{"id":585627,"date":"2026-05-15T14:46:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/585627\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T14:46:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T14:46:07","slug":"tories-suspend-leader-at-worcestershire-council-after-he-made-deal-to-oust-reform-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/585627\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories suspend leader at Worcestershire council after he made deal to oust Reform | Conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Conservatives have suspended the party\u2019s leader at Worcestershire county council after he made a deal with the Greens and Liberal Democrats<\/a> to oust Reform.<\/p>\n

Reform UK gained control of the council a year ago but its tenure has been marked by a series of controversies and political infighting. This included a bitter leadership battle in which the now former Reform councillor Jo Monk was replaced as leader of the council in April.<\/p>\n

At a full council meeting to elect a new leader on Thursday, Reform UK lost minority control of the authority after the Conservatives<\/a> teamed up with the Green party, Lib Dems and independents to form an alliance. The Green councillor Matt Jenkins is now leading the council.<\/p>\n

Adam Kent, the leader of the Tory group in Worcestershire<\/a>, was suspended from the party after the meeting. The chair of the Conservative party, Kevin Hollinrake MP, said it did not approve of an arrangement with the Greens and its position was \u201cclear from the start\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Kent] told the national party he would not do a deal with the Greens,\u201d Hollinrake said. \u201cThen he went ahead and put together a rainbow coalition involving Green councillors anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWorse, his group was told something that was not true. Fellow Conservative councillors were given the impression that this deal had party support when it did not. This was dishonest.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC before his suspension, Kent said residents in Worcestershire had \u201csuffered appallingly due to the instability of Reform\u201d and \u201cat some point, responsible councillors have to stop standing on the sidelines\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn national policy there are many areas where we continue to disagree with the Greens \u2013 however, local government is not Westminster,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how his suspension will affect the coalition in Worcestershire.<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s tenure there attracted criticism after the council received \u00a359.9m of emergency government funding and increased council tax by 9% to prevent bankruptcy. In March, Farage said he wished the party \u201chadn\u2019t bothered\u201d to take minority control of the county council. \u201cWorcestershire, I have to say, we took minority control of a virtually bankrupt council. I wish we hadn\u2019t bothered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The council meeting on Thursday came after Monk was ousted as leader of Reform, after an internal party vote, and replaced by Alan Amos. Monk, who is now an independent, was suspended from the party for \u201crefusing to accept the democratic decision of the Reform UK group\u201d on Monday.<\/p>\n

Reform took minority control of the council last year, gaining 27 councillors, two short of an overall majority.<\/p>\n

Monk said she was suspended by Reform for refusing to step down as council leader.<\/p>\n

David Taylor, a former Reform cabinet member who quit the party, supported ousting the Reform administration in Thursday\u2019s vote. He said he did not support the direction of the Reform administration, including the decision to increase council tax by 9%.<\/p>\n

Asked whether the new power-sharing arrangement was workable, he said: \u201cWe\u2019re not dealing with national policy, the vast majority \u2013 outside of adult social care and children\u2019s social care \u2013 most residents contact talk about pothole and parking issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you would imagine at this level, adults can work together whatever their national ideology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform UK has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Conservatives have suspended the party\u2019s leader at Worcestershire county council after he made a deal with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-585627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}