New Reform UK Doncaster boss reveals why he challenged for the local party's top job

The new leader of Reform UK Doncaster has revealed why he decided to topple his predecessor after they’d had just four months in charge.

In his first media interview, Councillor Howard Rimmer took questions on how he concluded that Cllr Craig Ward, the former leader of the City of Doncaster Council’s Reform UK group, had to go.

“It was time things happened quicker,” he said, in a brief, one sentence answer.

Cllr Ward had been leader of Reform UK Doncaster for just four months before Cllr Rimmer ran for leadership at the party’s annual general meeting on May 18, 2026.

Ward’s tenure in charge had a strong start, with his party capitalising on the leak of the Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) lease between Doncaster Council and the Peel Group, the airport landowners, in January 2026

However, Ward’s visibility as Reform UK group leader subsided after an interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service went viral, with the Roman Ridge councillor struggling to answer questions about his own amendment to the council budget.

He made just one more appearance in the council chamber as group leader, during the May 11, 2026, extraordinary general meeting on a £57million loan for the reopening of DSA.

Cllr Rimmer said he has not spoken to his predecessor yet, despite them representing the same ward.

Speaking of the pair’s future relationship, Rimmer said: “We’ve grown up together in this, we share the same ward and we will work together.”

The new leader did say he would be looking to speak with Cllr Guy Aston, who was Reform UK’s very first leader in Doncaster Council after the party first arrived in the chamber at the May 2025 local elections.

“I’d like to have more to do with Councillor Aston. He was always level-headed and calm,” Cllr Rimmer said.

Cllr Aston was leader of the Reform UK group from the May 2025 elections until he stepped down at the end of November 2025.

The Wheatley Hills and Intake representative had taken a quieter, more collaborative approach to dealing with the Labour Mayor of Doncaster, Ros Jones, and her cabinet.

However, an attempt to remove Cllr Jason Charity, a popular figure amongst the Reform UK group, as chair of the Audit Committee, led to a rebellion in the chamber and forced him to resign the leadership.

Cllr Rimmer said he would be meeting with Mayor Jones for the first time soon.

He said he would be open to working with the Labour Mayor, but was sceptical about her own willingness to do the same.

“Ros [Jones] says we ought to work together… but she’s just added another cabinet member who is another Labour member, so that’s not sharing the work,” he claimed.

Mistrust within the council is part of the reason that the reopening of DSA faced a crisis over the £57m loan vote, with Labour claiming the project would be “killed” if Reform UK rescinded approval for it, which the party had claimed it would do.

However, Cllr Rimmer made clear he supports the airport reopening.

He said: “I want it to reopen. I want it to be successful. But it’s reopening on a lot of Labour propaganda… It’s just pie in the sky.

“We have been blamed for changing our minds on the loan… but [the leaked lease] was stuff we didn’t know and was decided before we arrived.”

He said Reform were committed to ensuring the Labour decision-makers were properly scrutinised.

“We have taken the place of 30 Labour councillors and it proves it was just a ‘yes council’,” he said, referencing the Labour Party majority that had backed Mayor Jones over her previous three terms.

He added: “Labour blamed Reform for all the delay [to DSA], but there won’t have been any delay if they had given us all the information.”

Labour figures, including the South Yorkshire Mayor Oliver Coppard, have consistently refuted Reform UK’s claims that information was kept from them, insisting that briefings and meetings to discuss key details were offered, but were sparsely attended.

Cllr Rimmer said his first week as Reform UK group leader had been “busy”, spent “catching up” on key information.

He said he spent the week meeting with people, who he said were “not all good” and added there had been “lots of rumours”, but did not expand any further.