Dig Deep! Reform frontbench promotes JCBs after £200,000 donation from firm

Reform UK’s leading figures have repeatedly promoted a new pothole-fixing machine by the construction company JCB, while the party received £200,000 from the British digger maker, the Guardian can reveal.

Several Reform politicians including Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf and Richard Tice have sung the praises of the JCB PotHole Pro machine.

At a rally last year in Birmingham, Farage entered the stage on one of the repair vehicles and suggested it would be used in Reform-run councils when the party had taken control at local elections.

Describing JCB as “one of the most incredible companies in the world” in March 2025, he said: “This machine can mend potholes at half the cost that currently is being charged by other commercial operators, and aren’t potholes just the perfect symbol of broken Britain?

“So I thought I’d come in on a JCB, with a machine that actually works, and that county council should use, if they weren’t tied in, to five and 10-year contracts with inferior providers. But we’ll fix that, won’t we, when we control those county councils?”

After Farage lavished praise on the business, JCB gave a donation of £200,000 to Reform in November last year. The donation came after years of the family-owned company giving money to the Conservatives, with its chairman, Anthony Bamford, having sat as a Tory peer until 2024.

Now at least two Reform-run councils have adopted the machines through their contractor. They said this had been done through the proper procurement channels and not cost them any more money.

Councils run by other parties, including the Tories and Labour, also make use of the PotHole Pro. Lilian Greenwood, the Labour party’s roads minister, has described it as “one of the many great examples of using new technology to repair potholes faster and demonstrates how companies are harnessing new technology to repair potholes faster.”

However, favourable mentions of the machine appear most concentrated among Reform politicians.

A month ago, Anderson posted a video of a PotHole Pro at Nottinghamshire county council, saying: “Have a look at this, you’ve got to be impressed.”

Jenrick visited a JCB factory with Nottinghamshire council in February claiming the machine could fix potholes six times faster, while Tice recorded a video on one ata Reform conference last autumn saying he was “excited to see this fantastic machine working”.

Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, also accused councils of using “iron age technology” of pickaxes rather than “cutting edge tech like the JCB Pothole Pro” in May last year.

Reform are even promoting the JCB equipment on some local election leaflets, with Byline Times identifying two flyers in Barnet and Kirklees, where the machine is named as the answer to public frustration with degraded road surfaces.

Given the publicity being afforded to JCB, the Liberal Democrats have sent a complaint to the Electoral Commission and are calling for an investigation into whether the “public contracts may be being traded for political patronage”.

The party questioned whether Reform was “providing a product promotion service or a favourable policy environment” for JCB, asking if this was appropriate given the business was a donor.

A spokesperson for JCB said: “The JCBPothole Pro has a proven track record in undertaking permanent pothole repairs four times faster and at half the cost of traditional methods. For this reason, JCBPothole Pro machines are in use in Labour-led councils, Conservative-led councils, Reform-led councils, SNP-led councils and Liberal Democrat-led councils right across Great Britain. In council areas where the JCB Pothole Pro is not already in use, some trials are under way.”

Two Reform-led councils using the pothole fixing machine are Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. In Lincolnshire, where a previous trial in 2021 did not find the machine effective, the council confirmed this week that the PotHole Pro was “here to stay” after “the impressive kit completed an intensive trial on the county’s roads”.

In relation to the Lib Dem complaint, the councillor Sean Matthews, leader of Lincolnshire county council, said: “Given that this trial has been conducted, and that analysis has been overseen, by a very long-standing and respected group of (independent) officers who have been given the absolute freedom to say yes or no to this machine, I do not see how these comments apply to what has happened here.

“This trial has been set out differently to the previous trial in 2021, which lasted for just nine weeks. This new trial has shown a real benefit to road repair which can be proven, beyond doubt, after eight months on our roads. We now have a large amount of data which shows exactly where the gains are.

“To be clear, there was absolutely no political influence during this trial and we continue to look at other products to improve our roads ... it is important that, as part of our efforts to improve our 5,500-mile road network, the highways team have the freedom to properly trial new tech, and revisit previously discounted ideas, in our ongoing effort to fix Lincolnshire’s roads.”

Reform sources said the councils were working with contractors rather than JCB directly to trial kit and make decisions based on effectiveness.

They also strongly rebutted any suggestion that Reform “are or would ever trade public contracts for political patronage, unlike the Tory or Labour parties”.

Nottinghamshire council did not respond to requests for comment.