Suella Braverman becomes latest Reform MP to plug party donor JCB

Reform UK’s X account has put out a photo of Tory-turned-Reform UK MP Suella Braverman with a JCB digger during a visit to the construction equipment company’s HQ in Staffordshire.

J.C Bamford Excavators Limited donated £200,000 to Reform UK in November last year, as well as £200,000 to the Conservatives.

The chair of JCB, Anthony Bamford, and his brother Mark have been subject to a long-running investigation by HMRC due to their attempts to aggressively minimise their payment of tax in the UK by holding their money in offshore tax havens and companies. 

The social media post featured a photo of Braverman with a JCB digger and JCB workers, with the caption: “One message stood out to Suella Braverman while visiting apprentices at the JCB World HQ today.

“Britain is overdue a Skills Revolution, with more apprenticeships for young British people.”

One X user wrote: “Here are Reform actively promoting one of their donors and advertising their product.”

Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, Lee Anderson, Robert Jenrick, Zia Yusuf, Sarah Pochin have also all used their social media platforms to promote the JCB Pothole Pro machine.

In July, Reform’s candidate in the Manchester mayoral election, Sian Astley, used an election campaign video to talk about potholes and promote the Pothole Pro. 

This is despite the mayoral position she was running for not being responsible for upkeep of the roads. 

Last month, Andrew Harrison, the Reform leader of Leicestershire County Council, and his highways cabinet member Andrew Hamilton-Gray, announced that the council had signed up to trial the Pothole Pro. 

This is despite an assessment by highways officers in Leicestershire in 2025 concluding the vehicle was “too big” to deploy efficiently and was “not economical”. 

Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward