Reform UK’s most senior woman has told Sky News the Rupert Lowe row “doesn’t look great” and she doesn’t “want to see it in the news any more days”.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, who defected to Reform last year, accepted it was “clearly a big falling out” but suggested these spats do not always cut through to the public.
She insisted she was concentrating on winning as she looks to become the party’s first ever mayor in May.
In an interview with Sky News, Dame Andrea also spoke for the first time about her experience of domestic abuse, denying Reform has a “woman problem” but accepted “we need to start talking more about issues, what women are interested in”.
Having lost her seat as a Conservative in the 2024 election, Dame Andrea briefly quit politics only to return earlier this year as Reform’s newest recruit.
She is now standing as the party’s candidate to become the first Greater Lincolnshire mayor, in a race that psephologists think could be Reform’s best hope of turning itself from a party of protest into one that is governing.
That’s because Reform is on the march in Lincolnshire, which is a key battleground between the Conservatives and Reform in the local and mayoral elections in May.
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Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, took the Conservative seat of Boston and Skegness in the last election as Reform came second in a further two of the county’s eight constituencies.
Image: Dame Andrea spoke to Sky News’ Beth Rigby
This farming country has long been part of the patchwork of Conservative England and it is in these heartlands that Reform hopes it can land a significant blow to its political rivals in the coming weeks.
“It’s a worry,” admits one Labour insider who doesn’t much relish the prospect of having to deal with a newly minted Reform party mayor should Dame Andrea win in May against Labour candidate Jason Stockwood, the Conservative Rob Waltham and independent Marianne Overton.
There is also the Lincolnshire council race, which Reform is targeting. All 70 seats are up for grabs and the Conservatives, which have a 38-seat majority, are defending 53 seats. The only way is up for Reform here, while the Conservatives, who have held this council for 10 of the past 13 elections, are bracing for a drubbing.
Tories say Jenkyns is from Yorkshire
The Conservatives make the point that they have a “strong local candidate who is born and bred in Lincolnshire, whereas Dame Andrea is from Yorkshire” when I ask them about the race.
“We are fighting hard, we have a proven track record of delivery in charge of local services whereas Reform aren’t tried and tested,” the Conservatives said.
“And if they’re anything like Reform nationally, who don’t turn up on important votes, then they won’t show up for people locally.”
Dame Andrea is still based in Yorkshire where she used to be an MP, as this is where her son attends school. But she rents a place in Lincolnshire and has vowed to move to the county should she win the mayoralty.
She also points out that she grew up in Lincolnshire and was a local councillor before moving to Yorkshire after her shock victory over Ed Balls in the 2015 general election.
Image: Dame Andrea is hoping to become Reform’s first mayor
‘Fed up’ farmers eyeing Reform
When we meet her on the road in Lincolnshire, she takes us to meet some farmers whose livelihoods are under intense pressure – be it over local flooding and flood defences or changes to inheritance tax and farming subsidies that are affecting their farms.
There is little love for Labour in the gathering of farmers, who in the main seem to be lapsed Conservative voters that are now eyeing Reform, as a number of them tell me how they are fed up with how the Environment Agency and local politicians are running their area.
“We’re fed up with all of them,” said one farmer.
“We just want some action. As farmers we know drainage is so important, we just want to get it sorted.”
They are also alarmed and anxious about the inheritance tax changes introduced by Labour and are pressing for carve-outs for small farms handed down from generation to generation amid fears they will have to sell up to pay the inheritance tax bills.
But the troubles at the top of Reform hadn’t gone unnoticed by this group. Unprompted, one of the farmers raised the row between the suspended Reform MP Rupert Lowe and the party leadership, telling Dame Andrea that while he “really likes Reform” he doesn’t much like what he’s seeing at the moment.
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Reform UK row explained
‘Spat looks worse because Reform is small’
The farmer said: “I don’t follow politics avidly. But I just look and say [Rupert Lowe] is full of common sense and I really like him and I don’t know what’s happened, but it looks from outside [he has been] chucked under the bus.
“And I’m like, am I getting second thoughts about Reform? I don’t know what’s gone on, but it concerns me about what’s going on with Reform.”
Dame Andrea tries to downplay it and says the “spat” looks worse because it’s a smaller party.
“To me it’s about the movement, the right policies, to carry on. What is the alternative? This will blow over and Reform will keep getting strong,” she said.
Can Jenkyns and Farage co-exist?
Dame Andrea would clearly like the infighting to stop, but it raises questions for me about how she will fit into this very male-dominated party, in which all four MPs are male, with Dame Andrea the only senior woman beyond the former Conservative minister Ann Widdicombe.
She is, like Nigel Farage, a disrupter – Dame Andrea was one of the first Tories to call for Theresa May and Rishi Sunak to stand down, and a conviction politician who fervently backed Boris Johnson and Brexit.
If she does win this mayoral race she will be a big personality in Reform alongside Farage, which leaves me wondering if they can co-exist in a party already at war.
Image: Dame Andrea says she doesn’t think the party has a ‘woman problem’
Jenkyns was in an abusive relationship
Reform does struggle with female voters, with fewer women voting for the party against all age cohorts, young to old. Dame Andrea tells me she doesn’t think the party has a “woman problem”, but she does think it needs to talk about more issues that she thinks women are interested in, citing education, special educational needs and mental health.
When I raise the matter of violence against women and how the party has handled revelations that one of its own MPs was jailed in a youth detention centre as a teenager for assaulting his girlfriend, Dame Andrea reveals to me she has been in an abusive relationship.
“I know how it can break you. I know how you sort of start losing your identity. So I’ve been on that side,” she said.
“And I’ve also helped constituents to fight against this, so it matters, we need to do more in society because whether it’s men or women, one is too much in my view.”
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Out on the campaign trail, even in the Labour territory of Lincoln where Hamish Falconer is the local MP, Dame Andrea gets a warm welcome. She tells me she thinks she can win it: “I might be living in blind hope here. But I’ve got that feeling.”
This corner of England has become a test bed for Reform to see if it can turn from a party of protest into one that has a shot at governing in the form of a regional mayor.
If Reform can succeed in that – what might come next? It would be a remarkable comeback for Dame Andrea and a remarkable victory for Reform too.
Toncoin Open Interest (OI) has jumped 67% over the past 24 hours amid reports of Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s departure from France, where he had been required to stay since his arrest seven months ago.
On March 15, Toncoin (TON) OI — a metric tracking the total number of unsettled Toncoin derivative contracts such as options and futures — reached $169 million, representing a 67% increase from the previous day when the reports of Durov’s departure first surfaced, according to CoinGlass data.
Toncoin open interest reaches highest level in 42 days
It is the highest level of OI in Toncoin since Feb. 1, when it was sitting at $171.49 million.
TON is The Open Network’s native cryptocurrency and is the exclusive blockchain infrastructure for Telegram’s Mini App ecosystem.
Toncoin open interest surged 67% on March 15. Source: CoinGlass
TON’s price jumped 17% over the same 24-hour period, trading at $3.45 at the time of publication, according to CoinMarketCap data.
Trading resource account Crypto Billion said in a March 15 X post that Toncoin is “showing signs of a potential long-term accumulation phase as it stabilizes near key support levels.”
However, if this rally is short-lived, around $18.8 million in long positions could be liquidated if TON’s price falls back toward the $3 level it was trading at on March 14.
Toncoin open interest also surged after arrest in 2024
The court reportedly allowed Durov to travel to Dubai, a city with no extradition agreements with many countries.
The market’s reaction hints at the potential significance of this case for the crypto industry. Many are worried that Durov’s arrest in August 2024 in France could set a precedent for cracking down on other privacy-focused services. He was accused of running a platform that enables illicit transactions.
Proposals to freeze some disability benefits are reportedly being scrapped after concerns from Labour politicians about the scale of planned welfare cuts.
The work and pensions secretary had been under pressure to cut the benefits bill and was expected to cancel an inflation-linked rise to the personal independence payment (PIP).
But it is reported those plans will be ditched by Liz Kendall, despite the Chancellor Rachel Reeves insisting “we do need to get a grip” on the welfare budget, saying the “current system is not working for anyone”.
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Some MPs fear drastic cuts to support for the most vulnerable, but Ms Kendall may have attempted to partly address concerns from cabinet colleagues and Labour backbenchers about the scale of the reforms.
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Almost four million working-age adults in England and Wales currently claim incapacity or disability benefits, up from 2.8 million before the pandemic.
It is being widely reported that instead of scrapping a rise in PIP, savings could be achieved by changing the eligibility criteria along with cutting the top rate of incapacity benefit.
Ms Kendall told The Sunday Times it was an “absolute principle” to protect welfare payments for people unable to work. “For those who absolutely cannot work, this is not about that,” she said.
She said the number of people on PIP is set to more than double this decade, partly driven by younger people.
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‘Government’s plan to cut welfare is terrifying’
“Increasingly, there is lots of clear evidence that work is good for mental health and physical health too… social security alone for many people will never be the key to a better life. It should be a springboard and not trapping people,” she told the newspaper.
Ms Kendall has revealed plans to give disabled people the right to try employment without the risk of losing their benefits.
The so-called “right to try guarantee” aims to prevent those people who receive health-related benefits from having their entitlements automatically re-assessed if they enter employment.
Research published in February by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed the number of 16 to 34 year-olds who are long-term sick with a mental health condition has reached 270,000, increasing by 60,000 (26%) in the last year alone.
Some on benefits ‘taking the mickey’
The figure for all working-age people is 790,000, an increase of 140,000 (22%) over the last year.
Responding at the time to those figures, Ms Kendall said some people on benefits were “taking the mickey”.
“I have no doubt, as there always have been, there are people who shouldn’t be on those benefits who are taking the mickey and that is not good enough – we have to end that,” she told ITV News.
The same survey found 200,000 people receiving health-related or disability benefits were ready to work if the right job or support was available.
Welfare cuts are supported by the Conservatives, albeit the party has accused Labour of “dithering, delay and division” on the issue.
Meanwhile, the SNP argues any planned cuts to disability payments should be “abandoned”, and disability charities have expressed a similar view.
Sky News’ Trevor Phillips will be looking at all the political headlines this week from 8.30am this morning. He will be joined by Health Secretary Wes Streeting, shadow education secretary Laura Trott and former national security adviser Lord Ricketts.
There was one clear, united message from today’s virtual meeting of leaders – that they rejected Vladimir Putin’s “yes, but” approach to a ceasefire.
The “coalition of the willing” – the 27 leaders, plus NATO and the EU led by Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron – want the Russian president to mirror Ukraine’s pledge for a 30-day pause in fighting, in order to hammer out a sustainable peace deal.
Sir Keir made that very clear, and suggested the attendees at the meeting were behind this approach.
The prime minister said: “Volodymyr [Zelenskyy] has committed to a 30-day unconditional ceasefire, but Mr Putin is trying to delay, saying there must be a painstaking study before a ceasefire can take place.
“Well, the world needs action, not a study, not empty words and conditions. So my message is very clear. Sooner or later, Putin will have to come to the table.”
Image: ‘Coalition of the willing’. Pic: Downing Street
There are two reasons for this challenge – an immediate end to fighting is a goal in itself, but many of those in today’s call, including Sir Keir, do not trust Mr Putin to uphold promises on peace and are trying to convince US President Donald Trump to be more clear-eyed about the Russian approach.
Challenging the Russian leader to follow the US request for a ceasefire and watching him refuse is designed to send a message to the White House as well as the Kremlin.
There were, however, bigger unknowns left hanging.
One of which was the clear signal from Sir Keir that he is still relying on a US security guarantee in order to bring on board a “coalition of the willing” who might be able to provide troops to Ukraine.
There are, however, many that don’t think that that US security guarantee is coming in any substantial way, based on the noises coming out of the US.
That is a big problem for the PM, as government sources tell me that the scope and the remit of any potential peacekeeping force is determined by what protection the US might be able to provide.
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The second issue that is being sidestepped by Sir Keir is what any peace keeping might be able to do in practice.
UK troops, like those of any NATO country, cannot engage directly with Russia in combat for fear of triggering a much bigger conflagration.
So if not that, then what is their purpose – a question repeatedly asked by experts like the former national security adviser Lord Ricketts.
I put exactly this to the PM, but did not get an answer. He suggested that we were a long way away from getting an an answer, even though military chiefs also appear to be meeting to “operationalise” plans on Thursday.
How can they operationalise a plan that does not, and currently cannot, have a remit?
Today Sir Keir heralded the participation of Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the call, as part of the effort.
But if the remit of the coalition of the willing isn’t clear, how can it truly be effective?