‘Impartial’ Council Lawyer on £1,350 a Day Posed With Nigel Farage at Reform Mayor’s Invitation

The top lawyer for an Essex council has been accused of rolling out the “red carpet” for Reform UK after he and a colleague posed for photos with Nigel Farage during the party leader’s recent visit.

The Reform UK leader visited Basildon, Essex, on 15 October at the invitation of the town’s controversial Mayor, Cllr Sam Journet, to promote Reform-run Essex County Council’s ‘Operation Vanguard’ – a £150,000 three-month scheme of private security patrols near an asylum base.

Basildon is led by the Conservatives in a deal with Reform UK, under which Reform holds the chair posts for key council committees – and the role of Mayor, who chairs full council meetings.

Mark Greenburgh, a lawyer and former Conservative leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, has been the council’s Monitoring Officer – the official responsible for keeping the council within the law and handling complaints against councillors – since March.

In September, a council committee ratified his appointment as interim Monitoring Officer and increased his hours. The council now describes him simply as its Monitoring Officer, and the Mayor has told councillors he is “no longer the acting monitoring officer”. Greenburgh’s work for the council rose to four days a week at £1,350 a day – equivalent to about £280,000 a year.

The council confirmed to Byline Times that it hosted Farage on a “civic visit” to its headquarters, the Basildon Centre, on 15 October, “at the invitation of the Mayor”, alongside the Reform Leader of Essex County Council. It described Farage as “the national leader of Reform UK”.

With the chief executive on leave, Greenburgh and the Executive Director for Housing welcomed the visitors as the most senior officers present, and Greenburgh appears in posed group photos with Farage and the Mayor.

Cllr Journet has made a number of party political posts about the visit, sharing a montage of photos with the caption: “you’ll be fine with Reform UK. There are no other credible alternatives.”

In text overlaid on photos including Greenburgh, he added: “Nigel Farage is ready to lead this great nation, and he will restore us to our former greatness.”

The Monitoring Officer post is politically restricted – meaning the holder must not take part publicly in party politics – and the role is the council’s guardian of impartiality. There is no suggestion Mr Greenburgh broke the rules, but the visit has raised eyebrows.

At the appointments committee that ratified him, the council’s interim chief executive, Julian Ellerby, said: “I’ve not seen the CV.” Asked about an application form, he said: “It’s not about an application.” He added that he was “not aware of him holding an official position as an MO previously”.

The council has told Byline Times that due diligence was done “to the Council’s satisfaction” and that the appointments committee was “fully sighted on historic matters” when it met on 10 September.

However, the published report for that meeting did not mention a 2017 High Court judgment or a 2019 regulatory rebuke involving the lawyer. Labour group leader and former council leader Cllr Gavin Callaghan said: “Normally when you go and do a statutory officer appointment… you get given packs with CVs, due diligence, psych tests, competency tests, benchmarking exercises… We got a three-page report that was never signed off by HR.”

Council leader Conservative Cllr Andy Barnes told the committee that “in normal circumstances in peace time… you would never ever ever employ a monitoring officer for this level of money”, blaming the culture under Labour. He later told full council that Greenburgh was “fair, professional, and straight down the line”.

His £1,350 day-rate, Byline Times understands, makes him one of the highest-paid council officials in the country, earning the equivalent of over £100,000 more a year than the Prime Minister. The council did not say how much it had paid him.

Reform’s Cllr Journet, who sat on the committee, voted for him – calling him “an amazing monitoring officer” and saying the council needed to “pay top dollar”, comparing him to football manager José Mourinho. Greenburgh certainly has a tricky team to manage.

A council Freedom of Information response seen by Byline Times shows at least 26 formal complaints have been made about Cllr Journet since his election in July 2025 (to 3 November this year).

According to its own figures, the council received 72 code of conduct complaints about all councillors from May 2025 to May 2026, and another 44 code of conduct complaints about councillors from 1 May this year to October, suggesting Cllr Journet accounts for a substantial proportion. One opposition councillor said: “Most councillors have none.”

Despite the deal between the Conservatives and Reform in Basildon, and his role as Mayor, Cllr Journet declared last month he had stood down from his other role as Cabinet Member for Education and Special Educational Needs at Essex Council (where he is also a councillor) to become the “leader of the opposition.” However, Basildon Council told the BBC there was no official leader of the opposition position in its constitution and it was a “courtesy title”.

Cllr Callaghan was council leader when Greenburgh was first appointed on an emergency basis in March. The appointment was an officer decision that did not name Greenburgh. While the decision record states: “Consultation has been made with the Leader & Deputy Leader to discuss this Urgent Decision,” Cllr Callaghan says he was not told, or consulted on, who was being appointed. A separate 13 March email to Callaghan about the appointment of a temporary Monitoring Officer also did not name Greenburgh.

The September committee report says the then chief executive “agreed with the then Leader” to seek a monitoring officer from a specialist firm.

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The June Email

In the months since, Callaghan has raised concerns about the Monitoring Officer – prompting a remarkable email from Greenburgh on 18 June.

The email, signed “Monitoring Officer” and copied to the then chief executive and the council’s chief finance officer, warns that Callaghan’s “campaign of defamatory abuse” leaves him “personally, and the council, open to legal challenge and the potential for an award of substantial damages”, and that councillors’ indemnity provisions “will not assist you” where conduct is “wilful, reckless, or criminal”.

It says Callaghan’s conduct “appears to be in serious default” of the councillors’ Code of Conduct – which the Monitoring Officer himself administers – and blames him for predecessors being “forced to leave”. It offers not to seek any “apology or reparation” if his behaviour changes.

Greenburgh complains that Callaghan criticised him publicly, including on social media and LinkedIn, without ever raising concerns with him directly. Alongside the legal warnings, he offered a meeting to “reset the relationship”, said he came “to lead an improvement in governance and member conduct, not to be the eye of the storm”, and praised Callaghan as “a remarkably talented politician, orator and leader”.

Callaghan says of the “defamatory abuse” claim that he had publicly questioned the way in which the appointment of the monitoring officer had been done and whether it was lawful and constitutional. “I was [then] verbally attacked by Mark Greenburgh in a meeting where I was not present, which I believed to be incredibly unprofessional and unprovoked.” Greenburgh had criticised “the conduct of your group leader” in a June standards meeting, leading Labour councillors to request he withdraw his comment.

And on Greenburgh’s claim Cllr Callaghan caused previous Monitoring Officers to leave, he added: “There is no evidence that predecessors were forced to leave because of what I did,” pointing to the number of standards complaints against Reform councillors as well as a testing local government reorganisation.

Of the legal ‘threat’ missive from Mark Greenburgh, the council did not dispute the email’s authenticity. It said correspondence between the Monitoring Officer and councillors “that contains legal advice is subject to legal professional privilege”, adding: “The Council does not comment on leaked confidential correspondence.”

Cllr Callaghan says he has been briefed by senior officers at the council that Greenburgh commutes from Barcelona for the role. The council did not deny this, but said information about his home address is “confidential personal data”. The Basildon spokesperson said he is contracted for four days a week, three of them in the office.

Greenburgh was originally hired, through an umbrella company, at £1,500 a day for two to three days a week. After a move to three days and two contract extensions, what the committee report called a “reduced” rate of £1,350 a day, for four days, raised the weekly bill for Basildon taxpayers from about £4,500 to £5,400.

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Sandwell and Rotherham

A 2017 High Court judgment records that, while leading an external investigation commissioned by Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council, Greenburgh made what Sandwell’s chief executive called “a passing quip about the disabilities of Cllr Hussain’s daughter and her children being due to inbreeding”, at a meeting with senior officers in October 2015.

The judge said it was “common ground” between all parties that the statements were “objectionable and wholly unacceptable”, and that they were “capable of exhibiting racist undertones, especially given the ethnic background of the Claimant”. Greenburgh and his firm apologised in writing, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority issued him with a written rebuke in 2019.

The judge found no actual bias in Greenburgh’s investigation, however, and dismissed Cllr Hussain’s claim. Sandwell had also hired him by direct approach, waiving its competitive tendering procedures – mirroring Basildon.

In 2017, Greenburgh also claimed that Rotherham council’s failings over grooming gangs were down to “more cock-up than conspiracy”. More than 1,400 children were sexually abused in the town from 1997 to 2013, as the BBC reported.

Cllr Journet has posted frequently about grooming gangs, writing on 7 October this year: “The grooming gang scandal still hangs heavily over Labour. Instead of excuses and delay, there should be urgency, accountability and the toughest possible response to those who destroy children’s lives. This country needs to…STOP making excuses.”

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Local Plan, Legal Storm

Last month, housing and planning minister Matthew Pennycook warned the council that withdrawing its draft Local Plan, drawn up to meet national housing targets, “would be unlawful”. At an extraordinary meeting on 26 October, chaired by Journet, Greenburgh advised that the Mayor’s motion was not itself unlawful, but that actually withdrawing the plan would be, adding: “I would not countenance that.”

The motion still resolved to withdraw the plan if a judicial review against the Government fails, and Cllr Barnes had earlier told councillors the deadline to bring one was 15 October. The council did not say whether a claim had been issued. Reform councillors argue the Local Plan puts the Green Belt at risk.

Callaghan believes Journet and Greenburgh have put the council in legal jeopardy. He told councillors in October: “How on earth has a monitoring officer costing this council five and a half thousand pounds a week allowed us to get ourselves into a position where a minister of state is having to write to us at the 11th hour to say what you’re doing is illegal?”

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), which is reviewing the council under a Best Value Notice issued in July, declined to comment, citing the ongoing review.

A Basildon Council spokesperson said: “Mark Greenburgh is Basildon Council’s Monitoring Officer and carries out his duties appropriately. He engages with all councillors in his role and provides advice and guidance as required.”

The spokesperson added: “The Monitoring Officer has not met with Cllr Journet outside of The Basildon Centre, other than at the Annual Civic Church Service.”

The spokesperson said all code of conduct allegations received up to October “have now been considered and triaged by the Monitoring Officer and Independent Person. A number of matters have been referred for investigation.”

They said Greenburgh, who served on Buckinghamshire County Council until 2001, “has not sought or held political office since that time and has not been a member of a political party for many years… The position of Monitoring Officer is a politically restricted post, and the Council is satisfied that Mr Greenburgh discharges his duties impartially.”

Cllr Gavin Callaghan disagrees: “The approach and the tactic that he is [deploying] is to become Sam Journet’s best friend… You could argue he is not operating impartially.” He accused Greenburgh of rolling out the “red carpet” for Nigel Farage at the 15 October visit.

Greenburgh, Cllr Journet and Reform UK were approached for comment. Greenburgh is understood to have responded via the council itself.

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