Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy pledges £200k to boost May 1 election assault

Reform UK treasurer Nick Candy has promised to throw the insurgent political party £200,000 as it aims to cause a bloodbath at next month’s local elections. Leader Nigel Farage vowed to “fix broken Britain” at a tub-thumping rally in Birmingham last week as he prepares his candidates to fight more than 1,500 council seats, six mayoral contests and a parliamentary by-election in Runcorn & Helsby.

And in an eleventh hour call to arms, he urged backers to “chip in” £20 as it assembles a mighty war chest. British billionaire luxury property developer Candy, 52, the husband of actress Holly Valance, 41, and who has held the purse strings of the party since December, has promised to match pound-for-pound - until midnight tonight - every donation up to £200,000. The windfall will be used to fund a full-scale assault on Town Halls across the UK which go to the polls on May 1.

Mr Farage, 60, whose party now top the opinion polls with 26%, said: “After topping the polls ahead of Labour and the Tories with 26% last week, it marks the start of our first big test since the general election.

“But we need your help. To upset the odds we must print leaflets, reach our voters with direct mail and target social media ads to help us engage young voters.

“Your donation will be worth double to help fix broken Britain."

Other well-heeled Reform UK backers include Charles James Spencer-Churchill, the 12th Duke of Marlborough.

It comes as a new poll revealed one in five who voted Conservative at the General Election in July say they will now vote for the start-up party.

At last week’s “biggest political rally in history”, at which Mr Farage arrived on stage on a JCB, he said: “Just as we know that Britain is broken at so many levels, there is no doubt that local government is broken. These councils have been asleep at the wheel, they’ve broken their counties. Reform is going to come in and we are going to fix it.”

Elections are being held in 24 of England’s 317 councils on May 1, contested in 14 county councils, eight unitary authorities, one metropolitan district, and The Isles of Scilly.

All 21 county councils were due to hold elections, but in December, the Government told them they could request to postpone “where this will help the area to deliver both reorganisation and devolution to the most ambitious timeframe”. This included councils wishing to join the government’s devolution priority programme to have their first mayoral elections in May next year, or “who need reorganisation to unlock devolution”.

Some 16 county councils and two unitary authorities requested elections be postponed, and in February, it was announced votes would be postponed in nine areas (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Thurrock, Surrey, East and West Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight).

Despite the slimmed down counts, Mr Farage has described the forthcoming elections as Reform’s “first big hurdle” since it saw five MPs elected at last July's general election.