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A Reform council has descended into a series of resignations, email leaks and lurid allegations – as a councillor quit the party over the leader allegedly mocking mental health as “woke.”
Former Reform councillor Kenny Hope – now sitting as an independent – alleges that Durham’s Reform council leader Andrew Husband said “mental health is woke” during an April 2026 cabinet working group meeting, while two cabinet members are said to have opened wine and one vaped.
Another former Reform councillor – again now sitting as an independent – Cllr Kate Rowland, said a Reform meeting “includ[ed] drinking wine at 3:30 in the afternoon, vaping openly, laughing, joking, showing blatant disinterest, and belittling mental health.”
“[It] showed an appalling lack of seriousness,” she claimed, in council-wide emails shared with Byline Times.
Leader Cllr Andrew Husband told this outlet: “I stated Virtue Signalling about mental health in such a way is woke”. He did not deny branding some of his colleagues “narcissists”.
On Tuesday, emails flew around to all councillors between the Reform leader and his own councillors – and former members – concerned about the handling of complaints and the leadership’s attitude to mental health issues.
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Amid a flurry of personal attacks, on Wednesday, Cllr Husband wrote to councillors: “This is a request to quit the spamming. The three amigos [former Reform councillors] have now had multiple warnings about abusing this platform. I will be reaching out to individual group leaders to put this nonsense to bed.
“I suggest training for those who don’t understand how local government works.”
He added: “Rest assured the Reform leak has been found so business as usual. These people can’t even leak properly.”
“I will be asking the council to conduct a risk assessment of this abnormal behaviour, for the benefit of members to safeguard against such levels of harassment that we are experiencing. It seems that no lessons have been learned from last month’s embarrassing behaviour.”
Responding to the claims at the heart of the dispute, Cllr Husband continued: “‘Mental health is woke?’ Random. I mean who even says that?
“What is ‘woke’ is weaponising the mental health card in a standards process to try and call out officer conduct and behaviour. With no powers or local government legislation to underpin this – a fruitless exercise that results in a complete episode of virtue signalling.
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“Virtue signalling in politics is woke. Google it. I stand by my advice which (previous) standards ignored.”
A vote of no confidence has now been called by one of the former Reform councillors, Cllr Kenny Hope. Cllr Husband told councillors: “Good luck getting two parties to support this farce.
“Regardless, I will enjoy the challenge should it reach the chamber.”
He also claimed on X Cllr Hope was a “bitter ex reform misfit who was suspended [and] now Restore wannabe nut job.”
On Thursday morning, the Chief Executive also reportedly sent an email to the all-members distribution list telling councillors their behaviour was unacceptable.
The Standards Committee Row
The saga follows a row over how a Reform councillor (an independent at the time), Cllr Paul Sexton, was cleared over bullying and harassment claims by a panel with a Reform majority. The one non-Reform councillor on the panel is understood to have found he breached the member’s code this January, following a drawn-out process going back to at least 2023.
There were four complaints about his alleged treatment of council officers in 2023. However, they were all dismissed by the Reform-majority committee. He joined Reform in May 2025.
Reform councillors claimed there were “institutional failings” for why the process took so long and wanted an overhaul. Two Reform members on the Standards Committee began drafting a document – later titled the “Proposal for Institutional Recovery” – recommending changes they believed would make council officers accountable for members’ mental health and welfare, stating that the long investigation had harmed Cllr Sexton. Cllr Husband said they had no authority to do so or to alter a decision notice issued for the committee.
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One member, Cllr Rowland, was then removed from the Standards body. She says she walked out of a meeting with the leader “after making clear that trust had broken down in circumstances where an issue [mental health] had in my view been treated jokingly.”
“I was then told we were being removed from standards.” Cllr Husband described her behaviour as “petulant”. Cllr Rowland resigned from Reform.
A private Teams call between Cllr Rowland, Cllr Catchpole and the committee’s vice-chair Cllr Louise Taylor was also recorded and passed to the leadership. Asked if she recorded it, the Reform councillor did not deny it, instead saying: “Leaking information is a long way from discussing serious issues with leadership (no one else)”.
She says her concerns over the changes were vindicated by the council’s legal advice. An email from the Chief Executive summarising the external legal advice, marked privileged and confidential, was circulated by Husband in the all-councillor email thread.
Comment Reported To Police
When now-independent Cllr Rowland set all this out to every councillor on 16 August, the row spilled into a Reform group chat in which named committee chairs and cabinet members are accused of lashing out at two ex-members — including a line, written by the Leader, that ex-Reform councillor Kenny Hope would “get a kicking at full council”. Reform claims Hope had been suspended by the party at the time (he now sits as an independent).
The comment has been reported to the police by the councillor, claiming it was a threat of violence. Leader Cllr Husband said: “The metaphor is pretty obvious. The chamber is the political arena.”
In an email to members on Tuesday night, leader Cllr Husband said: “See you in standards Kenny [Hope]”. He was accused of weaponising the process.
Ex-Reform Cllr Rowland had kicked off the all-councillor spat saying: “I feel compelled to share a clear, unvarnished context regarding the events of the last four months during my time as Chair of the Standards Committee, and to highlight the deep inconsistencies in the narrative you may have received from party leadership.”
The Reform administration had already overhauled the standards process for handling complaints last year, introducing a new sub-committee – a Standards Assessment Board (SAB) – which sifts all complaints from the Monitoring Officer, before they can be handed to the main Standards Committee for a decision. The new sifting body has two Reform members, one Independent Group councillor, and a co-opted parish member who cannot vote.
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Anti-Woke WhatsApp
But the group appears to be beset by in-fighting. On Wednesday, a third Reform councillor of the year quit the group. Cllr Catchpole said on Facebook that while his “political ideas align very closely with those of Reform” he felt forced to quit over the leadership’s stance on mental health, cabinet members who showed “a complete lack of empathy”, and comments in the DCC Social Chat group he called “utterly appalling”. He said he was speaking as a veteran who has experienced personal loss through mental health issues.
In a discussion about the process, senior Reform councillors have been accused of mocking mental health issues.
A series of WhatsApp messages shared in the Reform Durham County Council WhatsApp group, DCC Social Chat, seen by Byline Times triggered an email to all councillors earlier this week hitting out at the administration.
The screenshots show:
10:28 Council leader Andrew Husband: “Don’t do woke things and make us look woke!”
10:30 Husband, on a proposed Standards overhaul he opposed: “An investigation to force [council] officers (which is unlawful) to take more care of members mental health? Nice concept but then officers will just say members need to take care of THEIR mental health. You end up with something that will never happen…Which makes us look woke politically. Hence”
10:32 Husband adds: “I might do a motion for us all to hold hands and sing Kum Ba Yah”
10:33 Second Reform councillor: “That would actually be quite funny 😂😂😂”
10:35 Third Reform councillor posts a South Park GIF with “Oh Lord, Kumbaya”
One opposition councillor told this outlet Reform members are not being found guilty by the new sifting committee, adding the process was not fair: “They’re marking their own homework.”
There is “heavy infighting” with Reform councillors spending “too much time…arguing on Facebook” they added.
A spokesperson for Durham County Council said the meeting of the Standards Committee regarding Cllr Sexton in January was “held in private, and its decision was not made public.”
“It would, therefore, not be appropriate for us to comment on the matter. Nor would we comment on matters relating to confidential complaints and allegations regarding officers or elected members.”
The spokesperson added: “Should a councillor wish to make a complaint regarding any concerns they may have there are agreed mechanisms in place by which they can do so.
“We remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of governance and conduct and to supporting all councillors in carrying out their roles effectively.”
Commenting on the police report over the “kicking” comment by the Leader, a spokesperson for Durham Constabulary told this outlet: “Under established College of Policing and NPCC guidance we cannot confirm or deny whether a named individual is being investigated until such time as they have been charged with an offence.”
Reform UK was contacted for comment.
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