Ousted Sheffield Reform councillor brands party “sleazy” and “unprofessional”
Developed over time first seen 2 months ago
Sheffield councillor Robert Hanson, elected for Reform UK in Firth Park in May, has been removed from the party’s council group and will sit as an independent. The Star reported that Hanson called Reform’s handling of the matter “sleazy” and “unprofessional”. Reform said it had removed the whip after discovering that he was not a current member and that, despite repeated contact by email and telephone, he would not join or renew his membership. Hanson’s removal from the group does not end his council seat; a by-election would arise only if he resigned as a councillor.
Hanson had been Reform’s spokesperson on Sheffield City Council’s adult health and social care policy committee. He won 1,442 votes in the two-seat Firth Park contest, in which Labour’s Fran Belbin was also elected. The departure reduces Reform’s council group to 10 members, from 13 after the May elections. It follows the suspension of Woodhouse councillor Nathaniel Menday over social-media posts and the resignation from Reform of Shiregreen and Brightside councillor Mick Lee. The episode came amid wider reports of internal disagreements within Reform’s Sheffield organisation, although the party remains the council’s fourth-largest group.
- Robert Hanson has lost the Reform whip and is now an independent Sheffield councillor.
- He described Reform’s treatment of him as “sleazy” and “unprofessional”; Reform says he declined to hold party membership.
- Reform’s Sheffield group has fallen from 13 members after May’s elections to 10.
Full account
A Reform UK councillor in Sheffield has had the party whip withdrawn after letting his membership lapse and declining to renew it, leaving him to sit as an independent on the city council. Robert Hanson, who represents the Firth Park ward and had served as the group's spokesperson on the adult health and social care policy committee, was said by a Reform spokesperson to have ignored repeated attempts to get him to rejoin, made by both email and phone. Hanson won his seat in May's local elections with 1,442 votes, defeating council leader Fran Belbin in a contest for one of two seats vacated after Labour's Nikki Belfield stood down before polling day. He has not offered a public response to the party's account of events, and a by-election in Firth Park would only follow if he chose to resign rather than continue as an independent.
The departure is the latest blow to a Reform group that swept to prominence in Sheffield only months ago. The party won 12 seats in May, taking its total to 13 and making it the fourth-largest group on the council, but that number has since fallen to 10. Woodhouse ward member Nathaniel Menday was suspended following controversial social media posts, while Mick Lee, representing Shiregreen and Brightside, quit the party of his own accord; both now sit as independents alongside Hanson. Sheffield City Council remains under no overall control, run jointly by Labour, with 25 seats, and the Greens, with 20. The Liberal Democrats, the second-largest group with 22 councillors, sit in opposition, a position they adopted over disagreements on green-belt development.
Behind the departures lies a deeper strain within the local party. Members have complained to Reform's national leadership over a contested decision to merge the city's two branches into one, and reports point to bad-tempered meetings in which frustration has been aimed at council group leader John Hesketh. That tension reportedly boiled over at a candidate selection meeting for the Southey by-election, called after the resignation of Gareth Slater, who had left Labour to sit as an independent before standing down citing family commitments. According to accounts from those present, a gathering intended to confirm local favourite Mike Bell as candidate instead turned into a heated row, with one attendee describing the arrival of Hesketh as disruptive and another accusing him, anonymously, of deliberately stirring up conflict. Reform's deputy group leader, John Booker, has rejected the allegations, dismissing the infighting as a distraction from the party's work in the city and denying any suggestion of an internal plot against the leadership.
Reform had entered City Hall in May buoyed by strong results, including a comfortable win in the Southey ward it must now defend in the 27 August by-election. Instead, the party's Sheffield operation has been marked by a string of resignations, suspensions and internal disputes within just a few months of taking office, alongside claims of poor communication and organisational strain from within its own ranks. Whether the loss of Hanson prompts further scrutiny of the party's local management, or simply becomes another entry in an already turbulent first year, is likely to depend on how Reform's national leadership responds to the branch-level discontent that has accompanied its rapid rise in the city.
Where outlets differ
The BBC's account centres on Robert Hanson's removal from the Reform whip over his lapsed membership, giving full detail on council arithmetic and prior departures (Menday, Lee); it notes Hanson was approached for comment but does not include any response or quotes from him, so claims that he called the party 'sleazy' or 'unprofessional' are not substantiated in this source.
The Sheffield Tribune report does not mention Hanson at all; it instead focuses on a separate, acrimonious candidate-selection meeting for the Southey by-election, built on anonymous first-hand accounts and a leaked Facebook post, and told in a more informal, editorialised style (e.g. references to name-calling and a 'wrecking ball' comment).
The Tribune piece is presented as part of a longer, paywalled investigation, so its account of the internal row is partial, while the BBC report is more concise and attributed to on-the-record party statements and the Local Democracy Service.
Neither source contains direct quotes from Hanson describing the party as 'sleazy' or 'unprofessional', so that characterisation could not be corroborated from the material provided.