Kent’s first Reform UK councillor claims some Tories could defect in the coming weeks - and thinks the party can “take control” of the county council in May.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage has told KentOnline that his party is taking next year’s elections “very seriously”.

It comes as Cllr David Wimble, a former Conservative member of Folkestone & Hythe District Council (FHDC) who later became an independent, has now switched to Reform.

The Romney Marsh representative told KentOnline he has known his new party’s leader, Mr Farage, for about 20 years.

Cllr Wimble said: “I told him I could never join Ukip or the Brexit Party because I didn’t want to be associated with their extreme right policies and some of the nuttier elements of it.”

He argues that Reform is now “a proper, grown-up political party”, having taken five seats in the July general election and gaining 14.3% of the national vote.

Due to the quirks of the first-past-the-post system, the Liberal Democrats came out with 64 MPs despite getting only 12.2% of the vote.

Cllr Wimble added that he intends to stand for nomination as a Reform candidate in the Kent County Council (KCC) elections scheduled for May 2025.

“I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be a third major political party,” he said.

“I honestly do think that they could get control of the council. I think they could get 50 seats out of the 81.”

Cllr Wimble says as well as discontent with the Labour government, local voters will be unhappy about KCC’s financial difficulties and “the asylum system”.

The county council is facing an £81 million budget shortfall by April 2025, forcing them to raid their reserve accounts to avoid filing a Section 114 notice - essentially bankruptcy for councils.

Statutory obligations which the authority cannot avoid - like social care and caring for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children - are some of the most expensive it undertakes.

While KCC cannot set immigration policy, Cllr Wimble thinks that the Labour government promising big change on illegal immigration but not delivering it would drive people to back Reform UK, which has made it their central campaign issue.

“We want to choose who comes into our country, and that’s certainly not a racist position at all,” Cllr Wimble said.

Reform UK was originally founded as the Brexit Party in 2018 and renamed in 2021.

The party is technically registered as a company owned largely by its leader. However, at its 2024 annual conference, Mr Farage said this would end and members would be put in the driver's seat.

Reform is now democratising and forming proper local branches - with Cllr Wimble saying the Folkestone & Hythe organisation has more than 200 members already.

“I went to my first meeting at Hythe about six weeks ago and there were about 35 people there,” he said.

“I thought that makes a pleasant change from when I used to go to Conservative ones when they had 12 people there.”

He says 70 people attended a subsequent Reform meeting in New Romney.

Mr Wimble told KentOnline he knows of two Tory councillors in the north of the county who say they are planning to join Reform in the coming weeks.

Mr Farage, MP for Clacton since July, is no stranger to the Romney Marsh, having submitted plans to renovate a Greatstone house he owns not long before the election.

He said: "David Wimble is a great local campaigner, and I am delighted that he's joined rapidly growing Reform UK.

“Be in no doubt that we are taking the KCC elections next May very seriously.”

Last month, one senior Tory dismissed as “tittle tattle” reports councillors have been invited to join Reform.

KentOnline also reported how Reform is targeting Dartford, Gravesham, the isles of Sheppey and Thanet, Dover, Folkestone, Ashford and Maidstone at the county council elections.

A Kent Reform UK activist said: “It could prove counterproductive to try and stand in all KCC divisions but rather aim the ammo at specific, winnable seats.

“If we can nick a few from the Tories and few from Labour, we might even end up with enough to make a difference.”

Mr Farage, the face of Euroscepticism, is a man of Kent by birth, hailing from Farnborough, near Orpington, which was historically Kent and integrated into the London Borough of Bromley in 1965.