Reform UK to elect new leader of Lancashire County Council this weekend

The Reform UK group that now controls Lancashire County Council will elect a leader this Saturday, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) can reveal.

The vote had been expected to take place last weekend in the wake of the party’s emphatic victory in the local elections, which saw it secure a majority at County Hall.

However, the Lancashire group had to await the implementation of rules and procedures for the leadership election process, which have now been drawn up by Reform at a national level after it also took control of nine other county councils across England.

Following Saturday’s poll of the 53 Reform members of Lancashire County Council, the successful candidate will then become the leader elect of the authority before a confirmation vote of the full council is heard at its annual general meeting on 22nd May.

Stephen Atkinson – the former leader of Ribble Valley Borough Council, who defected to Reform from the Tories in March and was elected last week as the county councillor for Ribble Valley South West – has said he will be putting his name forward for the contest.

Fellow Reform county councillor Ged Mirfin – who sat on the authority as a Tory from 2021 until he also defected to Reform just six weeks before the elections – said the group wanted a leader in place as soon as possible in order to avoid a period of “political inertia” at the authority.

The Ribble Valley North East representative also addressed criticism from the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups at County Hall about the lack of council experience amongst the new ruling group.

“[Many] have experience of a different [kind] – some have worked in the NHS or the civil service – and we will be really trying to draw on people’s skillsets and knowledge.

“There are also seven ex-district councillors within the group – not including myself and Stephen,” County Cllr Mirfin said.

He is joined within the group by fellow former Tory colleague, Matthew Salter – who became the first Lancashire county councillor to defect to Reform in March and was last week re-elected under his new political colours to his Wyre Rural Central seat.

The party’s win has seen it secure the largest single-party majority on Lancashire County Council in modern times.

County Cllr Mirfin said: “This is movement politics at its best.   We are going to be bringing the experience of the general public to bear in political decision-making in a large way.

“People voted in huge numbers [for Reform], because they thought the established political parties were becoming staid.

“Now you could put all the Labour county councillors in a Mini and the Tory county councillors in a minibus – it’s phenomenal.”