Ten Reform UK councillors in Derbyshire say they have resigned in protest over Nigel Farage’s leadership.

The group said Reform was being run in an “increasingly autocratic manner” and “has lost its sense of direction” since Farage took over as leader last June.

But Farage told BBC Newsnight the councillors who had quit were put forward by a “rogue branch” of the party and that “none of them passed vetting”.

The Clacton MP also said he and Elon Musk had patched up their relationship after the tech billionaire posted on the X social media platform that Reform needed a new leader.

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Stevenson, who stood for Reform UK in Amber Valley in the general election and came second, did not deny that some of the candidates he put forward for local elections had not passed the party’s vetting process.

“Apparently one of them shared a Tommy Robinson post a few years ago,” he told the BBC. “We have got no issue with that.”

He added the councillor in question, who he did not name, was a “good bloke”.

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Farage told Newsnight that Musk had wanted him to “come out strongly and support [former EDL leader] Tommy Robinson.”

“Whilst many things Tommy Robinson has said have been right and it’s wrong he’s in solitary confinement, I certainly don’t want Tommy Robinson in my party,” he said.

Refusing to disclose the contents of their “private conversation”, Farage said that he and Musk have since made up and “absolutely agree we don’t want to be at war with each other and have very similar aims”.