'I was suspended from Reform over row about clipboards' says Walsall councillor, six months after shock by-election win
Walsall's first Reform councillor says he was suspended from the party, six months after a shock by-election win, following a row about clipboards.
Councillor Graham Eardley, who sensationally won the traditional Conservative stronghold of Pelsall in a by-election in September, said he read about his suspension from Reform UK on social media.
He told the Express & Star that he had resigned with immediate effect, and was now a member of Rupert Lowe's rival Restore Britain party.
He said his suspension related to an argument about clipboards at a party event in Kingswinford last month where Reform deputy leader Richard Tice was special guest.
Councillor Eardley said that a fellow party member had accused him of 'misappropriating branch assets' after losing track of six clipboards which had been purchased for his by-election campaign.
"During the event I was showing these text messages to a fellow party member, when the lady who had sent these messages overheard and started shouting," he said.
"I shouted back 'you're a disgrace to Reform UK', and a diminutive female security guard politely asked me to go into a different room. When we were in there, I showed her the texts, explaining what it was about.
"She said 'they've gone now, you can go back in', but I decided to go home."
Councillor Eardley said he expected a number of party colleagues to follow suit.
"I told this lady she was a disgrace to the party, I apologise, and take it all back. She is not a disgrace to the party, Reform is a disgrace and they deserve each other."
A statement from Reform UK said: “Graham Eardley has been suspended from Reform UK with immediate effect, pending investigation.”
He said he intended to contest this year's local elections as an independent. He said he had now joined Rupert Lowe's Restore Britain, but this had yet to be registered as a political party.
Councillor Eardley won the Pelsall by-election on September 11 last year, polling 55 more votes that Conservative candidate Lee Chapman, who later defected to Advance UK.
He became Reform's first councillor in Walsall, in what had traditionally been seen as a safe Conservative seat.
The by-election was held following the resignation of former council leader Garry Perry, who claimed he had been subjected to 'a sustained campaign of political attrition, deliberate undermining, and personal hostility'.
Councillor Eardley, 60, was first elected to Walsall Council in 1992, when, as a student, he became the first Conservative to represent Brownhills ward on Walsall Council.
He later became chairman of Walsall UK Independence Party.
He was chairman of Reform UK's Aldridge and Brownhills branch until January this year, when he asked for somebody else to temporarily take charge while he cared for his dying father.
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