Police and crime commissioner defects to Reform

REFORM UK has announced its first police and crime commissioner after a defection from the Conservative Party was unveiled at a press conference.

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Rupert Matthews, who holds the post in Leicestershire and Rutland, was introduced on Monday as having joined the party from the Conservatives.

Before being elected in 2021, he served two years as a European Parliament member for the Tories. He told the event at the Reform UK headquarters in Westminster he had been a Conservative member for more than 40 years.

Mr Matthews was quick to turn his fire on modern crime policy, where he said police officers were all too often working with “one hand tied behind their back”.