reform UK Councillor for Blackburn South East Ward) who used the n-word in social media posts, and Brett Muscroft (Reform Councillor, Castleford Central & Glasshoughton) who likened Islam to cancer.

Antisemitism

Although we’ve already met a holocaust denier from Reform UK, it’s actually the Green Party who appear to be leading the charge in terms of antisemitism. This includes the arrests of both Saiqa Ali (who we also met earlier in the 9/11 section), and Sabine Mairey over alleged antisemitism in social media posts.

There’s also Mohammed Suleman (Arthur’s Hill ward in Newcastle), who was suspended over media reports he allegedly shared antisemitic content on social media (along with unsuccessful candidate Philip Brookes). A similar story surfaced about Mark Adderley (Croydon Council), who has been accused of antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories shared on social media. Other (ultimately unsuccessful) candidates have been accused of similar activities, all fuelling a game of whack-a-mole from the Green Party, ironically under the leadership of a Jewish man.

Unvetted

Not quite making it into the list above were Kieran Lay (Reform UK, Doncaster Council) who made comments about monitoring UFOs – but claims it was to “lighten the mood” and pivot to more serious points, plus the Reform contingent of Kent County Council, who spent so much time debating about (and ultimately passing a motion) to introduce both the Lord’s prayer and the National Anthem to proceedings that it’s claimed discussions about more pressing matters, including water quality, had to be sidelined.

The list of offences above isn’t exhaustive, and neither is the list of offenders. What we can see though is that Reform UK – and the Green Party to a lesser degree – is failing in many cases to apply due diligence to the vetting process, and is in most cases having to take retrospective action to try to extinguish the flames of controversy. In some cases, the public’s concerns are being written off if the candidates in question are falling into line with the overall mission of the parties.

If all of this is leaving you somewhat depressed, perhaps you can take some solace from the fact that despite all of the quirky, pseudoscientific, and hateful beliefs and policies out there, good old-fashioned incompetence is still on display almost everywhere you look. For the most comedic recent example of this, grab yourself a cocktail, find a comfy chair, and fire up the video of the Reform Councillors brazenly admitting that they don’t have a clue what they’re doing in a Council meeting.

This should provide you with a little warmth during what promises to be a particularly long winter of discontent.

(Header image: Nigel Farage MP (Clacton, Reform UK). Copyright UK House of Commons, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0, via Flickr)