MORE THAN 60 of Nigel Farage’s newly selected Reform UK council candidates for this year’s local elections are Tory defectors, Labour said yesterday.

Labour’s study of candidate nominations by the party ahead of the May 1 elections found that dozens of Reform candidates across Britain have previously served as councillors, candidates, or activists for the Conservatives.

The most high-profile defectors include former Cheshire East Tory councillor Sarah Pochin, now Reform’s Runcorn and Helsby by-election candidate. 

And Reform’s mayoral candidate for Greater Lincolnshire is former Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who lost her seat in Yorkshire last July.

She served as Ms Truss’s skills minister during her 49-day premiership, before being awarded a damehood for “political services” for the Tories.

A Labour Party spokesperson said: “A snake might shed its skin but at the end of the day it’s still a snake.

“Is that why so many of Nigel Farage’s council candidates are slithering away from their years serving the Tory Party?

“We now know when you take the mask off a Reform candidate, you’ll often find a tired old Tory trying to breathe life into a failed political career.

“A vote for Reform on May 1 risks letting a Tory in by the back door.”