At the election, Reform sent out thousands of leaflets promising what they would do if they ran the council.
They went into the election holding just 3 seats. Even if they had won every single seat contested, they would still have been 8 short of a majority – meaning they would have had to work with another party regardless.
Now they claim they always promised not to “do deals” to run the council. Is it that they misled voters during the campaign, or that they simply can’t count?
There could be, of course, another explanation: perhaps Reform leader (and former Conservative) Lewis Quigg hasn’t been allowed off the leash by his “master in Mossley”. Who knows? Either way, it’s an abdication of responsibility.
Instead, they are now on track to hand control of Oldham Council to HMO landlord Kamran Ghafoor, still remembered by many over the King Street building collapse, and the Oldham Group. Is that really what Reform voters went out to support?
And then there’s the frankly pathetic line that Labour could still try to form a majority. Can you imagine the uproar these very same people would have caused had Labour attempted to cling on to control after such a devastating election result?
It’s all performative and highly personal towards local Labour leader Arooj Shah. It looks to me that they wanted to humiliate a woman they hounded relentlessly alongside the “Oldham Group” by removing her through a vote of no confidence. They weren’t just content with winning, they only really wanted a public humiliation. In fact, judging by their actions since, maybe they never actually wanted to govern at all. It’s the worst kind of politics.
What a sad state of affairs it is!
Jim McMahon OBE MP 