Reform candidate Jenkyns cleared to run for mayor

Reform UK have narrowly avoided a local election crisis after one of the party’s most high profile candidates, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, was cleared to run as a mayoral candidate just days before the vote.

- DAVID MADDOX POLITICAL EDITOR

A decision by the chief executive of North Kesteven Council on whether Dame Andrea meets residency criteria to run for Greater Lincolnshire mayor had been deferred until after the weekend.

But in a last-minute reprieve issued late last night, the council accepted that her address was valid and said the frontrunner could stand.

Reacting to the news, Dame Andrea told The Independent:

“From the start this has been a political hit job aimed at smearing my candidacy. I am proud to live in Lincolnshire and it would be the honour of my life to be mayor of the place I grew up in and live in.”

A senior Tory source confirmed to The Independent that the party would put in a legal challenge to petition a re-election and disqualify her.