Teesside & Durham Post Withdraws Its Support of Reform UK...

Reform UK's decision to allow former Hartlepool Conservative Leader Mike Young to join political party 'the last straw'.... As the Teesside & Durham Post withdraws Journalistic support of the political party.

6th August 2025

STATEMENT We’ve always believed this country needs to break free from the stagnant broken two-party system that’s wrecked our economy, torn apart our communities, and left millions feeling like strangers in their own country.

For a moment, & perhaps rather Stupidly, The Teesside & Durham Post gave Reform UK the benefit of the doubt.

We hoped they might be the breath of fresh air for towns like Hartlepool, a political movement so desperately need after decades of betrayal by both Labour and the Conservatives.

But that hope has now been crushed.

First, they took in one former Tory councillor. Now they've taken in two — including none other than former Conservative leader Mike Young.

Let’s be clear: Mike Young is everything that’s wrong with local government.

From misleading residents about a council tax freeze he couldn’t deliver, — and being sanctioned for it — celebrating a council tax increase whilst the poorest suffered—to treating the people of Hartlepool like a nuisance to his ambitions, Mike Young is not the future. He’s the past — and a particularly rotten part of it.

By bringing him in, Reform UK has shown they’re not serious about change — they’re a glorified RNLI lifeboat for political has-beens scrambling for relevance.

This isn’t “Reform.”

This is recycling.

Hartlepool’s seen this all before — from the Hartlepool Independent Union to the Brexit Party — political opportunists jumping ship, using banners of “change” whilst playing the public for fools.

If Reform UK is welcoming the very rot it claims to oppose, then what kind of Council — or country — do they plan on building?

If this is happening in Hartlepool, you can be certain it's happening elsewhere too.

We shudder to think what power in the hands of people like this would look like. A cold, brutal regime where the vulnerable literally become collateral damage.

Reform UK has lost all credibility in our eyes & we simply now cannot support you.

We will not endorse councillors with disgraced records.

We will not stand by whilst politics is poisoned by careerists in new costumes.

Reform should mean real reform — not a political care home for failed councillors.