Councillor Robert Potts leaves Conservative Party to join Reform UK
Robert Potts, county councillor for Evenwood, announced the decision over the weekend on social media.
He was elected to Durham County Council in 2021 and was the Conservative candidate for the police and crime commissioner (PCC) election in 2024, but came second to Labour’s Joy Allen.
Cllr Potts will represent the party for the first time at a full council meeting on Wednesday.
In a post on social media, he said: “I’ve not only moved Facebook pages, I’ve also moved parties and now represent Reform UK. On Wednesday, I will be proud to represent the Reform Party, as their first-ever Durham county councillor.”
Earlier this year, party leader Nigel Farage issued a call for Tory councillors to quit and join his party. The Essex MP wrote to 1,352 Conservative county councillors as “a huge number of them genuinely agree with us and what we stand for”.
Cllr Potts added: “As people who have previously followed me know, I’m a proud army veteran, having served in the UK, Germany, the Falklands, Belize and the first Gulf War, with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
Recommended reading:
Subscribe to The Northern Echo now.
“I am also a retired Durham police sergeant, I’m very passionate about Durham Constabulary and recently stood to be the police and crime commissioner. This was to try and stop the ever-increasing crime figures in the county, by stopping the waste of money and have more police for safer streets.”
Cllr Potts repeatedly criticised PCC Joy Allen over plans to create a new centralised Durham Constabulary custody suite in Spennymoor, which he has labelled a “white elephant”. The former Tory repeatedly warned it would see neighbourhood police officers repeatedly drawn away from their designated patches.
Commenting on the defection, councillor Luke Allan Holmes, chairman of the Bishop Auckland Conservatives said: “It is with regret that we note the decision of cllr Robert Potts to defect to the Reform Party. While we respect Robert’s right to make personal political choices, we are deeply disappointed that he has chosen to abandon the Conservative Party and, more importantly, the people of Evenwood who elected him as their Conservative representative in May 2021.
“The voters of Evenwood placed their trust in Robert as a Conservative, and it is a betrayal of that trust to switch parties without first seeking their mandate. This is not what democracy should look like.
“The Conservative Party remains committed to fighting for the people of the Evenwood division and delivering on our pledges.”