Lead investigation
A council group that won 28 seats in May 2025 has lost ten councillors in fifteen months. The record includes resignations, a breakaway group, conduct cases, the Highwayman audio and Bruce Craze's departure for Restore Britain in July 2026.
−10
Reform councillors gone
9
Conduct cases cited
28→20
Group size — 10 left, 2 won back
Long-form pieces sourced from public records, mainstream reporting, Companies House and Electoral Commission filings, and our own dossier research.
Council record
Every notice of motion at Full Council since the May 2025 election, counted by the group its proposer and seconder sat in at the time, with attendance at scrutiny — the same measures for every group.
Public money
Cornwall Council's budget assumed Bank Rate would be down to 3.25% by now; it is 3.75%. What that, a further rise, the schools deficit and its lender-option loans could cost between now and March 2029, worked through on the council's own figures.
Public money
Cornwall Council borrowed £1,571.2m by 31 March 2026, £63.1m more than it expected at the start of the year. The treasury strategy approved by Full Council in February 2026 projects £2,295.0m by March 2031. What it costs, and what was decided on 15 September.
Accountability
Cornwall Council confirmed on 4 September 2026 that its chief executive, Kate Kennally, is on a leave of absence. No reason has been given. Three meetings of the Chief Officers' Employment Committee in eight weeks, all closed to the press and public, no minutes, and an unanswered question at Full Council.
Investigation
Reform UK has taken £15m from a single donor — reported at the time as the largest donation ever made to a British party by a living individual — and written off a £613,000 loan from a company controlled by its deputy leader. Four official processes are running and none has established wrongdoing. Built from the Electoral Commission register, Companies House and the party's own audited accounts, including the register quirks that make several published figures wrong.
Primary source
The 29 July 2026 statement by which Reform UK's Bruce Craze left the Cornwall Council group for Restore Britain — verbatim from local press, with the group leader's response.
Public money
Cornwall Council's internal auditors signed off 2025-26 with reasonable assurance overall, but named contract management as a recurring weak spot across the council and its companies — while warning of a 'high risk' that £154m of required savings won't be delivered.
Investigation
How Reform UK's national leadership directs operations in Cornwall — from Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf through a chain of campaign managers and regional directors to county organisers on the ground. Featuring the secretly recorded factional dispute at a Cornish pub.
Latest investigation
Reform UK won 28 of Cornwall Council's 87 seats on 1 May 2025 — its largest single breakthrough at any unitary authority in Britain. Fifteen months later, ten of those councillors are gone — nine who left the party and one who died in office. The Highwayman audio, the CING breakaway, the conduct cases.
Tracker
A regularly-updated chronological list of every Cornwall councillor who has left the Reform UK group since the May 2025 elections — date, ward, outgoing role, destination. Companion to the Reform UK collapse investigation.
Primary source
The 21 April 2026 chamber speech by which Reform UK Cornwall's deputy group leader defected to Restore Britain — verbatim from local press, with the party's response.
Primary source
Audio, transcript and analysis of the 18 October 2025 factional dispute at The Highwayman pub in Dobwalls. The secretly recorded conversation — in which Alison Groves supposes Reform UK Regional Director Paul Mills was behind the Camborne, Redruth & Hayle branch-chair appointment — triggered the collapse of Reform UK's Cornwall Council group within thirteen days.
Subject-by-subject research on the individuals named in the investigations above.
Person dossier
Reform UK's leader at the top of the Cornwall chain of command: his control of the party company, his registered outside earnings, his recorded parliamentary votes, the Coutts affair, the George Cottrell connection — and the collapse of the Cornwall group beneath him. Every claim primary-sourced.
Person dossier
Reform UK's South West Regional Director, coordinating Cornwall operations from above the county-organiser tier. The link in the command chain between national leadership and Andrea Lovett's on-the-ground organising, with oversight of branch-chair appointments and discipline.
Person dossier
Reform UK's Cornwall Campaign Manager and County Organiser. The strategist behind Reform's 28-seat May 2025 breakthrough; central figure in the Highwayman recording and the licensing complaint against Bob Vylan at Boardmasters.
Person dossier
The man appointed to replace Roger Tarrant as Camborne, Redruth & Hayle branch chair in autumn 2025 — described in published reporting only as 'an unknown' parachuted in. Cornwall Political Watch's primary research on his background and connections.
Person dossier
Reform UK County Organiser for West Cornwall at the time of the October 2025 Highwayman recording, and its counterparty — heard objecting on tape to Nathan Michell taking over the Camborne, Redruth & Hayle branch chairmanship.
Person dossier
Reform UK's Deputy Group Leader on Cornwall Council, succeeding Roger Tarrant after his April 2026 defection. Lowest committee attendance of any current group officer (69%, ranked 83rd of 87), four approved committee-membership conflicts of interest across Vodafone employment and Penhallow House Ltd glamping, and a section 32 sensitive land interest in the chamber Register.
Person dossier
Reform UK Cornwall's deputy group leader from October 2025 until his resignation at full council on 21 April 2026, when he defected to Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain — Cornwall's first Restore Britain councillor. Previously branch chair for Camborne, Redruth & Hayle until removed against members' wishes in November 2025. Companion piece to the verbatim resignation speech reconstruction.
Person dossier
Reform UK backbencher for Four Lanes, Beacon & Troon from May 2025 until 29 July 2026, when he left the group for Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain — Cornwall's second Restore Britain councillor, and the tenth of the 28 elected in 2025 to leave the party. Companion piece to the verbatim resignation statement.
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