Reform have announced their candidate for the forthcoming Runcorn and Helsby by-election and she’ll fit right in as an MP for the party – already having a solid track record of falling out with her colleagues!
Sarah Pochin is a former councillor with the dubious distinction of having been kicked out of both the Conservative and independent groupings on Cheshire East council since being first elected in 2015.
She was turfed out of the Tories in 2020 in an arcane row over the appointment of the area’s ceremonial mayor. The party had put forward councillor Steven Edgar as candidate, but when he was rejected by the Labour-Independent Group administration, they went over the Tories’ heads and offered the role to Pochin, who accepted and was duly expelled from the party group as a result.
She then sat as an independent – until managing to do the double two years later and being forced to leave that group as it emerged she had rejoined the Conservatives in order to vote in its leadership election, breaching the rules. Brilliantly, she revealed that would have been prepared to resign from the Tories again had the Indy group asked.
Now she’s defected to Nigel Farage’s party. But if elected, how long will she stay with them?
