Manchester Evening News reported this morning that Wigan councillor Adrian White has now been put “under investigation” by Reform. Why hasn’t the party already expelled him?
Adrian White is one of Reform UK’s councillors in Wigan, having been elected in the Tyldesley and Mosley Common ward in May. HOPE not hate can reveal that he has a history of making shocking comments on social media, including calling for prominent Conservative politicians to be shot.
Tory peer Lord Michael Heseltine and former Conservative prime minister Theresa May have both been the target of his bloodthirsty fantasies.
In April 2018, White said of Heseltine, a prominent anti-Brexit campaigner: “Shoot him and his fellow parasites.” In a comparably violent post on 22 May 2019, when May was rejecting calls to resign as prime minister, he wrote on Facebook: “Champagne back on ice….can’t we just shoot her …please.”
After May announced she would leave Number 10 two days later, White told his followers: “Lord Haw Haw was hanged for treason – she has got off lightly. There are not enough words in the English dictionary to fully explain how much I detest this woman.”
White’s violent fantasies aren’t the only thing to raise concerns. He also appears to be a fan of the anti-Muslim extremist and serial criminal Stephen Lennon (AKA Tommy Robinson), having spoken out in his defence on several of occasions.
As well as that, he has peddled a variety of baseless conspiracy theories.
After Channel 4, the Times and Sunday Times published a joint investigation in September 2023, detailing allegations of sexual assault against the conspiracy theorist Russell Brand, White was quick to jump to his defence.
“When i [sic] started hearing that he was being chased and hounded by the media I sensed nasty and corrupt dealings were being planned,” he wrote, adding: “His biggest threat to these crooks is his intelligence and the numbers of followers he amasses. The Globalists of this World don’t sit alongside smart free thinking individuals who can persuade others to think for themselves. He is in big trouble … But not for his exploits between the sheets. Don’t condemn him for stories in the newspapers folks… I suddenly like him.”
In March 2025, White described the World Economic Forum, a common target for conspiratorial cranks, as “beyond evil” and “absolute monsters”. In the same social media post, he claimed: “The lockdown was an experiment to evaluate if we were that easy to control. It was an experiment to determine if we would follow their rules… Once they knew we WOULD follow those rules it was game set and match to them… The media too are evil employees willing to deliver whatever propaganda they are ordered to deliver. Influential bosses being paid fortunes to direct their staff to do as they are told.”
White also declared that global warming is “ONE HUGE, MONEY GRABBING SCAM” in September 2025 and asserted that the BBC “want to control the narrative on behalf of the Globalists who pay them to deliver their fortune making lies” in June this year.
White is just the latest Reform Wigan councillor to come under the spotlight for the wrong reasons.
Other Reform members of Wigan council include Rob Kenyon, the party’s candidate in the Makerfield parliamentary byelection who made sexist and homophobic comments; Gemma Painter and Lilian Rogers, who both posed with a banner declaring, “I would rather vote for Jimmy Savile than Labour”; and David Bowker, who ran firms that went bust owing taxpayers nearly £300,000.
The people of Wigan deserve far better.
Prefer to listen? Click the play button to hear the audio version. Harry Shukman Reform UK is staffed by oddballs and enigmas, but none odder…
