Devolution Diaries: What’s happening in Reform areas?
The next round of mayoral elections for new combined authorities will take place in May 2026 and following the huge successes for Reform candidates at the local and mayoral elections in 2025 it would be a brave punter who bet against more wins for Reform. Based on their successes in the East of England this year and at the general election in 2025 the mayoral positions in Essex and Norfolk and Suffolk will look very winnable to the Reform candidates. The equivalent roles in Sussex and Hampshire are far from distant prospects in the current political climate either.
Having won the mayoralties for Greater Lincolnshire and for Hull and East Yorkshire three months ago we can now start to assess what difference having a Reform mayor might make. It is still early days but former Conservative MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns in Lincolnshire and former Olympic boxer Luke Campbell in Hull and East Yorkshire have both started to make an impact.
In both areas the annual meetings of the combined authorities have been held and some important decisions have been taken that should help to show the direction of travel in these areas.
In Lincolnshire Andrea Jenkyns first had contend with a legal challenge from one of the other candidates relating to her eligibility to stand which was later dropped. One of the new mayor’s most eye catching announcements was the unveiling of a ‘Great Exhibition’ for Lincolnshire which will be held on 22nd October and is planned to be the first iteration of an annual event. Jenkyns describes the event as “a platform to seek inward investment and to sell all that is great and good about our county, ensuring that our Lincolnshire brand reaches across the globe and brings in more investment and customers to our businesses”.
Her other priorities have included a focus on skills with a plan for a trade college and on developing a transport plan with her Transport for Greater Lincolnshire to ensure that people can “travel around the county more easily, and make sure that bus services in our rural areas are a lifeline and not a last resort.”
In promoting the needs of the county Jenkyns has already visited the US Embassy and along with other local leaders pledged her support for UK Steel which is an important industry in the county.
Most notably she has been visiting the councils in the county to strike up alliances with the council leaders and has been reaching across party lines which won’t necessarily have come easily to this most tribal of politicians.
In Hull and East Yorkshire Mayor Luke Campbell will have naturally had a steeper learning curve being completely new to the world of politics and public administration. He has had public clashes with senior staff at the combined authority. Of particular note have been disputes over employing Reform activists into posts that combined authority officers have identified as being ‘politically restricted’ and a difference of opinions over a proposed office move. This result has been Campbell asking three senior staff to leave which they appear to have agreed to.
Like Mayor Jenkyns in Lincolnshire Campbell has made efforts to go out and be a cheerleader for his area in an effort to drum up inward investment. He recently met a delegation of potential investors from Beijing.
On the issue of investment in net zero initiatives his approach has been mixed. Where initially he appeared to favour investment in renewable energy generation he is now taking an approach that is more consistent with that of his Reform colleagues. In the past fortnight he has withdrawn Hull and East Yorkshire from the “White Rose” agreement that a collaboration with the other three mayoral combined authorities in Yorkshire. While he agreed with most of the aims he said he “couldn’t reach an agreement with the county’s other mayors about Net Zero targets”.
The two mayors are only three months into their four year terms of office and will achieve much more as time goes by but even this early on we have an insight into what a Reform mayoralty looks like and what areas with elections next May can expect if the Reform candidates are successful – as we expect them to be.
