“Winning really wasn’t a given,” said Dan Bradley, who won the Rye seats for Reform UK on both the district and county councils in last week’s local elections. “Even on the day of the count I was thinking ‘No, I don’t think so’ whilst all the other candidates were telling me ‘You’ve got this’.”
After last week’s ballots the 34 year old from Iden will represent the Rye and Eastern Rother ward on East Sussex County Council, along with being one of the Rye and Winchelsea councillors on Rother District Council. Sworn in on both councils earlier in the week he has also attended Rye Town Council and Icklesham Parish Council meetings.
Reform now has the biggest bloc of councillors on East Sussex County Council, though with no overall majority. He expects scrutiny for his own role. “People might say you haven’t done much in your first six months. Well, you probably won’t have seen it. I’m hoping I can try and make the community stronger.” Scrutiny too for Reform. “It’s not going to be this weird state where everyone has to pledge allegiance to the flag every day. You can be proud of your country and still get along with different views.”
The winner in both polls with over 30% of the votes, he is keen to be seen to represent everyone in Rye. “I don’t want people to think I’m waving a Reform banner and only going to listen to them. Almost the complete opposite. I’m not focused on one point of view at all. I want to be visible. If people see me in a pub or restaurant, come and talk to me.”
“I am Reform, yes. I believe in what the party stands for,” he said. “We need to make sure people here are looked after first. Hopefully one day we’ll be in a position where we can support everyone properly, but right now we’ve got more money going out than coming in. Councils are borrowing just to stay afloat and the interest rates are outrageous. Somewhere we have to draw the line and start fixing what we’ve got. Immigration’s good if it’s done the right way but what we can’t have is people just coming in here and saying ‘Can I have lots of free stuff’ when we’ve got people in dire need of help first.”
He acknowledges not everyone is happy Rye now has a Reform councillor, not least with the party policy on immigration. “I hope people just don’t read what they see on the internet. For some reason people don’t think you can have different points of view and get along. I don’t know where that’s come from. I’ve been friends with people from lots of different points of view and I want to be here for everyone.”
Much of the opposition has played out online he said, notably on Facebook. “It’s keyboard warriors. They don’t know me but form opinions. Someone said I’m a career politician who takes bribes. I’ve never been in politics before. The only thing I’d take in bribes is probably cake. People throw things to see what sticks.”
One criticism particularly hit home. “A lot of people say I’m against support for SEN children, but my own children are autistic and go to special schools. I’ve seen how difficult the system is.” He notes how huge amounts of the East Sussex County Council budget goes on both youth and adult social care.
So why does he think he was elected? Was it his appeal or because of Nigel Farage or Keir Starmer? “It’s bit of all three probably. Lots of people said they’d never vote Labour while Keir Starmer is in charge. Some voted Reform because they wanted change. But a lot of people also said, ‘I’d never normally vote Reform, but I’m voting for you as a person.’ They thought I’d listen to everyone and try to do the best for our local communities.”
He has a military background and started the Marine Training Corps because he felt youth organisations had become buried in red tape. Veterans are a big priority, he said. “People are leaving the armed forces and living under Hastings Pier. These people have actually put themselves on the line to make sure that we’re safe. The least we can do is make sure we’ve got a roof over their head.”
“Reform sometimes gets portrayed as saying ‘Everything’s broken and only we can fix it’,” he said.” I don’t see it that way. We can fix things together but I can’t walk in and flick a switch and tomorrow everything will be better. You see things every day like roads, homelessness, people struggling and think ‘Is this as good as it can be?’ I can’t moan unless I try to change it.”
As an Iden resident, he has first-hand knowledge of something he wants to help fix urgently – potholes. “The Iden road is the worst in the county. I’ve had all four tyres blown on my car because of it. I may be new but I can come in and ask questions and keep pushing until I get a proper explanation. I’m not just going to nod along or read from a script.” He’s already had conversations about a solution to the derelict public toilets in Winchelsea and Winchelsea Beach. Finding ways to support Camber is also on his list.
He paid tribute to his predecessor Keith Glazier, the Conservative who stood down after almost 30 years as councillor for Rye and Eastern Rother on East Sussex County Council. “A fantastic individual. He’s done such a good job representing Rye. I only hope I can do what he’s done. Really big shoes to follow.”
He will represent Rye on the two councils until they are abolished and replaced in 2028. Then what? “If there is a possibility of me staying on as a councillor I would be interested but let’s see how well I do here.” Westminster? The Hastings and Rye candidate for Reform UK? “I would put my hand up yes, but I need to prove myself first.”
Getting elected has come very quickly. Dan Bradley only quit his job with the Ministry of Defence four weeks ago. He was only selected as the Reform UK candidate last month and as well as the campaigning he has had a car crash and (most importantly) he got married two weeks ago – but no honeymoon so far. “Not yet. My wife Vitalija wasn’t exactly thrilled about that!”
Image Credits: James Stewart , BBC , Dan Bradley .
I am surprised that our new County Councillor is expressing his concerns about the state of the local roads when as an Iden resident, he never attended any of our Parish Council meetings. This controversial subject has been on the agendas for many months and the Council has consistently passed on the village’s strong views to the then County Councillor. From his remarks, we now expect Councillor Bradley to have better luck with Highways in persuading them to magic sufficient funding to enable the entire road to be resurfaced, and soon
Congratulations to Dan Bradley. I enjoyed talking to him at the count last week. Whilst I strongly disagree with Reform’s policies on many things, whether it be immigration, the Equalities Act, trade with Europe, housing provision, taxing wealth or action on climate change, I am encouraged that he recognises that we can have different points of view and get along. As long as that holds true for everyone!
I would very much encourage anyone who wants to participate in any discussion to listen to these podcasts first: https://www.bridgingdivides.org.uk/ The goal is to move from a culture of “picking sides” to one of understanding, compassion, and resilience.
I do have misgivings about how Reform UK has been funded, with Christopher Harbourne a.k.a. Chakrit Sakunkrit, the British-Thai billionaire businessman and technology investor based in Thailand, having donated in excess of £22m to the party to date. This has allowed the party to promote itself very effectively, including flooding every household in the country where elections were held with numerous addressed letters, without these even counting towards election expenses.
Be that as it may, I wholly agree with Dan with regards to Facebook. People say things there that they would – one very much hopes! – never say to one’s face. I think that social media has a lot to answer for in creating so much of the division we are seeing in this country, and indeed globally.
I know that this might be surprising to some reading this, but our democratic process is precious, so I think Dan should be given every opportunity to prove himself as both our district and county councillor, I wish him well in that. It is what I would have wanted for myself had I been elected.
I in turn would also like to thank Keith Glazier for his many years of service to us, he has never shirked from the many duties he has carried out so ably for our communities. I would like to thank Si McGurk too for all that he has done since being elected in 2023.
And finally, I would also like to thank all those who supported me. It’s a wonderful privilege, and I will continue to help out in our community as best I can.
As the unsuccessful Lib Dem candidate for Rye and Eastern Rother I congratulate Cllr Bradley on both his victories and look forward to seeing him at Rother District Council on Monday.
A couple of aside notes – veterans automatically go to the top of council housing lists, so if there are homeless veterans underneath Hastings pier that’s dereliction of duty by the former East Sussex council. And immigration is nothing at all to do with local councils. I hope we don’t get side tracked unnecessarily by irrelevant issues. But yes – the Wittersham Road between Playden and the Kent border is a nightmare and has been for some years.
I’m pleased to see the Green and LibDem candidates being so gracious in defeat.
I’ve a feeling, from what I’ve read so far, that Dan isn’t 100% loyal Reform, but we’ll see how he performs as one of the new groups in Bexhill and Lewes.
One thing they might consider is whether to spend £75,000 on Union flags on lampposts, as the Reform Nottinghamshire council has!
Well done Dan. Hopefully you can bring some sanity to the UFOs parking on double yellow lines around the town. The traffic wardens don’t seem to be a good enough deterrent.
Congrats to Dan: from this article you don’t seem to be the usual Reform type politician – it’ll be good to see Rye represented enthusiastically on both councils – best of luck to you …
Congratulations to Reform, He got in by the way the country is being run by Labour and obviously locals do not like it. I wonder what Helena Dollimore thinks about this, I may have missed it but she seems very quiet on the matter
I again congratulate Cllr Dan Bradley on his election and was pleased to meet him last night at Rother Council, but I’m surprised at this quote- and surprised it has gone unchallenged –
“Immigration’s good if it’s done the right way but what we can’t have is people just coming in here and saying ‘Can I have lots of free stuff’ when we’ve got people in dire need of help first.”
No legal immigrant will be saying “Can I have loads of free stuff” because if they needed to do that they would not qualify for entry. In the case of an asylum seeker the law currently prohibits them from working – something Lib Dems would like to change so they can contribute to society while their claims are processed. An illegal immigrant without an asylum claim will be deported.
Cllr Bradley’s comment doesn’t stand scrutiny and unfairly tarnishes the reputation of a whole class of persons.
Its a real sign of western privlidge when you presume that people are coming over the channel on boats just ” for free stuff ” .