Reform UK councillor who celebrated the rape of two Sikh women resigns after just 4 days

On 11 May 2026 newly elected Reform UK councillor Stuart Prior resigned from his post after less than a week in office. Prior gained notoriety after campaign group Hope Not Hate exposed his history of deeply racist social media posts.

Voters elected 53 Reformer candidates to Essex County Council, giving the far right majority control. Among these 53, Prior beat off the Lib Dem candidate Rayleigh West with a majority of 796 votes. Likewise, he also took a seat on Rochford District Council.

Reform have a history of racist bile

As a very brief recap of his abhorrent comments, Prior:

• called white people the “master race” and stated that they have “larger brains”.
• celebrated the rape of two Sikh women in 2025, posting the comment “good, reap it”.
• described a video of a Palestinian man searching through rubble for his child as “hilarious”.
• responded “No one cares. Die” to a post about people using plastic bags instead of nappies in Gaza.
• said “Muslims are dirt”.
• claimed “There cannot be a genocide against Muslims. It’s only ever self defence against those rats”.
• stated that Black people like to ‘play the victim’ and complain about the slave trade.

A Mirror journalist confronted Prior with his own statements days before the local elections. However, he denied having any memory of them, and even had the nerve to suggest that someone had faked the comments.

In return, the Mirror highlighted that the social media account had also posted images from Prior’s own house.

Reform stated that it was “looking into these posts” several times over the last week. Now, a party spokesperson told the BBC that Prior had resigned from both council roles, and added that “he’s had his membership revoked”.

It’s now likely that both councils will need to hold by-elections for their newly vacant seats.

A ‘thorough professional job’

Back in April, BBC Essex asked Nigel Farage if his party had vetted its local election candidates. The Reform leader stated that:

I know that our candidates will be held to a higher standard than any of the other parties.

That’s because we are the challengers. We are the ones taking on the establishment. Yet we have done a good, thorough professional job.

That “thorough professional job” raises an important question. That is, did Reform know about Prior’s disgusting comments and not care, or was Farage simply lying? As the Canary has previously reported, the far-right party doesn’t exactly lack for dodgy councillors or candidates:

• Another Reform candidate praises Oswald Moseley — A rite of party initiation?
• Reform activist said ‘Hitler was right’.
• Reform have put a suspended racist in charge of campaign finances.
• Another Reform candidate has praised Enoch Powell.
• Reform welcomes ‘shoot the p*kis’ scandal ex-Tory.
• Reform UK accused of ‘nil vetting’ as another racist candidate exposed.
• Video emerges of Reform’s ‘Nazi salute’ candidate drink driving.

Even when this information was pointed out to Reform, it still failed to suspend many of the candidates. Likewise, as in the case of Matt Goodwin’s racist campaign manager Adam Mitula, even the party’s ‘suspended’ minions sometimes go on working for it.

Reform UK know full well that it employs and stands low-down, racist scum as candidates. Obviously, the party doesn’t give a shit about that fact – it’s only exposure and negative publicity that can force it to rescind membership.

Let’s put that another way. Reform UK is happy to harbor the lowest bigots among us, provided it doesn’t believe they’ll do too much damage to the party’s brand.

Scum and chancers, the whole fucking lot of them.

Featured image via the Canary