Newcastle Reform councillor expelled from the party
A Reform UK councillor in Newcastle has been expelled from the party.
A Reform UK councillor in Newcastle has been expelled from the party.
Daniel Astley has come under fire over the past week over comments he made regarding immigration on the city’s West Road and a series of anti-Muslim social media posts.
Archived images from a deleted X account in his name included telling independent MP Adnan Hussain to “p*** off back to Pakistan” and saying “we don’t want Muslims in our country because they rape white English girls and commit terrorist attacks”.
Reform UK’s council opposition group leader in Newcastle, Steven Rutherford, said on Thursday afternoon that Coun Astley had been removed from the party due to his prior membership of a far-right political party.
Coun Astley, who was elected in May this year to represent Benwell, Scotswood and Denton Burn, is now listed as an independent on the council’s website.
News of his expulsion came just hours after Reform UK Newcastle issued a previous statement which branded the criticism of Coun Astley “politically motivated nonsense”.
Coun Rutherford said: “As Leader of Reform UK in Newcastle, I confirm that we have taken the decision to expel Councillor Daniel Astley from Reform UK with immediate effect. Coun Astley has done some great work for residents during his time representing the area. We recognise and appreciate the efforts he has made.
“However, we were made aware of his links to the Homeland Party which he did not declare when he applied to be a candidate. The Homeland Party is a proscribed group under Reform UK rules. Membership of, or links to, such groups is incompatible with remaining a member of Reform UK.
“The other Reform UK ward councillors for Benwell, Scotswood and Denton Burn will continue to represent residents and deliver for the local community. This decision has been taken to uphold the integrity of our local party and the standards we expect of all representatives.”
As first reported in The Times, Coun Astley issued an apology this week in which he said he wanted to “retract all previous social media comments” and that he supported freedom of religion.
Other posts from his deleted X account included a call for the “mass emigration of non-Europeans, Muslims, Africans etc.”
Last week, he was accused of appearing to endorse the “vile” Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which claims that there is a deliberate plot to replace white populations with non-white immigrants.
During a Newcastle City Council debate on a Green Party-led motion which called for the rejection of such “far-right narratives of division”, he said that the motion “attempts to dismiss demographic replacement as some kind of conspiracy theory, despite the national census data or quick walk down the West Road suggesting otherwise”.
In a statement sent to the Local Democracy Reporting Service prior to his expulsion from Reform UK, Coun Astley said that he “wholeheartedly” rejected the Great Replacement theory and simply wanted to acknowledge changing demographic trends.
The deleted X account described him as a nominating officer for the Homeland Party, a nationalist group which calls for the removal of more than 10 million migrants to reverse the “demographic replacement of our own population”.
Coun Astley said he had previously resigned from Reform UK, before later rejoining the party prior to his election, after it committed to “retrospectively removing illegal migrants” and “overseeing net negative migration”.
In his statement, Coun Astley added: “On the Homeland Party, I do not accept the characterisation of “extremist” given, as mentioned, I believe their policies at the time to have been very close to Reform’s policies now. I have not had any contact with them since last year, I have never worked on policy, attended a conference or organised elections for them.”
Following his expulsion from Reform UK, Coun Astley was contacted for a further comment.
Liberal Democrat councillor Mark Mitchell, the city council’s deputy leader, called on Reform to “apologise for continuing to defend him and condemn his inflammatory comments about the communities of the West Road”.
He added: “Once again, Reform are hiding behind failed vetting processes, claiming they didn’t know that Coun Astley was a former member of the far right Homeland Party, despite him proudly proclaiming it on social media and being listed as a senior national officer on the Electoral Commission website before the May elections.”