Robert Kenyon
British politician (born 1984/1985)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Francis Kenyon[1][2] (born 1984 or 1985) is a British politician and self-employed plumber and gas engineer who has served as the Reform UK Wigan Metropolitan Borough Councillor for Ashton-in-Makerfield North since 7 May 2026. He has worked as a specialist technician in the National Health Service (NHS) in Lancashire and previously served as a combat engineer in the Army Reserve, attaining the rank of lance corporal.
1984 or 1985 (age 41–42)
Robert Kenyon | |
|---|---|
| Councillor for Bryn with Ashton-in-Makerfield North on Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council | |
| Assumed office 7 May 2026 | |
| Preceded by | Scarlett Myler |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Francis Kenyon 1984 or 1985 (age 41–42) Makerfield, England |
| Party | Reform UK (since 2023) |
| Children | 2 |
| Occupation | Plumber, politician |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance | United Kingdom |
| Branch/service | British Army |
| Rank | Lance corporal |
| Unit | Royal Engineers |
Kenyon has stood in local and general elections for Reform UK, finishing second in Makerfield at the 2024 general election, and was elected as a councillor in the 2026 Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council election. He was selected as Reform UK candidate for the 2026 Makerfield by-election.
He has described himself as coming from a working class background and has cited concerns including public services, housing, infrastructure, and the cost of living crisis. Kenyon has rejected allegations of extremism and racism towards Reform UK and presented it as an alternative to the UK's established political parties. He has received criticism for his comments and interactions with far-right figures on social media.
Life outside politics
Kenyon was born in Makerfield and has said he grew up in a single-parent household and received free school dinners.[3][4] He attended St Edmund Arrowsmith Catholic High School, Ashton-in-Makerfield.[5][6] He has said he was raised in a Labour-supporting family and completed an apprenticeship in plumbing aged 18.[3][4][7] Kenyon has worked as a self-employed plumber and gas engineer and a specialist NHS technician in Lancashire.[8][9][4] He formerly served as a combat engineer in the Army Reserve within the Royal Engineers, where he attained the rank of lance corporal.[10][3][11]
Kenyon is a Wigan Warriors fan, and practises Muay Thai.[11][7] He has also written a novel titled The Blood Waltz[12] and as a regular fan columnist covering Wigan Warriors in a local newspaper and acted as a matchday commentator for their matches.[3][10] Kenyon is a father of two children with his wife, who works for a legal firm.[3] As of 20 May 2026[update], he was 41 years old.[3][4][5]
Political career
Kenyon stood for Reform UK in Winstanley in the 2023 Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council election. He received 427 (18%) votes, came last, and was not elected.[1] During the 2024 Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council election, he stood in Orrell, received 423 (14%) votes, and came third.[13] He contested Makerfield at the 2024 general election. He received 12,803 (32%) votes, finishing second to Labour's Josh Simons, who was elected as the member of parliament for the constituency.[14][15]
In May 2026, during the 2026 Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council election, Kenyon was elected as the councillor for the Ashton-in-Makerfield North ward, with 1,770 (52%) votes.[2] Shortly after being elected, Kenyon criticised Josh Simons for resigning and triggering a UK parliamentary by-election to enable Andy Burnham to return to the House of Commons. He said the estimated cost of almost half a million pounds of taxpayers' money was inappropriate during the cost of living crisis, though another councillor said his comments were hypocritical, saying Reform UK "is a party built and bankrolled by tax dodgers".[16] Later the same month, Reform UK selected him as its candidate for the 2026 Makerfield by-election.[8][17][9] He pointed out Makerfield had never had an MP born in the constituency, as he was, and vowed "I am going to give this contest my best shot".[10][18][19]
On 20 May 2026, during the by-election campaign, Nigel Farage, Kenyon, and Reform UK campaign staff visited a cafe in Wigan run by a charity supporting young adults with additional needs while rival candidate Andy Burnham was attending an event celebrating trainees. The charity's founder, Gemma Crompton, criticised the unannounced visit by a large group with security and media crews as "intimidating and overwhelming" and requested that Reform UK apologise. Reform UK said the visit by Farage and Kenyon was not pre-planned or political and denied that party photographers took photographs or videos inside the cafe. The party suggested that Crompton's criticism may have been "politically influenced".[20][21][22]
Political views and policies
During his campaign for Makerfield in the 2024 general election, Kenyon said potholes, NHS capacity, housing affordability, apprenticeships, recreational drug use, pub closures, and the cost of living crisis were among the main problems facing the constituency.[23][11] He also criticised what he described as "wokeness" and eroding freedoms, and argued that taxpayers were not getting value for money.[23] Kenyon presented himself as a working class candidate shaped by manual work, military service, and NHS employment, and said he wanted to make Makerfield better by supporting Reform UK.[23] In 2024, he also celebrated when Reform UK adopted left-wing policies such as nationalising utilities and abolishing the two-child benefit cap, though they were later dropped after Robert Jenrick joined the party and started influencing its economic platform.[24]
Ahead of the 2026 Makerfield by-election, Kenyon criticised Labour and Conservative governments for outcomes since the Blair era and current national and local conditions.[4][3] He says Reform UK combines ideas from left and right, including support for partial public ownership of infrastructure companies.[7][3] He highlights local priorities including infrastructure, affordability, and public services, citing neglect by national politics.[9][4][3] Kenyon has cited concerns about mass immigration and called for a political clean slate driven by dissatisfaction with mainstream parties.[7][3] He rejects claims of Reform UK being racist or extremist and frames the election as a contest between the party, as outsiders, and established political parties.[7][3]
Social media activity
Kenyon was among several Reform UK politicians identified as being Facebook friends with an account belonging to Gary Raikes, a British fascist politician, in June 2024. Previously the leader of the British National Party in Scotland, Raikes founded and leads the New British Union, a neo-fascist group claiming to be a revival of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists that advocates for overthrowing parliamentary democracy via a "fascist revolution".[10][25][26] Reform UK responded to reporting on Kenyon's status as a Facebook friend of Raikes by saying it "does not constitute an endorsement of his views" and that they are "proud to have him represent the party",[10][25][27] while a Labour spokesperson said the reporting was "serious and deeply troubling" and that Reform UK's leader, Nigel Farage, had to state if Reform were "aware of his candidate's apparent fascist friends".[10][28][29]
Searchlight, which originally found Kenyon was Facebook friends with Raikes in 2024,[30][27] found that he was also friends on the same platform with Alex Eversfield, a neo-Nazi, and Robert Baggs, a leading member of the neo-fascist Homeland Party.[31][32][33] Kenyon also made a number of posts about women on a web forum for rugby league fans which included saying women can't "ref, drive or give directions" and declaring "I'm sexist, sorry but I am". A spokesperson for Reform UK described the comments as "locker room banter" while Anna Turley, the Chair of The Labour Party, said the "comments on women are degrading and an insult to the women and girls who live and work in Makerfield".[12]
Posts from Kenyon's Twitter account during the 2024 general election campaign focused heavily on immigration and later included commentary linking local crime, the UK's asylum policy, and the Southport murders to broader claims about immigration and policing. In the aftermath of the murders, he also interacted with and amplified posts from several far-right and alt-right commentators, such as Carl Benjamin and Eva Vlaardingerbroek.[9][34] Kenyon has also used Twitter to voice scepticism over the efficacy of a vaccine in reply to an NHS-run account and express support for Donald Trump.[9][34][35] Kenyon was banned from Twitter for breaking the platform's rules.[10][35][28] Kenyon expressed the view on social media that abortion is a "cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby" and suggested that women make false rape accusations to access abortions.[32][33][36]
His posts on a second Twitter account included comments including voicing COVID-19 conspiracy theories, sexist and sexually explicit comments about women, including Carol Vorderman and women's rugby players, and violent and homophobic messages. A Labour spokesperson said the comments were "disgusting" and made Kenyon unfit "to represent Makerfield", while a Reform spokesperson said they had no plans to investigate him over his social media activity and that they "fully back" him.[37][38][39] Vorderman denounced Kenyon's comments, saying he "is a misogynist" and was being a "disgusting online absuser" in the highlighted social media activity.[40][41][42]
Bibliography
- Kenyon, Rob (11 July 2017). The Blood Waltz. ISBN 978-1521826133.