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Darren Grimes (born 22 July 1993) is a British Reform UK politician and political commentator. A Liberal Democrat activist before dropping out of university, he then worked for a number of Brexit campaigns. He set up the website Reasoned in May 2020. He currently serves as the Deputy Leader of Durham County Council and as a Reform UK councillor in Durham County Council, having been elected in the 2025 local elections.
However, by the following year Grimes' political stance had changed and he founded the pro-Brexit group BeLeave aimed at younger voters during the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum campaign.
Grimes later dropped out of university, and between 2016 and 2018, he worked as a deputy editor for the political website BrexitCentral, founded by Matthew Elliott, the former Vote Leave chief executive. In 2018, he became the digital manager for the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a free market think tank.
In 2019, he was amongst those associated with a newly launched right-wing youth organisation called Turning Point UK (TPUK), set up by Conservative Party donor and unsuccessful Brexit Party MEP candidate George Farmer. It is closely allied to Turning Point USA, a pro-Donald Trump youth movement.
In May 2020 Grimes launched Reasoned, a website aimed at those "standing against the tide" who "hide their political views for fear of being called heterophobic, a TERF, or racist". It is a rebranding of a previous conservative youth group called Reason, and is backed by the son of former Brexit Party MEP Lance Forman. According to the satirical magazine Private Eye, a video was released in 2020 by Grimes on Reasoned that appeared to be a near word-for-word copy of a video released by the US right-wing platform PragerU. Facebook adverts for the group placed in 2018 were paid for by "Your Channel Media", a company owned and run by TPUK chief executive Oliver Anisfeld.
In July 2020, an interview with the historian David Starkey that Grimes published on his video platform sparked controversy. The historian remarked that "Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there?" This prompted criticism, including condemnation by former Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid, and Grimes tweeted that "I reject in the strongest possible terms what Dr Starkey said in that clip and so very wish I'd caught it at the time." The Metropolitan Police opened an investigation into Grimes on the suspicion of stirring up racial hatred, and requested to interview Grimes. The former director of public prosecutions Ken Macdonald called the investigation "deeply threatening of free speech", a view which was echoed by some Conservative Party MPs. The investigation concluded without any charges being brought.
In July 2021, Grimes sent a tweet to Marcus Rashford following the England football team's defeat in the Euro 2020 Final at which Rashford missed a penalty kick. Grimes tweeted: "Honestly though @MarcusRashford, penalties not politics from now on, aye?", referring to Rashford's successful lobbying to extend the provision of free school meals. Grimes' comment was criticised by various people on social media as insensitive.
In April 2023 he returned to GB News, co-hosting a Saturday night show and as a stand-in for several presenters, including Neil Oliver.
On 1 March 2025, Grimes left GB News.
On 15 May 2025, Grimes was elected as Deputy Leader of the Reform UK Group in Durham Council.
In July 2025 it was reported that when speaking to a constituent Grimes claimed that the police had advised him to not hold surgeries on security concerns. A senior PCC spokesperson for Joy Allen, Durham Police & Crime Commissioner, told the constituent: “The Police have not advised councillors not to hold surgeries in the community. They would only do this in exceptional circumstances i.e. if there was a specific risk identified.”
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