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Reform party official wants to scrap vital New Addington trams

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EXCLUSIVE: As Nigel Farage’s company-cum-party struggles with a constant credibility crisis, here in Croydon, one member has a policy idea which could damage their election chances. By STEVEN DOWNES

End of the line?: Reform’s Peter Morgan wants to scrap the tram network, including the vital link to New Addington

Ahead of next May’s local elections in Croydon, Peter Morgan wants to make it Reform UK policy to scrap the tram system.

That’s according to Croydon members of Reform, some of whom have described the Coulsdon motoring lobbyist’s policy proposals ahead of next year’s local elections as “bat-shit crazy”.

Reform seems somehow able to ride out any scandals and incompetence among its leadership, candidates and officials. The latest piece of Reform criminal sleaze saw their former leader in Wales being sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking bribes in return for publicly backing dictator Vladimir Putin’s Russian regime.

Closer to home, their national party HQ chose as their candidate for Croydon Mayor a dead woman from Yorkshire.

Traitor: Nathan Gill, a senior member of Reform UK, admitted to taking bribes from Putin’s Russia

But scrapping the tram network, as Morgan is advocating, might be something their party in Croydon could never recover from.

According to national opinion polls, Reform UK has genuine prospects of picking up a handful of councillor seats at Croydon Town Hall at the local elections in less than six months’ time.

That includes all four council seats in the two wards in New Addington.

That’s the same area of Croydon which, perhaps more than most, has come to rely on the tram service to transport residents to and from work each day, or simply get them to central Croydon, the Purley Way and other destinations reached by the vital public transport artery that has been serving south London for 25 years.

The London Trams are today operated under the aegis of Transport for London.

At peak times, as many as eight trams an hour run between New Addington and West Croydon. According to TfL official figures, more than 200,000 passenger journeys were undertaken to or from New Addington just in the period between September 14 and October 11 this year – accounting for around 15% of the tram network’s overall ridership.

But according to local party members who have attended his meetings and received his emails, Reform UK’s Peter Morgan wants the tram network scrapped.

In the past, Morgan has been an active member of UKIP and the Conservatives, and managed to get himself kicked out of both parties.

In Reform, Morgan has taken to signing off his emails as “REF London data analyst”.

According to one member who has been on the receiving end of his emails, “Morgan collects contact details from members at each available opportunity and then harasses them, on an almost daily basis, with meaningless emails about his own interpretation of publicly available data.”

Nasty: Now a member of Reform UK, Peter Morgan is notorious in Croydon political circles

It is understood that Morgan has been a good deal less frank with Reform members over the circumstances which led to the Cordrey Gardens resident’s arrest in 2022, when his house and garden were cordoned off and treated as a crime scene.

Morgan was later released without charge.

The Met Police has confirmed to Inside Croydon that their investigation is continuing.

The arrest was believed to be connected with a large number of officers who conducted a search of woods near How Lane. Allotments nearby were also searched by police.

Coulsdon councillors had to issue messages of reassurance after a man was seen to be vandalising hedges surrounding a local primary school.

Peter Morgan has never commented on the arrest, and has not responded to previous approaches.

Morgan had already made himself notorious in Croydon political circles for his stubborn opposition to the tram scheme and his opposition to anything which he deems to be “anti-motoring”, whether that be bus lanes, 20mph zones or even allowing children to walk to school.

Morgan rightly attracted widespread ridicule for claiming that walking to school is bad for children’s health. He also attracted public disgust for his efforts to prevent a 91-year-old Holocaust survivor from giving a talk to a meeting of the East Coulsdon Residents’ Association.

Morgan has been a serial local election candidate, for UKIP as well as an independent, without ever attracting much public support. He was also an influential figure with the racist apologists at the Croydon Communities Consortium.

Millionaire grifter: Nigel Farage’s company-cum-party has welcomed Peter Morgan and his ‘bat-shit crazy’ ideas

But he appears to have found a welcoming new political home among Reform UK, the money-spinning company led by grifter Nigel Farage.

In a recent email to Croydon Reform members, seen by Inside Croydon, “data analyst” Morgan wrote in his inimitable way: “Latest polling data shows LAB only 3.6% ahead of REF in Croydon borough – before the Croydon factor of LAB bad, and before the Budget.

“That means an excellent chance of winning the mayor – if we campaign strongly across the whole borough.”

Morgan then refers to two graphics, including one which shows “the level of car use”.

Motoring-obsessed Morgan writes, now using bold type, presumably for emphasis: “There is a clear and strong link between high and higher levels of support for REF and high and higher levels of car use. Equally the reverse also holds strongly – we don’t have support where car use is low…

“In Croydon South, where CON are strong, a campaign with pro-car policies is likely to attract CON voters to REF.

“In Croydon East, where CON are strong, ie Selsdon and Shirley, again pro-car policies will attract CON voters – and also some LAB voters.

“In New Addington, car use is high and REF are strong, so again pro-car wins.”

“Pro-car” Morgan is reckoned to have cost Croydon Council “something over £100,000 in staff time and admin overheads in dealing with his often ludicrous ideas and objections” to the tram proposals in the 1990s, according to a former Town Hall staffer.

His efforts to make scrapping the tram system official Reform policy at the local elections could cost Farage’s party, which has a constant credibility crisis, far more.

“Peter Morgan shouldn’t be anywhere near politics regardless of the level. He is dangerous,” was the firm opinion of one Reform member to contact Inside Croydon.

Read more: Worries over ‘nasty’ Peter Morgan’s part in Croydon Reform UK
Read more: Coulsdon West residents in move to kick out plotter Morgan
Read more: Lobbyist Morgan threatens to block car-free zones near schools


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