Reform UK new group leader 'up for the challenge'

Reform UK councillor Dawn Husemann won Claverley and Worfield with 50% of the vote

The new Reform UK group leader on Shropshire Council has said her party is "up for the challenge" of being in opposition, despite having little political experience.

The party won 16 of 74 seats at local elections earlier this month, making them the second largest group on the council.

Dawn Husemann said, despite being political newbies, the group was looking forward to holding the new Liberal Democrat administration to account.

The council will meet next week for the first time since the Conservatives lost control of the authority after 16 years in power.

Reform UK won seats across the Shropshire Council area on 1 May, including in market towns like Shrewsbury and Bridgnorth, but its most impressive wins came in South Shropshire, where it won seats in traditionally Conservative-voting areas.

The group, which fielded candidates in all 74 seats, had no councillors prior to the election.

Dawn Husemann has been elected the group's first ever leader and will front the party at council meetings.

"I'm a perfectly ordinary middle-aged lady who just felt things needed to change," said Mrs Husemann, who owned a postgraduate training company before retirement.

"We're just real, ordinary people, nothing particularly special or exciting, just good hard-working, honest people.

"It's a big challenge, but we're all up for it – it's what we signed up for," she added.

The group has spent the past few weeks in meetings and inductions, learning the ropes ahead of council business politically resuming on 22 May, when all members gather for a full council meeting at the Guildhall in Shrewsbury.

Councillor Donna Edmunds was suspended by Reform UK days after the election and resigned from the party soon after

Reform UK has already lost a councillor on Shropshire Council, knocking the group's remarkable success in the county.

Donna Edmunds, who won the seat of Hodnet with 36% of the vote, was suspended by the party just days after the election for posting on social media that she intended to defect to another party in the future.

She later resigned from Reform UK and will sit as an independent.

"That was her choice and she's now nothing to do with us," said Mrs Husemann.

"We know what our target is and we're united in that cause, so we'll just keep our heads down and carry on," she added.