A Reform UK councillor who resigned from the party at Durham County Council has said she was left “shaking” after sending the email that ended her membership, fearing she would now face a sustained attack from its local leadership.
Lyndsey Fox was one of three councillors to leave Reform on Tuesday night, alongside Paul Sexton and Nicole Brown. Their departures reportedly leave the party with 51 of the council’s 98 seats — two further losses away from surrendering its majority.
Fox told Cathy Newman that she resigned after receiving no meaningful response to what she described as a “very serious safeguarding issue” reported in July.
The details of the allegation have not been made public, and Fox said it was for the police to investigate rather than the party to determine whether wrongdoing had occurred. Her complaint was about what happened inside Reform after she reported it.
According to Fox, almost nothing happened at all.
Safeguarding concern went unanswered
In an interview on The Cathy Newman Show, Fox said she reported the concern to Durham council leader Andrew Husband on 14 July.
Two months later, she said nobody from Reform had explained what procedure would be followed, identified a point of contact or even acknowledged what support might be available.
Fox told Newman:
“My conclusion and my experience was that it’s not a priority and it doesn’t feel to be a priority.”
She accepted that the allegation itself was a police matter and that Reform should not attempt to prejudge the investigation. That did not, she argued, remove the party’s responsibility to follow its own safeguarding process.
Fox said the lack of any follow-up became more troubling when she received a message from Husband after Sky News reported allegations of bullying and internal chaos at the council.
Rather than addressing her safeguarding concern, she said the message offered her council roles if she became more visible and involved again.
Fox also claimed that the subject of political numbers and potential roles had been discussed during the original telephone conversation in which she reported the concern.
That sequence plainly made her uncomfortable.
“If we can’t get safeguarding right when it’s referred within the party, how are we going to do that in any role that anybody else takes?”
No details have been released about the underlying allegation, the person or people involved or the status of any police enquiries. Fox did not suggest that party officials should conduct their own parallel criminal investigation. Her argument was narrower: somebody reporting a serious concern should not be met with two months of silence.
‘I’m going to be under attack now’
Fox said she had considered leaving Reform for some time but finally made the decision after repeatedly reading the message she received on Sunday.
She described other councillors as deeply unhappy but frightened to challenge the leadership because of what they believed would happen next.
“I’ve been shaking since sending that email to resign, thinking, gosh, I’ve got to clear my calendar. I’m going to be under attack now.”
Fox alleged that people who spoke out had their private lives dragged into public disputes and faced attacks from within the local party. She said colleagues had agreed privately with previous criticisms of the leadership but were unwilling to say so publicly.
“Something shifted” after Reform won the council, she told Newman. Candidates who had campaigned on changing local government found themselves inside an organisation focused on the ambitions of particular individuals rather than the county, she claimed.
Fox’s account is hers, and Reform disputes the broader portrayal of its Durham administration.
The party had not responded to the three latest resignations by the time of the Sky broadcast. Following the earlier investigation, however, a spokesperson branded Sky’s reporting “misleading and malicious” and said it had relied on former councillors suspended over bullying and employing illegal workers.
Reform also defended its record at the council, pointing to its council tax decisions and claimed savings from renegotiated contracts.
Husband previously dismissed former colleagues who criticised his leadership as “bitter” and suggested they establish a “Party of Envy”.
That response has not exactly quietened the rebellion. Three sitting councillors have now walked away days after it was issued.
Reform’s Durham majority is disappearing
Reform won 65 of Durham County Council’s 98 seats in May 2025, giving it an overwhelming majority at an authority presented as one of the party’s great local-government breakthroughs.
Sixteen councillors have now left since that victory, although Reform also gained two members from other groups during the same period. The latest departures bring its reported total down to 51.
That still gives Husband control. Just.
A majority on a 98-member council requires 50 seats, assuming every position is filled. If two more Reform councillors resign from the group, it would fall to 49 and lose its outright majority.
Fox suggested some colleagues were reluctant to leave precisely because they did not want to be responsible for tipping the council into no overall control.
That creates a rather extraordinary position. Councillors who are unhappy with the leadership may remain because they fear what their departure would do to the administration, while each resignation makes the remaining members still more important.
The instability matters beyond County Hall. Nigel Farage has repeatedly pointed to Reform-run councils as evidence that his party can make the transition from campaigning against the political establishment to running public services.
Durham was supposed to be among the strongest exhibits. Instead, its majority has been reduced to the width of two seats while the authority confronts an estimated £83.7 million funding gap.
A difficult day stretched from Durham to Wales
The resignations landed on the same day that Dan Thomas stepped down as Reform’s leader in Wales.
Thomas resigned after being arrested on suspicion of assault and engaging in controlling or coercive behaviour. He was released on bail pending further enquiries, has not been charged and insists he has done nothing wrong.
Reform also lost Sarah Cooper-Lesadd from its Senedd group after she defected to Plaid Cymru, accusing her former party of caring more about division and headlines than responsible government.
None of that proves Fox’s allegations about Durham. It does, however, make the timing particularly grim for a party insisting that its new financial resources will help turn it into a government-in-waiting.
Reform can now afford more staff, campaigners and policy specialists after receiving £72 million from two billionaire donors. The harder problem cannot be solved by another cheque: keeping the people it already has.
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