Reform UK’s candidate for the North Shropshire by-election, Kirsty Walmsley, has tested positive for coronavirus, the party’s leader has said.

She will be replaced on the campaign trail by campaigners for the Reform party from elsewhere in the country.

Richard Tice told BBC News: “I can actually say that having been slightly unwell she has tested this morning positive for Covid, so obviously she will be remaining at home and indeed we’re obviously following the Government’s guidance and the protocols removing our campaign team who are with her.

“But I’m pleased to say that we have new activists who haven’t been in North Shropshire who can therefore come to the county and continue the positive campaign that she has been running, which has been around the need to send a message to Westminster Boris Johnson the Prime Minister is now seen as a liability on the doorstep.”

Reform was the party that grew out of Nigel Farage's Brexit Party in the aftermath of the UK's removal from the European Union.

Bookies currently have the party in fourth place, with the Liberal Democrats the favourites to win the Conservative stronghold seat as the battle enters its final days.