Reform UK has announced its candidate for the Greater Manchester Mayor race:

Reform UK is delighted to announce Sian Astley as our candidate for Mayor of Greater Manchester.

Sian has pledged to scrutinise contracts previously awarded by Andy Burnham to firms during his time as Mayor.

Greater Manchester is broken. Only Reform will fix it. pic.twitter.com/WGeV1rr9m8

— Reform UK (@reformparty_uk) June 29, 2026

As a woman, Astley won’t have the same problems as the party’s Makerfield candidate – the self-described ‘sexist’ Rob Kenyon. She has another big weakness, though, and it’s that she’s a landlord.

Reform don’t care about renters rights

Sian Astley is one of Reform’s latest councillors. Representing Baguley, Wythenshawe, she was elected in May. The fact that she won on a Reform ticket shows Greater Manchester voters have become interested in Farage’s party.

Accepting the candidacy, Astley said:

I am delighted to be chosen as Reform UK’s candidate for Mayor Greater Manchester – I am determined to improve communities and the lives of working people.

Over the years, we have all seen our towns and areas across Greater Manchester decline, with high streets left unattended, unfunded and unloved. They need to be placed front and centre again.

One of my first acts as Mayor will be to open up the books on contracts Andy Burnham awarded during his time as Labour’s Mayor, at least one of which was to a company which made substantial donations to his Mayoral campaign.

Politics needs real people with real life experience. People like me.

Burnham has been very popular as mayor, so there might not be much hunger to review his time in office. This isn’t to say we oppose scrutiny, however, as we’ve also argued the establishment media has failed to investigate Burnham.

And talking of scrutiny, who is Sian Astley?

Tax the who now?

A GB News interview with Astley from 2024 described her as follows:

Sian is a private landlord in Manchester. It’s her only source of revenue and yet, come the budget at the end of this month, her livelihood could be set to take a massive hit.

There’s a solution to this, Sian, and it’s to GET A JOB like the rest of us.

‘Has Labour really done its sums?’

Private Landlord, Sian Astley, meets @SophieReaper to discuss how her livelihood could be set to take a massive hit with the upcoming Labour budget.

Become a GB News Member: https://t.co/mNsRsGC8ef pic.twitter.com/sG75pX6UvW

— GB News (@GBNEWS) October 14, 2024

This is how Astley answered:

What they’re thinking of doing, because Labour just want to bring all the money in, so they want to potentially align income tax rates with capital gains. So at the minute capital gains is between 18 and 24% on any gain that you make and they’re thinking of lifting it I believe up to maybe I don’t know 40, 45%.

For reference, Manchester is the most expensive place to rent in the North West. In other words, there isn’t a great hunger for a landlords’ rights revolution.

Up to this point, it’s about what you’d expect from a landlord. Swallow what you’re drinking before reading this next part, though, because she also said:

I think we should be taxing the super rich, we should be taxing corporations, we should be taxing people that are taking money… offshore, but we’re not.

Umm, okay?

She’s saying all this in the context of not wanting to be taxed as a landlord, obviously, but still; this is what we like to hear. There’s a problem, though, and it’s that Reform UK is not a ‘tax the rich’ kind of party. This suggests one of two things:

• Sian Astley is a smart operator who uses economic populism to disguise her own intentions.
• Sian Astley is absolutely clueless; she had absolutely no idea what Reform represents when she joined, and the party didn’t vet her, because it seemingly doesn’t vet anyone.

Money for nothing

Giving you an idea of Reform’s stance on the rich, Harriet Williamson of Novara described the party as a “handful of oil execs in a trench coat“. In that same piece, she reported:

Reform’s treasurer and billionaire property developer Nick Candy has been busy wooing wealthy offshore donors in low-tax jurisdictions like Monaco, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, in 2024, more than half of the party’s donations – £2.5m – came from those with residences in low-tax countries or business interests in offshore jurisdictions. Part of this new funding drive involves soliciting cash from oil and gas executives. Candy told the Financial Times last month that Reform’s targets are donors in the fossil fuel sector who are “very disillusioned” with UK taxes on the industry’s profits. He also shared that he recently met an energy executive who donated £100k to the party and pledged to give up to £1m.

We’ll find out if Astley believes the economic populism talking points soon enough, anyway.

If she doesn’t come out talking like Gary Stevenson, you know she’s knocked that stuff on the head. If she does, we’ll learn something worrying – namely that Reform UK has wised up to what it needs to do to win in a place like Manchester.

Namely, it needs to lie.

Featured image via the Canary

By Willem Moore

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