A former Conservative councillor is standing as the Reform UK candidate to become Bracknell’s MP in the general election on July 4.

Malcolm Tullett was a Conservative member of Bracknell Forest Council between 2015 and 2021, when he quit the party and resigned as a councillor, accusing the Tory leadership of bullying.

Now he says he is standing for Reform UK in Bracknell as he believes it is ‘the only party that is going to do anything to change'. He added that he thought the Conservative Party had become ‘too liberal’.

Mr Tullett told the News: “I’m a Conservative. But nationally the Conservative Party has let go of the ground it once occupied.

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“They’ve become too liberal – now they've tried to take on right wing politics again but it’s too late.”

Mr Tullett said immigration is ‘key’ to Reform UK’s campaign ‘but not in a racist way'.  He said: “I don’t think I’m a racist, I don’t act like a racist. But I don’t like the idea that we can’t afford to entertain any more of the population the size of Manchester every year.

“Everything in this country has gone down the tubes because unfettered immigration. That’s the fault of the politicians not the migrants.”

Mr Tullett acknowledged that immigration is ‘not a major issue in Bracknell’ and that ‘the direct effect in Bracknell is quite small'.

But he added that immigration ‘does affect infrastructure and services'. And he argues that everybody in Bracknell pays for this through taxes.

He said: “The direct effect on Bracknell is quite small but there is a lot of people talking about it. It’s an issue for discussion in Bracknell.

“The government has already spent so many millions of pounds to send people to Rwanda and no one has gone. Every single person in Bracknell has paid for that.”

Net migration to the UK in 2023 was 685,000 - equal to just over one per cent of the population. Some nine per cent of the UK population was born overseas.

Mr Tullett said Reform UK’s campaign would also focus on other issues ‘law and order being one of them and probably the NHS'.

He also criticised Bracknell’s Conservative MP James Sunderland for not voting for attempts to criminalise sewage dumping in rivers by water companies.

Mr Sunderland voted to block Labour attempts to introduce laws on this in April, and abstained or didn’t vote on a Liberal Democrat attempt earlier this month.

Mr Tullett said he doesn’t want to see the Labour Party win the election. But he added: “I’m not concerned about toppling the Conservatives – it’s about time they were toppled.”

Mr Sunderland told the News: "The Prime Minister has already taken bold measures to curb illegal migration, so it can hardly be accused of being ‘too liberal’.  

"And for every person who has contacted me to say that the party has become too far to the left, I have just the same number telling me that it has moved too far to the right.  Immigration controls do need to tighten and that is exactly what we are doing."

He added: "As for sewage, I will continue to support a party that has announced £54bn of new funding for our water infrastructure, significantly reduced the quantity, volume and content of phosphates into our outflows, imposed record fines for water companies, made sewage discharge a criminal offence, stopped shareholder dividends and introduced 100% monitoring of outflows. "

Labour’s candidate Peter Swallow has said his party is the only one that can beat the Conservatives in Bracknell. And Liberal Democrat candidate Katie Mansfield has said her party is an alternative with ‘a clear plan to bring about change'.

Both candidates are focussing on addressing the cost of living crisis, addressing NHS waiting lists and ending sewage dumping.