Tory leader quits for Reform

Two further councillors leave on bad day for Conservatives

- Phil Corrigan

THE leader of the Conservative group on Stoke-on-Trent City Council has quit the Tory party - to join Reform UK.

Daniel Jellyman has been on the city council since 2015 and represents Hanford, Newstead and Trentham.

But he has now become the second Reform UK councillor on the local authority.

Fellow city councillors Heather Blurton, right, and Maxine Clark, below right, also yesterday left the Conservative Party to become nonaligned members.

Councillor Lorraine Beardmore has now been appointed as the interim Tory leader on the local authority.

The latest defection leaves Labour with 27 elected members on the city council and there are now 10 Conservative councillors, one City Independent, two Reform UK councillors, one Potteries Party councillor, and three nonaligned members.

Mr Jellyman said: "It's the right moment to join a party that puts family, community, and country first, priorities too often forgotten by successive Labour and Conservative governments.