Reform UK's general secretary, Tom Waterhouse, has left his post after about 16 months in the job, the party confirmed on Wednesday, and Nigel Farage has appointed an interim replacement who has not yet been named.
"Tom Waterhouse has left his role with Reform UK. The party leader has now appointed an interim General Secretary," a Reform UK spokesperson said.
The general secretary oversees candidate vetting, internal discipline and compliance, and the departure follows a run of damaging episodes for the party: a police investigation into its donations, an undercover ITV documentary on the conduct of its councillors and candidates, and criminal charges against a Hampshire councillor.
The reason for Waterhouse's exit is contested. An unnamed Reform source told the Daily Mail that he had left to spend more time with his family, adding: "He's still hugely supportive of the party and will be heavily involved going forward."
The Mail, which first reported the departure on Wednesday morning, said separately that party chiefs had grown irritated with Waterhouse over Reform's vetting processes and over his handling of the charges against George Madgwick. The Express reported that he left as part of a drive to improve vetting. Both accounts rest on anonymous briefings, and Waterhouse has not commented publicly.
The Mirror reported that he quit unexpectedly.
Labour seized on the departure. Bridget Phillipson, the party's chair, said: "As the scandals pile up for Reform, everyone is being forced to take the blame except Nigel Farage."
She added: "Their general secretary is the latest fall-guy, but we all know nobody in Reform makes a decision without Farage's approval."
Farage had not commented publicly on the departure at the time of writing.
Waterhouse was one of two senior officials behind Reform's internal inquiry into the donations affair that followed a Channel 4 News undercover investigation broadcast on 3 September. Dan Jukes, an aide to Farage, and James Orr, the party's head of policy, stepped down pending that inquiry after being filmed discussing funding from overseas sources, including a proposed £500,000 donation that Channel 4 said was never made.
The 27-page report, written by the party's legal secretary and its general secretary and published in early October, found no evidence that Jukes or Orr "knowingly entered into or acted in furtherance of an arrangement to facilitate an impermissible donation." Both men deny wrongdoing. A Metropolitan Police criminal investigation continues, HuffPost UK reported on Wednesday.
Waterhouse was also involved in the suspension in August of Tim Montgomerie, the founder of ConservativeHome. A senior party source told The Spectator at the time that the general secretary and the chairman had acted after months of complaints about Montgomerie's conduct.
The vetting criticism in the Mail's account relates to the ITV documentary, Undercover: A Year in Reform, broadcast on 18 October, which examined the conduct of Reform councillors and election candidates. A party spokesperson said after the broadcast: "However good the vetting, one cannot vet a future comment".
Madgwick, 37, of Portsmouth, was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service in early November with 35 offences, including 12 counts of rape, relating to four complainants between 2008 and 2021. Reform suspended him with immediate effect. He has resigned from the Reform group on Hampshire County Council but remains a councillor, and is due to appear at Portsmouth Magistrates' Court on 25 November.
The Mail did not set out what it meant by Waterhouse's handling of the charges, and Reform has not addressed the claim.
A Reform spokesperson told HuffPost UK that Waterhouse was told to either resign or be sacked as part of the party's "professionalisation", and the party has not named the interim general secretary.
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