Reform UK won't field candidate for York and North Yorkshire mayor

Despite committing to running in every constituency in the upcoming general election, Reform UK told the Local Democracy Reporting Service it won’t compete to have the first metro mayor of York and North Yorkshire.

Voters will elect a mayor on May 2 to oversee a new combined authority with devolved power over housing, education and transport.

Reform UK, which was founded by former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, did not respond when asked to comment further on not selecting a candidate.

Although Reform UK’s presence in the general election could cost the Conservatives seats in the House of Commons, low turnout in local elections may mean this wouldn’t make a difference anyway.

Keane Duncan, the Conservative candidate for the mayoral election, was also approached on whether he thought the lack of a Reform UK candidate could affect his chances, but chose not to comment.

Dr Richard Hayton, associate professor of politics at the University of Leeds, said: “The Conservatives might hope that the absence of a Reform UK candidate in the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election will boost Keane Duncan’s chances of victory, but it is likely to have only a marginal impact on the result.

“Turnout in such ballots is not usually high, so any voters keen to back Reform UK as a way of sending a message to either of the two main parties are likely to stay away rather than return to the fold.”

Only the Conservatives, Labour and the Green Party have announced candidates for the mayoral election, as well as Keith Tordoff who is running as an independent.

The Liberal Democrats hope to announce a candidate “shortly” and The Yorkshire Party is yet to replace Mr Tordoff who was previously its candidate.

The deadline for parties to submit candidates by is April 5.

Reform UK has not neglected all of the combined authority elections, however, and has announced candidates for North East mayor and London mayor.

The right-wing party also has an agreement with the Social Democratic Party and will endorse its candidate David Bettney for the South Yorkshire mayoral election.

Polling for the general election, which is likely to take place in the second half of 2024, suggests support for Reform UK nationally is around 12 per cent.

UKIP, Nigel Farage's former party, received 12.6 per cent of the voteshare in the 2015 general election, winning almost four million votes and one seat in House of Commons.

Robert Ford, a professor of political science at the University of Manchester, told The Guardian that Reform UK "harms the Conservatives more now than UKIP did in 2015 because the post-Brexit Tories have a lot more ‘Ukippy’ voters, who they picked up in 2017 and 2019."

Reform UK was known as the Brexit Party during the 2019 general election, but did not stand against sitting Conservative MPs.

"New Reform UK candidates will therefore offer an option to voters in those seats that wasn’t there in 2019," Mr Ford said.