Peter Harris

Peter Harris was elected Reform UK group leader at Essex County Council on 11 May 2026, with Russell Quirk as deputy. His election was the first act of internal organisation for Reform's new council group; formal confirmation as full council leader is scheduled at the Annual General Meeting on 28 May at County Hall, Chelmsford, once the full council has the opportunity to vote.

Harris leads a Reform group that entered Essex on a surge that made the party the dominant force on the council. Essex is one of 14 councils Reform took outright on 7 May 2026, part of the largest English local election gain by any party in modern records. The council's first early policy signal under Harris's leadership was to reverse the so-called "book tax" — the library charge introduced under the previous Conservative administration.

The governance test ahead is harder. Essex County Council inherits a complex financial picture: nationally, the Local Government Association found 22 per cent of social-care councils balanced their 2026/27 budgets only on Exceptional Financial Support. Reform's national pledge of no council tax increases has already been broken on nine of its 14 councils. In Essex, the bigger immediate challenge is councillor stability: Stuart Prior, elected for Reform on 7 May and based in the Essex constituency area, was expelled within four days over racist and Islamophobic social media posts — a pattern being replicated at pace across the party's new councillor cohort.