Stephen Mousdell, a newly elected Reform UK councillor in Merseyside, has resigned just one day after reports emerged about his apparent side career appearing in adult videos online.

The 40 year old was elected to represent the Haydock ward on St Helens Council in last week’s local elections, winning comfortably with 1,331 votes, beating fellow Reform candidate Karen Chesworth by 49 votes.

Mousdell’s election was part of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK surge, with the party emerging as one of the biggest winners in the local elections. Their gains dealt a significant blow to Labour in areas once considered reliable strongholds. Reform’s success in places like St Helens has intensified concerns for Labour, signalling growing voter frustration and raising questions about the party’s ability to retain its working class support.

However, celebrations quickly ended when an investigation by LBC revealed Mousdell had starred in videos involving sex acts published on OnlyFans, Bluesky and the LGBT+ kink platform JustForFans.

Mousdell appeared under the alias Lochlan Taylor and featured in several videos alongside his partner, Kevin Lee. Several observers described the content as “hardcore pornography”. One self professed anti racist online political commentator, Mike F Shaw, stated:

“The vigorous vetting procedure of Reform UK LTD is once again showing just how much of a complete failure it is, or is it simply not being used at all so desperate for candidates they appear to be? The type of pornography Mr Mousdell is extreme, so extreme l’m not going to go into detail here as it would simply be removed by Facebook and rightly so.”

Reform UK, which has positioned itself as an emerging Westminster challenger, defended Mousdell, stating:

“It’s a sad state of affairs that a media witch hunt has hounded an elected official out of office because of his private life. No wonder ordinary, law abiding, working people are put off from standing for public office.”

Their response comes amid further controversy, as two other Reform councillors have also resigned since the local elections. Stuart Prior, elected to Essex County Council, stepped down after allegedly describing white people as “the master race”, and Nathaniel Menday resigned after failing to declare social media posts praising the Nazis as “visionaries”.

Stephen Mousdell released a statement about his resignation on Facebook:

“Recently, things have come out with regard to myself and my partner. We have always been transparent about it and not ashamed of what we do. We have full time jobs and also have adult professions, in which we abide by all EU and UK laws. We have never broken any laws or put anything into dispute. We also follow high standards in which we follow social media community guidelines and also keeping up to date with the ever changing UK online safety act.”

He continued:

“I wish to thank Reform UK and the St Helens Reform Party and leader in regard to the immense support over the last few days. But it is with sincere regret I am resigning as Reform councillor for Haydock ward. This is due to the immense pressures from the media, from individuals within the town hall, from certain parties and individuals who were not elected as councillor over a conflict of interest with regards to being a public figure in office and doing the adult profession.”

He added:

“I was told to apologise to the public and stop doing what I was doing if I was in for a chance of staying being a councillor but I refused because I have done no wrong doing and I’m not lying just to stay in office. I am who I am. I’m proud of what I do, there is no shame in it and I am proud to be a gay individual in this community.”