Newly elected Reform councillor resigns after social media claims | Reform UK
A reform UK councilor has resigned days after being elected, following allegations on social media that he celebrated the rape of a Sikh woman in the Midlands, declared whites a “master race” and called Muslims “rats”.
Stuart Prior was elected as an Essex county council councilor last Thursday, receiving 2,404 votes, the highest total of any candidate in the area.
Prior was one of 53 Reform UK councilors elected to the authority, giving overall control of the council to the rebel party. He also won a seat on Rochford district council.
A spokesman for Reform UK confirmed Prior had resigned from his duties for personal reasons and his party membership had been revoked.
Prior was criticized for comments he allegedly made on social media. In posts on X in November 2025, he allegedly described whites as a “superior race” and suggested that whites had “bigger brains”.
In other posts, Prior allegedly said “Muslims are scum,” wrote “Muslims are terrible worldwide,” and allegedly said “There can be no genocide against Muslims. This is just self-defense against those rats.”
The posts were identified in a dossier compiled by the counter-extremism group Hope Not Hate.
Prior told the Mirror he was met with messages such as: “This is not something I would despise” and “this is not me”.
Prior also allegedly said that black people should be “segregated” and asked why “black people complain” about the slave trade. On October 27, 2025, she allegedly wrote “fine. mow” in response to a post by Member of Parliament Zarah Sultana about a Sikh woman being raped.
The Guardian attempted to contact Prior. He has previously denied making the comment or being racist.
Last year a Sikh woman in her 20s was raped in Walsall. Last week, 32-year-old John Ashby was sentenced to life in prison for racially motivated rape.
Ahead of the local election, four Labor MPs from the metropolitan borough of Sandwell sent a joint letter to Reform leader in Sandwell, Ray Nock, urging him to condemn the comments.
“The community in Sandwell was shaken to its core after a Sikh woman was raped in a racist attack last year. It has now been revealed that Stuart Prior, the Reform candidate in Essex, was celebrating the attack,” the letter says.
“As leader of the Reform party in Sandwell, will you condemn this disgusting behavior and write to Nigel Farage demanding that Stuart Prior immediately withdraw his candidacy for the Reform party?”
A Reform UK spokesman said: “Stuart Prior has informed us that he has resigned from his elected positions for ‘personal reasons’. We have also revoked his membership with Reform UK.”
