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A Reform UK councillor faced mockery on Friday after mistaking his party for UKIP – which he used to represent – in an apparent Freudian slip.
Peter Reeve, who was elected as a councillor in Cambridgeshire in yesterday’s local elections, said: ‘Our message is UKIP’s here, working hard with local communities.’
The councillor, who won in Stanground South, Peterborough, was speaking to a TV news interviewer, who quickly corrected him.
‘I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years from the UKIP days all the way to Reform,’ Reeve added later, seemingly trying to paper over his slip-up.
Reform surged in the early results from the 7 May local elections, already making huge gains on Friday morning while Labour lost hundreds of seats.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the results as ‘tough’ earlier today, while Nigel Farage’s party had already picked up 300 seats on the first 40 councils to declare.
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Reeve, meanwhile, came in for widespread mockery for his slip-up, which was posted on X.
One person wrote: ‘Seems totally legit, competent, and exactly the kind of person you want in charge of cleaning the streets and your children’s education.’
Another said: ‘Funny how the racist party has had to change its name so often. We now see it for what binds it together.’
Reeve, a longtime councillor for UKIP, was first elected to local office in the late 2000s, serving as a councillor in Cambridgeshire.
He was later the party’s leader on Huntingdonshire District Council and in the 2017 New Year Honours was even awarded an MBE, for services to community and local authorities.
A third commenter was more measured – though equally scathing – adding: ‘He’s right in a sense, UKIP is indeed here but with a different name & Reform councils are already going down the same path as UKIP did back in the day.
‘You would think people would learn, but they really don’t. More fool them, they deserve what they get.’
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