Luke Campbell will be litmus test on whether Reform can be trusted with power: The Yorkshire Post says

He has now suggested that Reform UK has supplanted the Conservative Party as the chief opposition to Labour and while that is not yet borne out in terms of Parliamentary numbers, Reform undoubtedly has huge political momentum.

However, any politician will tell you it is a lot easier to be popular while in opposition than in power, where decisions have consequences and rhetoric is confronted by reality.

The electorate has now given Reform a chance to show how it will govern on the ground, with the party having control of 10 councils and Luke Campbell and Andrea Jenkyns as neighbouring mayors.

In Yorkshire in particular, the performance of Mr Campbell, a former Olympic gold-medal winning boxer, as mayor will provide a real litmus test as to Reform’s credibility.

He won a handsome victory in the polls by more than 11,000 votes from his nearest challenger, Liberal Democrat Mike Ross, who is leader of Hull City Council.

But in the run-up to polling day, several local business leaders have described their misgivings about his suitability for a role involving control of hundreds of millions of pounds of investment funding and powers over transport, education and housing.

At a hustings event organised by The Northern Agenda podcast, Mr Campbell took an ambivalent stance on the issue of net zero, which Mr Farage has said he wants to scrap as a target but is currently central to The Humber’s economic ambitions and its hopes of using decarbonisation as a springboard to becoming a world-leading clean energy hub with attendant private sector investment and jobs.

Mr Campbell said he would put the people of the region before party politics and wouldn’t be drawn on whether he agreed with Mr Farage’s position.

Mr Campbell said he would put the people of the region before party politics and wouldn’t be drawn on whether he agreed with Mr Farage’s position.

Such equivocation can work during an election campaign but important investment decisions now have to be made. The hard work of governing is only just beginning for Mr Campbell and his Reform colleagues.