Another Conservative councillor in a flagship London borough has defected to Reform UK as Nigel Farage continues to make inroads in politics across the capital.
Alan Mendoza on Wednesday joined Laila Cunningham as Reform’s second representative on Westminster Council.
The co-founder of The Henry Jackson Society thinktank is expected to help advise Mr Farage on foreign policy and geopolitics.
Mr Farage said: "His intricate understanding of foreign policy and experience in global affairs is invaluable. I look forward to working closely with him as we continue to shape our policy platform in the months and years ahead."
Mr Mendoza, who represents Abbey Road, said: "Britain today is in abject crisis. At home and abroad, our leaders seem determined to chart a course of national and international decline.
“But the British people deserve better than this. And in Reform UK we finally have a party who will put our interests first, and ensure that our tomorrow is better than our today.
"This is the party that I'm proud to join. This is the party that will bring change that the entire nation can be proud of, and which will restore us to the first rank of global powers where we belong."
Mr Mendoza won the Abbey Road ward at the 2022 local elections and currently sits on the audit and performance committee and the budget scrutiny task group.
He was also spokesperson for Westminster City Conservatives.
He joins Ms Cunningham who defected to Reform UK, saying she was “tired of defending failure”.
Councillor Laila Cunningham, who represents Lancaster Gate on Westminster City Council, said she is quitting the Conservatives as she is “tired of defending failure”.
She also predicted a “massive surge” in Reform councillors in London at the local elections in May.
At Reform’s party conference in September, London Assembly member Alex Wilson said the party hoped to seize control of boroughs in the “London doughnut” at the local elections next year.
Mr Wilson said the party was “seriously campaigning” to take control of councils in the outskirts of the city and singled out to Tory-run Bexley, Croydon and Bromley and independent Havering.
The Tories lost all of their inner London MPs to Labour at the last general election and have just nine in the city.
Westminster Conservative group leader, Paul Swaddle said: “It is clear from our thousands of conversations with residents across Westminster that there is no real appetite for Reform here.
“People want practical leadership focused on safer, cleaner streets and a well-managed city, not political theatrics. Our focus remains firmly on delivering for Westminster residents and on the constructive, serious work that genuinely improves people’s lives.”
Westminster’s Labour Council Leader Adam Hug said "There is an increasing risk if you vote Conservative in Westminster that you might ultimately get a Reform councillor.
“This is the second defection from Westminster Conservatives to Reform in the last few months, despite the increasingly extreme Conservatives moving to the right to chase after Farage, both locally and nationally.
“Voting Conservative risks electing councillors who are tempted to defect to Reform in pursuit of their long-term ambitions. Labour is the only party who can stop the Conservatives and Reform in Westminster to keep our city a tolerant, welcoming and well run place to live.”
