REFORM has plunged into fresh turmoil as its purge of councillors in Kent and a row over racist remarks by one of its MPs both intensified.

Three more Reform councillors were expelled from the party in Kent for “dishonest and deceptive behaviour,” meaning more than seven of the party’s representatives on its “flagship” local authority have been excluded since May’s local elections swept them into power.

The latest dispute follows the leaking of a video of a Zoom confrontation, which featured council leader Linden Kemkaran shouting and swearing at recalcitrant colleagues.

Following a party probe, councillors Bill Barrett, Oliver Bradshaw and Paul Thomas have been kicked out of the hard-right party.

“These individuals have shown a pattern of dishonest and deceptive behaviour which the party will not tolerate from its elected officials,” a party spokesman said.

Deepening the woes of Nigel Farage’s party, which nevertheless leads in opinion polls, the one sitting Tory MP to have defected to Reform, Danny Kruger, yesterday distanced himself from remarks by fellow MP Sarah Pochin complaining about too many black or Asian people featuring in television advertisements.

Her remarks were “crass and offensive,” Mr Kruger said.  

Labour and the Liberal Democrats have gone further, branding them “racist” while even Mr Farage has conceded that they were “ugly.”

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, however, has turned evasive on the issue, saying that Ms Pochin’s remarks were “shocking” but declining to say whether she believed they were racist, encapsulating the Tory dilemma of whether to seek unity with Reform or oppose it.