Reform UK General Secretary Tom Waterhouse Leaves Role
Reform UK has lost the official at the centre of its push to professionalise the party. General secretary Tom Waterhouse has left, while questions about candidate vetting keep coming.
Who Waterhouse is and what he led
Waterhouse is a public affairs executive who earlier worked in Westminster thinktanks and for the crown estate. Reform recruited him in August last year.
He was at the centre of the party's drive to professionalise. That included a recruitment drive funded by wealthy donors, and picking who would stand for the party at the next election.
He also took part in an internal investigation into two senior officials, James Orr and Dan Jukes. Legal secretary Adam Richardson worked on it with him. That inquiry cleared the pair of breaking laws against foreign donations. Police are still investigating the matter.
The Madgwick case and the party's reply
The exit follows criminal charges against George Madgwick, Reform's leader on Hampshire county council. He faces 12 counts of rape and one count of distributing indecent images of a child. Madgwick denies any wrongdoing. Police arrested him in January.
Nigel Farage was asked why Madgwick was still in his role nearly ten months later. "I wasn't very happy," he said. Paul Nuttall, the party's deputy chair and an ex-Ukip leader, now oversees candidate vetting.
A Reform spokesperson said Waterhouse has left and that the leader has appointed an interim general secretary. Staff at the Millbank headquarters were told on Wednesday.
Labour's attack and other departures
Labour chair Bridget Phillipson called Waterhouse the "latest fall guy". She said no decision at Reform is made without Farage's approval. She also said Farage still owes an account of what he knew when his senior campaign manager was arrested, and alleged an attempt to hide a secret £5m from a crypto billionaire.
Last month Farage blamed incompetence among staff for poor turnout and a half-empty hall at an economic policy launch in London.
Several people once seen as assets to Reform's bid for power have recently gone or been pushed aside, and Waterhouse is the latest. Activist Tim Montgomerie, a former Conservative, was suspended in August after criticising Farage for skipping the count at the Clacton byelection that he won.
Source: the Guardian