Mike Jordan is standing as a prospective parliamentary candidate for Wetherby and Easingwold, for the Reform UK party.
He is a North Yorkshire Councillor for the Camblesforth and Carlton division and contested the Selby and Ainsty by-election in 2023 for the Yorkshire Party.
Mike said:
I have been through a bit of a journey. I was at the point of looking to retire, but I had been involved with volunteering for many years.
I found that people were asking me my views on different things so I got involved with the council as councillor, and what made it a journey was because at the time the Conservatives had the right policies at that time. I couldn’t ever be a Labour supporter as Gordon Brown took a third of my pension when he was Chancellor for the Labour Party.
The Conservatives started to waiver and change policy without taking any notice of the Conservative Policy Forum, that I was a member of, and an active supporter of. The Conservative Policy Forum was a system where members met, discussed issues, and then gave feedback to the party. But we found that the party was taking no notice, so we gave up.
I left to go to the Yorkshire Party, as they seemed to be an up and coming party, but then the Conservatives did an about-turn and decided they were going to do a proper Devolution for the county. That was always a bone of contention for many, but I was desperate for that to happen.
Then they decided to boot Boris out, which was a bizarre thing to do. I felt that I had no say in the party, and the day I resigned Nigel Adams also resigned.
The Yorkshire Party, in my view, has lost all ambition. For a time I felt that I was in the political wilderness, but then I saw a particular interview with Richard Tice, the Leader of Reform UK, on Channel 4, and then spoke to a very good friend of mine, and we went over to Scarborough, where Reform has a strong holding. It was a public meeting, and the pub was packed, I couldn’t believe it. They were speaking my language which was the conservative language from 2010.
I then applied, was vetted, and eventually was accepted.
The journey is now to Reform and doing it properly as a proper campaign, and gaining here, there and everywhere.
Initially after putting a press release out, I was contacted by many people, and now have meeting after meeting – I have only been in Reform a few months now, but selected to represent Wetherby and Easingwold for a month.
The Conservatives seem to hanging on by a thread to North Yorkshire Council, pulling on support from wherever they can. There are 3 independents on the council that are propping-up the Conservative group.
We asked what makes Reform UK the right party for you ?
Mike said:
Reform has a contract that they have made with the public, it is simple, straightforward, and not boring.
It has policies on everything, NHS pledges, policing pledges, education pledges – we have loads of problems that people are very aware of and are just putting up with. These a are all problems that need to be sorted out before they get any worse.
But there are two parts to any political party, there are the policies, and there are the people. It’s the people that you need to get on with – you need to get to know them, get to understand them, and work with them.
I haven’t met one person within Reform that I didn’t like, they are all one-minded. They all want to get things started, and to get the country running correctly. Many of them are fed up with taxes higher now than they have been for 70-years, which is ridiculous as it is taxing us to the hilt. As an aside, you then get the Conservative-led council deciding to put parking charges up as they know they get a huge income, especially from tourists visiting places like Scarborough. Or let’s hammer the tourists!
We have the debt that came about due to covid, and that needs to be placed into a 75-year bond, a bit like a mortgage. You have got it, it’s fixed, and it is out of the way. Then you can concentrate on what the economy needs to be doing.
At the moment we have the situation where the country is spending a fortune on immigrants, often simply because they see it as a better place to be. The country has a decent housing policy and it built 240,000 houses last year, but room becomes an issue, when the population is increasing like it is. The trouble is we have a net immigration of 700,000, so that has mopped-up the 240,000 houses.
We need net immigration, which isn’t no immigration, but something needs to be done about it, recognising that around 400,000 people emigrate from the UK to places like Australia.
The ethos of Reform is to get back to a level of control. We have done Brexit, but we have not done Brexit as we are still tied to the EU. We have the issue around Northern Ireland, and the issue of how as a country we govern ourselves.
In simple terms the Reform ethos is about getting us back on an even keel.
Reform Party Wetherby and Easingwold Facebook
