When Conservative Kev Gulson came third in the contest for the Yaxley and Farcet division of Cambridgeshire County Council in May 2025, he might have thought his party had missed the boat. Gulson polled just 457 votes, with Lib Dem candidate Andrew Wood coming second with 921 votes and the winner, Reform’s Des Watt, topping the poll with 1,088 votes.
Fifteen months later, however, the Conservatives have acquired the seat after all – although not through Gulson. Watt, elected for Reform, has now joined them after a remarkable series of changes of political allegiance.
How Gulson is feeling today is not recorded after the party-hopping winner Watt became a non-aligned independent on 16 October 2025 before switching again in January of this year to Advance UK.
Why Watt switched again
And as of 17 August, Watt has switched again – this time to the Conservatives, the very party Gulson had represented just 15 months earlier in the same division. In an email to the Yaxley Gazette, the local magazine circulated to more than 7,000 homes each month, Watt said he had joined the Conservative Party.
The move has since been confirmed by Conservative group leader Ross Martin, who announced that Watt had joined the Conservative Group on Cambridgeshire County Council.
Watt said the move had “been in the pipeline for some time”, but that he had been unable to discuss it while details were being finalised. He said he had, like much of the public, struggled to find the political party with policies he believed were right for Britain.
He said the newer centre-right parties “seemed to talk a lot of sense” but argued they lacked the political skills needed to put those ideas into practice. Turning to the Conservatives, he said: “They have the talent, leadership and policies.”
He also said economic competence was a major consideration, adding: “Without proper stewardship of the economy, nothing else works; therefore, that has to be the number one priority.”
The move marks the latest chapter in a remarkable political journey for the Yaxley and Farcet county councillor.
The revolving councillor
Watt was elected as a Reform UK councillor in May 2025 and initially served as the party’s whip. But he left Reform and became a non-aligned independent. Cambridgeshire County Council records the Reform affiliation as ending in October 2025.
On 28 January 2026 he joined Advance UK, giving the short-lived party a county council presence. Advance had presented itself as a political movement focused on “principle, integrity and democratic accountability”.
That arrangement lasted only a matter of weeks. Council records show Watt left Advance on 6 March and returned to being a non-aligned independent the following day.
Advance itself was subsequently deregistered as a political party on 10 July 2026, according to the Electoral Commission.
Back where the story began
The move to the Conservatives brings the story back to the party represented by his former electoral rival, Kev Gulson.
Gulson had stood as the Conservative candidate in the Yaxley and Farcet county by-election in March 2024, when he finished second to Liberal Democrat Andrew Wood by just 39 votes.
At the 2025 county election, however, it was Reform candidate Des Watt who won the seat, defeating Wood by 167 votes, with Gulson coming third.
What about the voters?
For voters in Yaxley and Farcet, it means the councillor they elected as a Reform representative just 15 months ago is now a Conservative – without their having had another opportunity to vote on who should represent them.
This article is republished with kind permission of CambsNews. Read the original here.
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