Reform UK is standing by its candidate in the Makerfield by-election after questions were raised about his association with a councillor who has criminal convictions – and a suspended X account.
Robert Kenyon, 41, a self-employed plumber from Wigan, was selected as the party’s candidate on Tuesday. He will go up against Andy Burnham, who is widely expected to challenge Sir Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership if he wins.
However, within hours of Kenyon’s selection, questions were being raised about Reform’s vetting of his candidacy.
The Conservative Party was asking why an X account in his name was suspended, and it has also emerged that Kenyon was nominated for his Wigan Council seat by a man with convictions for drink-driving, common assault, and domestic violence.
Reform has dismissed these claims as “pathetic attempts to smear a brilliant candidate through links that are tenuous at best”.
Makerfield’s ‘first local MP’
With the stakes high for both Labour and Reform – the by-election will be a key test of whether Burnham – and more widely Labour – can beat Nigel Farage’s insurgent party.
“For Andy Burnham, Makerfield will be a stepping stone,” Kenyon said in a video announcing his candidacy. “But for me it’s the only place I’ve ever wanted to represent.”
His family, he has claimed, can be traced in Makerfield for at least 200 years – and he has said, if elected, he would be the first MP born in the constituency.
“Makerfield has never had a member of parliament who was actually born in Makerfield,” he said.
“It gets me a bit emotional sometimes, thinking that there’s a chance that I could be representing people in parliament… it’s a massive honour.”
He added: “I’m a plumber and gas engineer. I’ve done that a long time. I did the apprenticeship when I was 18. I love being a plumber. I do enjoy it. It’s hard, but I do enjoy it because I do take pride in the work.”
If he wins he will be the second plumber this year to be sent to Parliament, after the Greens’ Hannah Spencer won the Gorton and Denton by-election.
Makerfield was Andy Burnham’s back up plan. For Robert Kenyon, it’s his home.This battle will be David Vs Goliath. pic.twitter.com/Z8A5ay3EmD
— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) May 19, 2026Single-parent household and free school dinners
He stood in the constituency in the 2024 election, finishing second to Simons with 32 per cent of the vote against Labour’s 45 per cent, finishing 5,399 votes behind Labour.
He increased Reform’s vote share by almost 19 per cent and then won a seat on Wigan Council last month, beating the Labour candidate by more than two to one.
In a candidate statement ahead of the 2024 general election, Kenyon set out a string of local grievances – potholed roads, hospitals, housing and pub closures – and cast his candidacy in personal terms.
“The difference between me and a typical politician is I have done many a hard day’s work in my life,” he wrote. “I know struggle from first-hand experience growing up in a single-parent household on free school dinners.”
He was critical of both main parties, writing that he did not like “the way our town and country has gone since Tony Blair’s government ruined the country and then the Tories have carried it on to the mess we have now”.
“I’m not standing by whilst any of that happens,” he added. “Evil prevails when good men stand by and do nothing.”
David vs Goliath fight
Reform made significant gains across the constituency at the May local elections, winning all eight council wards with around 50 per cent of the vote.
Farage has described the contest as “a David versus Goliath battle”, branding Burnham “open borders Burnham” and pledging to “throw absolutely everything” at the campaign.
It comes as Burnham was officially selected to contest the seat for Labour.
Burnham, who has served as Mayor of Greater Manchester since 2017, said he was “proud and humbled” to have been selected, pledging a “relentless focus on reducing people’s everyday costs and bills” if elected. He acknowledged that the area had been “neglected by national politics for too long”.
The by-election is expected to take place on 18 June, though the exact date has not been confirmed.
Scrutiny over vetting
Within hours of Kenyon’s selection being announced, questions were raised about Reform’s vetting of their candidate.
An X account under the name @Makerfield_RFK has been suspended by the platform for violating its rules – prompting the Conservative Party press office to publicly ask Reform: “Care to explain what Robert had his Twitter account suspended for?”
The account, which adopted Kenyon’s initials and was at times labelled “Robert F Kenyon for Makerfield”, also appears to have retweeted posts by Wayne O’Rourke, a man jailed for posting misinformation online during the riots that followed the Southport stabbings in 2024.
Posts on the account – retrieved by Metro using an archiving tool – included a comment asking whether it was “a hate crime for Asian men to walk round in Birmingham assaulting white people en masse”, and a reference to “an invasion of foreign criminals”. Another post claimed “the far right don’t really exist”. One post on the account was signed off as “R. Kenyon, Makerfield Spokesperson, Reform UK”.
He has not publicly confirmed or denied that the account was his, and neither has the Reform party.
Controversial links
It also emerged that Kenyon was nominated for his Wigan Council seat by Steve Jones, an independent councillor in the same ward who has convictions for drink-driving, common assault, and domestic violence.
A court report published by Wigan Today in 2022 described how Jones threw a bag of rubbish containing a glass jar at his wife, causing lacerations that required hospital treatment.
Questions have also been raised about Kenyon’s association with Dylan Carey, a tiler from Hindley who was sentenced to eighteen months in prison for violent disorder after Liverpool Crown Court heard he had hurled objects at police officers and kicked a police vehicle during the riots that followed the Southport stabbings in 2024.
Carey’s Facebook profile shows him standing behind Kenyon at a Reform UK campaign event in July 2024. Carey was sentenced the following month.
When the connection was first highlighted by the campaign group Hope Not Hate, the @Makerfield_RFK account described it as a “smear”, adding: “As a local group, we accept people who attend meetings at face value. We don’t have crystal balls or time machines to see into the future.”
Kenyon has also previously dismissed questions over his Facebook friendship with Gary Raikes, a former organiser for the British National Party and founder of the New British Union, a group which describes itself as seeking to “restore faith in fascism”.
Responding to the claims, a Reform UK spokesman said: “These are pathetic attempts to smear a brilliant candidate through links that are tenuous at best. The public can see right through these desperate accusations.
“Having a Facebook friend or being photographed in a group with another individual does not constitute an endorsement of views.”
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