Ex-Tory council chief says Rishi Sunak has ‘damaged Britain’ as he defects

An ex-Tory council leader who quietly switched from the Conservatives to Reform UK has said Rishi Sunak’s government has “broken Britain”.

Speaking to The Mirror the former chief of Wokingham Council, John Halsall, hit out at high taxation and the “incompetence” of his former party. Mr Halsall – a Tory member for over 14 years and now standing for Reform UK at the general election – said: “The Conservative Party in Westminster is no longer a conservative party.”

He added: “I think this particular Tory administration has broken Britain. To be a conservative there are certain values, like low-tax, free enterprise, the union, protection of borders, compassion. On every count – conservative count – this Government fails. They have no chance of succeeding.”

Asked whether Mr Sunak was the wrong leader for the party, he said: “I don’t think Rishi Sunak is the right leader for anything. He’s got no experience of being a leader.” He also said the PM’s vast wealth made him unable to “understand people are struggling”.

He went on: “The Conservative Party in Westminster has lost its membership and without its membership there’s no chance of it ever being in power. It really has to re-find its membership and its roots. Starmer who is a very, very poor candidate and a very, very poor leader as well has got an open field, regrettably.”

Mr Halsall resigned as leader of the Tory group in Wokingham after the party lost control at the 2022 local elections. He said he joined Reform UK between the “tail end” of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 – after a period of being “politically inactive”. Mr Halsall – now Reform UK’s parliamentary candidate for Beaconsfield – insisted: “I haven’t defected to the Reform Party. I’m a conservative through and through. The Conservative Party at Westminster seems to have decided they are Lib Dems.”

“The Conservative Party is now a Lib Dem party – wokey, it really doesn’t believe in conservative values at all. How could you? The Conservative Party is a high tax party. It just can’t solve problems, it’s incompetent. All the things the Tories used to stand for.” Pressed on what made him jump, he replied: “Reform actually embodies the vast majority of conservative principles for which I stand.”

Mr Halsall also said: “The Conservative Party in Westminster doesn’t reflect the conservative view in the country. It has left the conservative view of the country, the conservative people, not the other way around. The classic move was bringing [David] Cameron back. Everything Cameron did as PM on the foreign policy stage was a disaster. What persuades anybody to bring him back as foreign minister?”

A Liberal Democrat source told The Mirror: “This is a humiliation for the Conservative Party. Life-long Conservative voters are backing the Lib Dems and their previous council leader has defected to Reform.” A Conservative spokesman said of the switch: “A vote for Reform is a vote for Sir Keir Starmer.”