Reform UK’s first directly-elected London councillor has outlined a bold vision for the city he says is backed by Nigel Farage, calling for outer boroughs to split from the Greater London Authority (GLA).
Alan Cook won the Bromley Common and Holwood by-election on July 24 in what he believes was a major step in showing the rest of the city the strength of the Reform vote as well as exposing what he deems Conservative weaknesses.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS): “It’s not just a win, it’s a huge win. I’ve pushed over the first Tory domino, so to speak. There’s nowhere that is Tory controlled now that we can’t win.”
Having taken up his first post in public office, Alan aims to “make a bit of a nuisance” of himself at Bromley Council by scrutinising the actions of the Tory-controlled local authority.
Alan said: “What I do want to do is find out how the council runs, operates and works, and I want to treat it as a business.
“I don’t think dogma and political ideology has a place in local government. I think they should just purely be run as a business looking after the core services.”
Bromley GLA split
Alan said Reform’s leader Nigel Farage was “really enthusiastic” about his proposal to have Bromley split from the GLA.
The move would have massive implications for both the borough and the rest of the city but Alan believes that the people of Bromley would benefit from some independence from the capital and the Mayor’s office.
He said: “It’s big changes like that which will really make a difference to the people here by not sending money to [Sadiq] Khan for his pet and vanity projects which we do not want to pay for.”
Referring to policies enacted by the GLA such as ULEZ, he said: “They may reflect well and work in inner London, in the inner city with high rises and high density and high traffic, but they will not work and actually be counterproductive in places like Biggin Hill.
“It’s just rolling fields. You can go and take a picture and you won’t see a single house or a single car, and yet there’s ULEZ there. It’s a travesty. It’s so wrong in that area to inflict that on those people.”
Although Alan is not yet sure what the best way to implement the split from the GLA would be. He knows that Bromley would have to either go it alone or combine with other London borough councils that would want to split as well.
He said: “Our history is with Kent, but Kent’s already a large, £2 billion council. I think we’d be better off as a unitary council by ourselves or with Bexley, or with Bexley and Havering. Even though they’re on the other side of the river, the demographics are very similar so I think that would work really well.”
Would it really be that simple?
All 32 London boroughs are unitary authorities already but the GLA can override them, or have the final say, on some issues. The GLA is responsible for transport, major planning, police and crime, fire and rescue, and housing policy, so Bromley would need to take control of those functions for itself if it were legally able to split from the GLA.
Legislation would likely be required to override the Greater London Authority Act of 1999 which established the GLA and came after a referendum of Londoners who backed it.
Reform’s first London victory
Cllr Cook recounted the events of his victory night, claiming at first that the other councillors, particularly Conservative ones, were initially friendly towards him. But once it was becoming clear that a Reform win was on the cards, he claims the atmosphere turned sour.
He said: “They wouldn’t look me in the eye. They knew that this had happened, and for it to happen here in the Tories’ backyard which has always been a sort of true blue area.”
London does now have six Reform councillors, however Alan’s is the only seat to have been won with an election. The rest have been through sitting councillors defecting from other parties. There are two Reform councillors on Barnet Council, one in Waltham Forest, one in Wandsworth, and one in Westminster.
Alan said that Reform UK leader Nigel Farage was “really happy” with the by-election victory. He added: “Nigel really wanted this. He wanted this win. It’s his back garden and where he grew up.”
Alan continued: “I’ve got a good relationship with Nigel, Richard [Tice] and the other MPs, but what I didn’t really want to do was to call on them to come down. I thought, let’s make sure this is a homegrown win.
“Conversely, the Tories threw everything at it. Even on polling day they brought their big gun down. The biggest gun they have which misfired and they still lost.”
The “biggest gun” he referred to was Tory leader Kemi Badenoch who joined the party’s candidate Ian Payne to campaign in Bromley.
Alan views the Conservatives as a “zombie party lost to the country” and thinks many Tory MPs are “liberal democrat socialists” that have strayed too far from the party’s traditional roots.
“If they can’t win a provincial by-election here, when they send the leader of the party down, it sort of tells you that there’s a brand problem,” he said.
Political background
Alan says he is from Sidcup but moved to Bickley in his early teens and has lived in the area ever since. He has worked in the city for several years in IT for several different financial companies.
He got involved with the Brexit Party in 2019 before joining the Tories as he considered it a “natural home” because of his politics. But Mr Cook left the Tory party after disagreeing with other party members over how migrant boats crossing the English Channel should be dealt with.
He claimed that Conservatives were not willing to back plans to intercept the boats and send them back to Calais as “it wouldn’t look good internationally”, and so he left the party.
He eventually joined Reform and stood for them in last year’s general election in Bromley and Biggin Hill, coming third and receiving 17.5 per cent of votes cast.
He described the “uniparty” of the other large UK political parties as “global socialists” and he felt Reform were offering the “only choice” away from this. Mr Cook said that a vote for Reform was a “patriotic, nationalistic vote”. “Do you support and love your country or not?” he said.
Local issues
Alan said he had identified concerns Bromley residents had shared with him during his election campaign, and he was keen to work on these following his election.
Crime and speeding were two major issues he said kept coming up on doorsteps. When it came to speeding, Alan wasn’t in favour of imposing 20mph speed limits on Bromley roads unless they were outside schools. He also wasn’t keen on building more speed bumps to curb speeding.
He said: “I certainly wouldn’t want one outside my house. When a flatbed or a lorry goes over them, the noise they make with everything bouncing around the back is horrible.”
He suggested increasing the frequency of police carrying out random speed checks as he believed this would be an effective deterrent. However, he was keen to better understand what resources the council had available to it before making a concrete suggestion.
Alan added: “I’m not going to go to the other councillors and say ‘what’s the norm here?’ I’m very analytical and my whole career has been about solving other people’s problems.”
He has already begun to communicate with Bromley residents about their concerns via email and has said: “I will be at every meeting I can possibly attend.”
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