Reform UK has been making a lot of noise about JCB’s pothole-filling machine, and with obvious reason. Voters hate potholes, and JCB is one of the most evil companies in the UK, so of course Farage & co. would want to work with them. As it turns out, though, the magical pothole machine may not be all it’s cracked up to be. And our source on that is a Reform-run council:
This is awkward.
Michael’s own Leicestershire Council have stated the Pothole Pro is impractical:https://t.co/aEICJaRFbW pic.twitter.com/NBnVXq9AfS
— Reform Party UK Exposed
(@reformexposed) June 17, 2026
Mechanised ethnic cleansing
First things first, we should explain why we called JCB one of the most evil companies in the UK.
As we reported in September 2025, the Stop JCB campaign reported on how JCB supports “ethnic cleansing and genocide in Palestine, India, and Kashmir”. We added:
In Palestine, JCB operates through its sole dealer, the Israeli company Comasco. The corporation holds contracts with Israel’s Ministry of Defence for the same model of JCB machines the Zionist settler state uses in the demolitions and construction of settlements.
JCB has been at it for a long time, with photographers catching Israeli forces demolishing homes in the West Bank using their machinery as early as 2006. We also noted:
Currently, JCB is also complicit in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese listed JCB in her July report. This was among numerous companies directly aiding and profiting from the genocide. Israel has long used armoured, unbranded JCB High Mobility Engineer Excavator (HMEE) machines, known as ‘Ami’ in Hebrew, and is now using them in Gaza.
Oh, and no points for guessing which party JCB’s billionaire owner and peer Anthony Bamford supports:
JCB owner Bamford: “You can’t get away with £60k benefit handouts.”
Also billionaire brothers Anthony Bamford and Mark Bamford: Not paying a tax bill of up to £500 million.
What greedy, Farage-supporting bastards. pic.twitter.com/KZhpzajO3I
— Politics In The U.K. (@politixintheuk) May 17, 2026
Reform are all filler
Given Farage’s connection to Bamford, it’s unsurprising he made a big deal out of promoting the Zionist pothole machine:
WATCH: Nigel Farage arrives on stage at Reform UK’s local election launch on a JCB Pothole Pro pic.twitter.com/B9GKctAExO
— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) March 28, 2025
Now, a Reform council has suggested Bamford’s hole plugger isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As reported by the BBC, a 2025 report from Leicestershire County Council (LCC) found:
After two demonstrations, officers concluded that the JCB Pothole Pro did not stack up as an economical piece of kit to repair potholes in Leicestershire
Additionally:
The JCB PP is big – it’s bigger than a normal excavator, it would not be suitable for small defect repairs – the machine is too big and would close the road, it would be inefficient to travel round repairing small potholes.
Another problem was that the quantity of potholes they had to deal with meant they couldn’t:
utilise Pothole Pro’s full potential on a daily basis – which in turn would make it very inefficient
And also:
After two demonstrations, officers concluded that the JCB Pothole Pro did not stack up as an economical piece of kit to repair potholes in Leicestershire
JCB – a company which is happy for its product to be used for ethnic cleansing – suggested that LCC weren’t using the machine correctly, and that a longer test was needed. LCC aren’t the first to criticise what the machine can do anyway:
Reform UK’s ‘right first time’ pothole repairs in @NottsCC should be called ‘shite first time’.
This repair is in Council Leader Mick Barton’s own Mansfield East division: questionable workmanship, unsealed edges, lifespan roughly that of a snowflake in July.
Reform UK -… pic.twitter.com/WRBFTYqAhy
— Reform Party UK Exposed
Bunged up
Given the update, it’s no wonder people are saying things like this:
Leicestershire County Council has found that JCB’s pothole machine is not economically viable. I think they will find that it becomes viable when you look at JCB’s £200,000 donation to Reform rather than at the extra cost to council tax payers. pic.twitter.com/BIfD4zOigp
— Parody Nigel Farage (@Parody_PM) June 16, 2026
Personally, we don’t think any council should be working with companies that facilitate ethnic cleansing. The fact that these machines may not be all they’re cracked up to be just adds insult to injury.
If Reform should replace Labour in government, we’ve no doubt there’ll be many more questionable contracts, anyway. And the real hole left to fill will be the economic one left behind when they get kicked out.
Featured image via The Canary
By Willem Moore
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