The Conservative candidate for the Greater Manchester mayoral election has defected to Richard Tice’s rightwing Reform UK party.
Dan Barker was selected only three months ago as the Tory candidate to challenge the incumbent mayor Labour’s Andy Burnham in May’s elections.
However, on Thursday he announced that he had joined Reform UK – becoming the second Conservative to join the fledgling populist party after Lee Anderson’s defection earlier in March.
In a post on X, Barker said Reform UK is the party that represents ordinary people: “Delighted to be joining the new home of conservatism with Reform UK. Reform represents the ordinary people of this country.”
A Reform spokesperson said: “Reform is delighted that Dan Barker has joined us. He is an excellent candidate and will be a great representative for Reform and Manchester.
“He knows that today, if you believe in the future of this city, and this country, then Reform is to the future, as the Tories are to the past.”
The Conservatives have until 5 April to select a new candidate for mayoral elections which take place on 2 May.
While Barker was unlikely to win, his defection is a bitter blow to Rishi Sunak as he tries to present a united front for the Conservatives ahead of the local and mayoral elections.
On Wednesday evening the prime minister addressed his MPs in Westminster, stressing the need to stop infighting and to talk up the government’s record, with a large number attending in a very public show of unity.
The threat from Reform is increasingly grave for the Conservatives ahead of the general election. While the Nigel Farage-formed party is seen as unlikely to win more than one or two seats, its decision to stand in every constituency outside Northern Ireland, unlike in 2019, could have a notable impact.
A YouGov poll published on Thursday showed Reform at 15% support nationally, just four points behind the Conservatives, and ahead of the Liberal Democrats.
In March, Anderson was unveiled as Reform party’s first ever MP when he left the Conservatives after he was stripped of the Tory whip for comments made about Sadiq Khan.
Meanwhile, Reform UK has sacked its second general election candidate in 24 hours after racist comments were highlighted on its social media feed, while the party is also examining claims about a third.
The party said Roger Hoe, a Yorkshire businessman, was removed as the candidate for Cottingham on Thursday after it emerged that an account on X in his name had tweeted material including praise for the far right activist, Tommy Robinson.
It comes after Reform dropped Ginny H Ball as its Rutland and Stamford general election candidate after the exposure of a range of racist comments on her social media feed, including comments calling for the deportation of Black British-born public figures.
The party is also investigating claims put forward on Thursday by the counter-extremism group Hope not Hate that another candidate, Benjamin “Beau” Dade, Reform’s candidate for Swindon South, is a rightwing influencer who has fantasised about deporting “millions” of British citizens to “rid itself of the foreign plague we have been diseased with”.
A Reform UK spokesman told the Guardian: “Clearly our vetting process is now taking place in public and everyone is now being revetted.”
The Conservative party has been contacted for comment.
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