Nigel Farage’s announcement that Laila Cunningham will be Reform UK’s candidate for London mayor in 2028 has triggered an immediate split on the British far right. The decision has divided Reform’s own base and is likely to sharpen its rivalry with Ben Habib’s Advance UK, itself a breakaway from Reform.
The selection of a Muslim candidate – Cunningham is of Egyptian heritage – is being denounced as a betrayal by many on the hard right. Online activists and familiar culture-war influencers have reacted with anger, framing the move as evidence that Farage is prioritising votes over ideology.
Capitulated to Islamists
Dan Wootton, for instance, the far-right online broadcaster who had to leave GB News after Lawrence Fox made sexually offensive comments on Wootton’s show, complained that:
“Reform UK have capitulated to Islamists. Picking the Muslim Laila Cunningham to battle Sadiq Khan to become Mayor of London is deeply depressing”.
Others, including Reform figures closer to the leadership, argue the opposite: that standing a high-profile Muslim candidate in London is a calculated attempt to broaden Reform’s appeal in a city it has previously struggled to penetrate.
Steve Laws, the influential Dover-based race agitator who split from Homeland Party last year, bemoans the selection but, inevitably, turns it into an argument for ‘remigration’:
“The right cannot win an election in London without pandering to ethnic minorities and fielding a foreigner due to the ethnic make-up of the capital.
“This is a preview of what our future will look like without remigration.
“It’ll be left and right wing foreigners arguing over who gets to replace us whilst we have zero representation”.
Opinion is divided in comments on Reform’s own social media accounts, although it is not possible to say how many of the dissenters are actual Reform members.
Cunningham’s far-right opponents – including Wootton – are coalescing around Ant Middleton, the former special forces soldier and television personality who has been repeatedly touted by sections of the far right as a “law and order” candidate, and who has already thrown his hat into the mayoral ring.
Middleton was firmly in the Reform camp, having addressed its conference in Birmingham in 2024. But that may have changed by the time (or because) he appeared on the platform of the most recent Tommy Robinson rally in London last September.
It was widely anticipated on the right that he would be the Reform candidate till reports started emanating from party HQ last August that he was out of the running. This was shortly after Cunningham abandoned the Tories and joined Reform.
Advance candidate
Many far-right comments on social media are still backing his candidacy and it’s likely he will stand for Advance UK, whose leader Ben Habib is currently positioning the party as a vehicle for disaffected Reform supporters and donors.
Middleton is also close to Tommy Robinson, who has joined Advance, and has publicly praised Middleton in the past. Both Habib and Middleton spoke at Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom rally in September.
As we previously reported, however, Middleton comes with baggage that many voters may find hard to swallow: he lives in Dubai, owes millions in unpaid tax, and has a conviction for beating up a police officer, for which he was jailed.
Dismissive
And not everyone on the far right would be happy to back Middleton. National Rebirth Party chief Alek Yerbury – like Middleton, ex-military – was scathingly dismissive, and even seemed to suggest that a vote for Sadiq Khan could not be ruled out:
“…don’t even go there with Ant Middleton – the man doesn’t even live in England and is for all intents and purposes a crypto scammer.
“A cognisant person presented with those options is most likely to just not vote at all, and second most likely to just vote for Khan as the least terrible option.”
Laila Cunningham, however, does not arrive in pristine reputational condition herself: she resigned as a Crown Prosecution Service lawyer before she could be disciplined for serious breaches of its impartiality rules, and has seen several business struck off by Companies House for breaches of company law.
She defected from the Tories as a sitting councillor last year and, so far, has not seen fit to give the electorate the opportunity to express a view on her betrayal by offering herself up for re-election.
At the press conference launching her candidacy both she and Farage made claims about crime in London which appear hard to justify.
Farage claimed London is ‘in the grip of a crime wave’ when all the evidence suggests this is not the case. And Cunningham asserted that knife crime in the capital has risen by 68% when available figures suggest that it is falling.
Wider instability
The London mayoral row comes against a backdrop of wider instability within Reform UK. Over the past year, as we have reported, the party has suffered a string of defections, scandals and catastrophes at local level. In some cases this has led to councillors and activists peeling away to Advance UK.
In South Yorkshire, for instance, the entire leadership of the Sheffield East branch was abruptly thrown out of the party by the national leadership just before Xmas, apparently without any clear explanation or meaningful disciplinary process. They have now transferred their affections to Advance.
The branch’s Facebook admins complained that they had been “expelled from Reform UK for life for bringing the party into disrepute”.
Those affected have bemoaned the “scandalous and unprofessional treatment of volunteers” and described a culture of arbitrary control from the national headquarters.
Conspiracy posts
Conspiracist posts on the branch FB page may have had something to do with it. One which appeared in July claimed that “we are living through the largest psychological operation in human history” as “digitised products on a centralised grid, monitored, poisoned, manipulated, taxed, and tranquilised from birth to death while being told to smile and be kind”.
In Doncaster, two Reform councillors have now defected, with Christopher Marriott, who represents the Armthorpe ward, recently joining Nicola Brown in signing up with Advance.
Marriott said Reform UK had become “overly centred” on Nigel Farage, whose leadership had “shifted focus away from key areas like Doncaster despite the party’s strong performance there”.
Marriott said the party had “lost its way” nationally, which “has led to instability within the Doncaster Reform group, marked by internal infighting and the recent resignation of the group leader.”
He said he decided to join Advance UK after speaking personally with Ben Habib.
Serious problems
But Reform has other serious problems. After its barnstorming success in last May’s council elections, where it seized control of some county councils and was heavily represented on others, it is now plagued across the country by accusations of incompetence or having misled the electorate.
We have reported before on the chaos which Reform has visited on counties such as Kent and Nottinghamshire. Now, in Derbyshire, councillors elected on pledges to rein in spending and oppose council tax rises have found themselves proposing an increase of around five per cent to plug a gap of £38 million in its budget.
Disingenuous
The justification has been familiar: escalating costs in children’s and adult social care and the wider financial crisis facing local government. But none of this was unknown prior to May’s election, and confirms suspicions that Reform’s pre-election attacks on “waste” were opportunistic, disingenuous and never amounted to a serious plan for addressing structural underfunding.
Warwickshire has experienced a different but equally troubling pattern. Just a month after Reform seized control in 2025, the newly-elected Reform council leader resigned citing health problems but reportedly overwhelmed by deficits and demoralised staff.
He was replaced by his 18‑year‑old deputy, George Finch, who became the youngest county council leader in modern history. Since then, the county council has seen a sharp rise in formal complaints against councillors, with Reform representatives featuring prominently. Many relate to conduct rather than policy, including behaviour in council meetings and on social media.
Services in jeopardy
At the same time, senior officers have warned that refusing to raise council tax risks placing statutory services in jeopardy. Reform councillors have thus been forced to contemplate raising council tax by around 5%, a position sitting awkwardly with its anti-tax messaging, and contributing to fractious meetings and leadership tensions.
Questions have also arisen about individual conduct in other counties.
In Durham, Reform council leader Andrew Husband has faced criticism after revelations that businesses he previously ran collapsed owing substantial sums, including unpaid taxes and wages.
He has denied wrongdoing, but the controversy has undermined Reform’s cultivated image as a party of business competence and fiscal responsibility.
Meanwhile, in Durham a business run by Reform councillor Andrew Harrison, has been fined £40,000 for hiring an illegal worker.
And in Wales, Reform councillor David Thomas who sat on on Cwmbran Community Council, was removed after failing to attend meetings for more than six months.
Thomas, who is also leader of the Reform UK Wales group on Torfaen Borough Council, joined Reform shortly after the 2024 general election having previously sat as an independent.
Public confidence eroding
Across multiple councils, Reform UK has struggled to reconcile protest politics with the legal, financial and ethical responsibilities of office.
Promises to cut taxes and eliminate waste have repeatedly given way to the same difficult choices faced by previous administrations, while internal disputes and disciplinary crises have eroded public confidence.
Far from heralding a new era of efficient local government, Reform’s record suggests a party discovering, often painfully, that slogans are no substitute for competence.
There is no reason to think that London, if Laila Cunningham were mayor, would fare any better.
