Doncaster Reform UK elect new leader after political turmoil
Councillor Craig Ward will take over from Guy Aston - who resigned after a backbench rebellions against his leadership
Reform UK councillors in Doncaster have voted in a new group leader, following a backbench rebellion which led its previous leader to resign.
Councillor Craig Ward, elected to represent Roman Ridge ward in May 2025, will take over from interim leader, Cllr Karl Hughes, with immediate effect – becoming the City of Doncaster Council’s leader of the opposition.
Ward now leads a considerable number of councillors, a majority on the council. However, Doncaster’s directly elected mayor system places power in the hands of the Mayor of Doncaster and their cabinet – all of whom are Labour politicians.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands Cllr Ward has immediately instructed his councillors that “they must not, under any circumstances, enter into any agreement with the Labour Mayor that would muzzle or gag them from speaking openly about the contents of the Doncaster Sheffield Airport (DSA) lease”.
The lease signed between Doncaster Council and Peel Land, who own the land on which DSA sits, was leaked to the press, including the LDRS, last week.
As previously reported by the LDRS, a clause in the lease allowing Peel to terminate the deal if they don’t receive planning permission for nearby developments, caused outrage in the council chamber, with Mayor of Doncaster Ros Jones fielding numerous questions from unhappy opposition councillors.
Cllr Ward, who was one of those to press the Mayor in the meeting, said to the LDRS in a statement: “I am absolutely appalled by what we are hearing. I am extremely concerned about the revelations now emerging.
“The public are being asked to bankroll huge decisions, involving enormous sums of taxpayers’ money, without councillors being given full and transparent information. That cannot be right.”
Local Reform UK leaders said asking councillors to give its approval on the £57million loan to reopen DSA in November 2025, without “full disclosure of the key terms, risks, and obligations contained within the lease” was “unacceptable”.
“Why councillors have not been given this information by the Labour Mayor is something we must get to the bottom of,” Ward said.
“The people of Doncaster deserve nothing less. They are not irrelevant. People matter — and Reform UK is here for the people,” he added.
In his time as a councillor, Ward has created a track record of voting against his party. In July 2025, Ward was one of two Reform UK councillors to inform the LDRS they voted against the party’s ‘Flag motion’, which called for all flags except the Union Flag, and a few exemptions, to be banned from flying on council property.
The motion was passed by the Reform UK majority, but the policy was not enacted by the Mayor of Doncaster.
Reform UK Doncaster’s previous leader, Cllr Guy Aston, resigned in November 2025 following a backbench rebellion when he tried to remove fellow Reform councillor, Jason Charity, as chair of the council’s audit committee.
Cllr Charity had stepped back from Cllr Aston’s leadership team just days prior, declaring unhappiness over the “direction” of the party after the leader released a joint statement with Mayor Ros Jones supporting the £57m loan for DSA.
Cllr Charity was recently re-instated as chair of audit committee at a meeting of full council on January 22, 2026.
Cllr Aston, who continues as a Reform UK councillor for Wheatley Hills and Intake, was the party’s first ever group leader in Doncaster – taking charge after Reform UK won its first seats in Doncaster in May 2025.
He presided over the party’s period of “lessons learnt”, during which resignations, suspensions and expulsions saw their group drop from 37 councillors on election day to 34.
Cllr Ward has not announced any changes to the Reform UK group leadership team at the time of writing.