Hi, and many thanks for visiting! I'm Jonathan Close, and I'm standing for Reform UK in the Chorley Borough Council ward of Buckshaw & Whittle for the local by-election on Thursday 26th June 2025. I also recently stood in the Lancashire County Council elections in May for a similar area.

To introduce myself, I'm 41 years old and I was born and raised in Chorley. I've lived here for almost my entire life. In my early years I attended Clayton-Le-Woods CE Primary and St Michaels CE High School, followed by Runshaw college. I went on to earn an undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Lancaster University.

Since then, I have worked in the IT industry and currently run a software engineering and IT company based in Bolton which specialises in an IBM platform.

I took a keen interest in politics around 2006. It quickly became clear to me that Tony Blair had been taking this country in completely the wrong direction for many years. I found his constant interference in foreign affairs and blind obsession with closer integration with Europe and open borders deeply troubling. The pinnacle of my alarm was the Lisbon Treaty being railroaded through parliament without any proper debate or scrutiny, and without the public being properly informed on the serious ramifications of what we were being silently signed up to.

I quickly developed conservative views on the realisation of how hard you have to work to be successful, own your own home, and to achieve a comfortable quality of life. I actively campaigned for the Conservatives and was a Tory party member until 2022. Like so many, I felt completely betrayed by their total inaction and failure to get a grip on just about every issue being faced in this country

I actively campaigned to leave the EU in 2016 and stand firmly behind this decision. I believe that any self-respecting country should have complete democratic control over its borders, laws, regulations, human rights, fishing grounds, taxes and trade policy. Under EU membership, these were all at least partly delegated to unelected officials in Brussels. Something I found to be unacceptable.

I became a Reform UK member in 2024 and then more closely involved with the party in January when our Chorley branch was set up. I initially joined as secretary to help in any way I could. This quickly progressed to me becoming our branch Campaign coordinator and a candidate for the upcoming local elections! Roles I was deeply honoured to accept.

For anyone not familiar with how local elections work. In Chorley we have 2 sets of main local elections. One for our County Council which is Lancashire, and one for our Borough Council, which is Chorley. We can also technically have Parish Council elections too, but I won't cover those here.

Lancashire County Council is responsible for things like education, social care, infrastructure, roads etc. Chorley Borough Council is smaller and responsible for things like refuse collection, recycling, environmental health and providing leisure facilities locally.

The by-election on 26th June is for Chorley Borough Council, and is only happening in the ward of Buckshaw & Whittle. This was triggered because a Labour councillor for the ward unfortunately decided to stand down mid-term. So therefore if you live in this ward, you are electing a councillor to represent you at Chorley Borough level.

Although this election on 26th June is for local government, please do not underestimate how crucial it is in the journey for national change. Reform UK need as many councillors standing up for you and this country as possible. This will give us visibility, credibility and a strong platform to contest the next general election. The future of our wonderful country not depends on us winning it.

Whether you usually vote at local elections or not, if you're fed up with the state of our county like I am, then I ask that you please support me on 26th June. I promise I will not let you down.

The main issues I'd like to highlight are the proposed abolition of Chorley Borough Council, and the concern surrounding HMOs.

In case you are not aware, Labour are planning to abolish borough councils (including Chorley's) right across the country, and swallow them into a larger unitary councils. This is part of their so-called "levelling up" program, and is intended to divert money away from better off areas, to be spent in areas needing development. While this may sound reasonable, Chorley is one of the better-off areas of Lancashire and it will mean less of our taxes are spent here, and are instead diverted to other areas. It can only mean that Chorley will be worse off and that significant cuts in spending will have to be found. I find this unacceptable. We work hard and the taxes we pay should all go to support our local area. If other areas of Lancashire require more funding then this should come from central government, the burden should not fall on us residents alone.

Another huge concern is the proposed structure of this larger unitary council. Chorley will have (as I understand), only a small handful of councillors, and fewer than 50% of them will be elected by us. The remaining councillors will be appointed by central government. This will mean we completely lose our democratic voice as all councils will be effectively controlled by the national government. It is a total stich up to remove our democratic rights in case we decide to vote the "wrong way" (ie. not for Labour).

So to summarise, Reform UK are staunchly opposing this and will do everything we can to stop it happening. We are already doing this at Lancashire County Council where we have overall control, but we must urgently do it at Chorley Borough Council as well.

Another serious concern is the explosion of HMOs right across the country. This stands for Houses in Multiple Occupation. This is a property that’s converted to house more people than originally intended (such as multiple families or multiple single people). Labour is now offering lucrative multi-year contracts to landlords to convert and acquire HMOs in a desperate attempt to re-house illegal migrants. This has led to a large rise in antisocial behaviour and crime in previously peaceful communities.

Labour are doing this so they can claim they have ended the use of "asylum hotels" which are currently costing the taxpayer an eye-watering £7 MILLION A DAY. To put this into context, that would be enough money to build a brand-new state of the art hospital every 30 days. In reality they will be paying these similar eye-watering amounts to landlords instead and dumping migrants in their tens-of-thousands into communities right across the north of England. We already have a housing crisis with ordinary Brits unable to get social housing, or rent or buy anywhere at a reasonable price. This will exacerbate this problem severely.

The above is of particular concern in Buckshaw Village with its large rental market. The money being offered by Labour to convert a property to house migrants is high and attractive. Many landlords will be tempted to take this offer as they are also guaranteed this income for 5+ years. There is no need for HMOs and we cannot allow them in Chorley. They benefit no one except these greedy landlords and our weak politicians who are trying to sweep a national crisis they don't want to deal with under the carpet. We will staunchly oppose them by rejecting planning applications and push to change local regulations to prevent conversions completely.

To be clear, myself and Reform UK welcome controlled immigration and genuine asylum seekers fleeing war or persecution. However, it is crystal clear that a large majority of those crossing the English Channel on small boats are not genuinely seeking asylum. They are in fact gaming our broken system for their own benefit. This is not a controversial fact to point out and it’s something that must be addressed, even if it’s unpalatable to some.

In Closing

Many thanks for reading. I hope you will consider supporting me and Reform UK on Thursday 26th June. If you'd like to know more, want to discuss a local issue, or would just to chat and get to know me! You can reach me at:

jon.close@reformukchorley.co.uk

Promoted by Jonathan Close on behalf of themselves at Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP, United Kingdom (Reform UK HQ)