That it should have taken me so long to get round to the “local” picture in the local elections – which took place in May this year – is not ideal; however, the story remains worth telling. While the period from May to now has at times shown less activity from the Wessex Regionalists, the story of our involvement in the 2025 elections is an important one, especially with the continued popularity of Reform UK, and the upcoming 2026 local elections, to be contested in parts of Wessex from Plymouth to Oxford, and a large number of districts in Hampshire.
Engagement began with us sending a “Wessex and Local Government” survey, whose results can be viewed here. Interest in the survey was present among independents and minor party candidates, and we received six responses in total, with most results coming in in the following few days: four of these respondents were independent candidates; a further one was standing for the Communist Party of Britain (CPB); and the last was a member of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party (OMRLP).
Stage two was to ourselves survey the results and contact any candidates with whom WR was well-aligned on policy and belief in devolution. I was myself also in contact with the CPB candidate who shared their thoughts on devolution, and a policy document to that effect. We offered our official endorsement of Alan Charles Spencer in Ivybridge, Devon; Jon Hubbard, in Melksham, Wiltshire; and Matthew Dean, in Westbury, Wiltshire; and offered our support with electoral campaigning.
Jon Hubbard was the candidate who took us up on our offer, and, the day before polling day, I took the Great Western Railway down to Westbury.
One of the first things to strike me about Jon Hubbard was his big, booming voice. On the car journey from the station to Melksham town, we discussed matters of regional devolution, and the political situation in Wiltshire.
Jon has always been committed to the idea of devolved regional government, but was unconvinced that Wessex would be an appropriate size of region. WR’s proposals, he suggested, covered a vast area of the south and south west of England. He also expressed scepticism about the exclusion of Cornwall – though, of course, I explained that Mebyon Kernow (MK) were long-time associates of the Wessex Regionalists. Just a few days before I had personally been assisting campaigners down in Kernow, and had also attended MK’s conference, at which I suggested that continued support for Wessex as defined by WR would help towards the case for a Cornish national assembly, that WR and MK could unite against proposals for the floated ‘Great South West’ region which ignored the traditional uniqueness of Cornwall. Jon agreed that England would be disproportionately large in a ‘four nations’ devolution system, but compared this to Cornwall and Wessex, which are indeed vastly different in size. The difference, I responded, was that in a federal nations system, England would have a majority of land and voters on its own; in a regional system, Wessex would be quite large but would at best have a plurality and not a majority, because it would be one of potentially up to nine English regions. Cornwall, in such a hypothesis, would also be separate from the ‘English’ system altogether.
With regards the local situation in Melksham and with Wiltshire County Council, Jon’s predictions were as follows: a large drop in support for the Conservative Party, with the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK picking up the spoils. Reform UK were somewhat of an unknown variable, given that they were new, that national polling would not be as reliable in the locals, and that they could potentially mobilise a section of the electorate who normally would not vote. Jon had been a committed independent Councillor for many years, and had helped pioneer a project for an outstanding and much-loved café in a local park opened from a revamped cricket pavilion – (after I delivered a couple hundred leaflets in the morning, we had lunch there, and I can thoroughly recommend it) – so his ward had the potential to be a two-way fight between himself and Reform UK.
My job consisted purely of delivering leaflets, which I managed to do fairly well between the advantage of experience – in my own running as an independent in Maidenhead – and the disadvantage of the day’s oppressive sun. Back to Jon’s house with a few hundred leaflets posted through doors and letterboxes, and we visited the café before lunch, before chatting with a local journalist in a coffee house. No article was written that I know of, but I appreciated the willingness to discuss devolution for Wessex, which appeared particularly relevant given the rural location. Jon Hubbard himself is a localist and shared my view that regional devolution should essentially sooner widen and strengthen the powers of local government by devolving central government power down to the regional level, than amalgamate and weaken the powers of county and local government. Labour’s mayoral model vests much power in a single figurehead, and can be seen as ‘centralising’ in that many of the mayor’s powers are taken not from above but below – nonetheless, the proposed Heart of Wessex Combined Authority is positive news for the region in terms of visibility at least.
Jon managed to find me a space to attend the vote count on the Friday morning, and I was glad to attend the event in Wiltshire County Hall in Trowbridge, even if the central atrium’s plastic roof caused a greenhouse effect for candidates and counters in the already hot May heat. The vote was very tight between Jon and Reform U.K., and, in terms of the Council’s overall composition, between the heavily-damaged Conservative Party and the renascent Liberal Democrats. Independents were less popular this year, but – hopefully with the help of some of my leafleting – Jon managed to scrape past and hold his seat with a majority of 23 votes! As such, the composition of the Council ended up with the possibility of a Liberal Democrat-Independent coalition with a majority of one seat.
Throughout the day, I met with members of all parties and none to find out more about the local situation, and of course explain in turn that the Wessex Regionalists had endorsed Jon and Matthew Dean in their respective campaigns. Matthew and I met at the count, but unfortunately for us he was pipped into second spot by a candidate from Reform UK in his ward of Westbury West. Nonetheless, my involvement with Jon Hubbard’s campaign may have proved pivotal both to his seat and to the precarious balance in favour of the Liberal Democrats and Independents in the County Council. Jon was since appointed Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Education, and Skills.
I was pleased to hear interest in the Wessex Regionalists from many of those I spoke to. A member of Devizes Guardians was intrigued at the prospect of trying to bring together different local parties across the region, and Jon was keen on the idea of a network of candidates of diverse beliefs who shared the common values of regionalism and localism in the region – the name should be the Wessex Independent Network, he proposed, because the acronym “WIN” would embody our end goal in contesting elections in the area.
Jon and Matt Dean both raised the wyvern flag with me outside the County Hall as events began to conclude, marking a symbolic end to this local election campaign in which a Regionalist presence, though small, played its part in securing new governance for the people of Wiltshire. Here are the photos below:
Wessex Regionalists 