INTERVIEW: Reform UK Warwickshire County Council leader Cllr Rob Howard responds to last week’s ‘Who are you?’ Herald headline
LAST week the Herald ran the headline Who are you? referring to new Reform UK Warwickshire County Council leader Cllr Rob Howard. Like others, we’d got frustrated with not hearing from him since his party’s victory, securing more seats than any other group in the 1st May local elections.
We wanted to know what he was about and his plans for governing the county. Cllr Howard, to his credit, agreed to meet with the Herald at his new offices at Shire Hall after seeing the headline.
The first thing the Nuneaton councillor addresses is his much-criticised absence – he missed the first council meeting as he was away on holiday. Many called the newly elected leader out for not prioritising his weighty new position.
“I booked a holiday before Christmas, not for a moment realising what was going to happen,” he explained of his trip to the Dominican Republic in the Caribbean. “As you can imagine, I looked into cancelling it, but I would have lost 80 per cent of the value of the holiday. I talked about it with the likes of Monica [Fogarty, county council CEO]. and they said, look, all these things can be managed. It was unfortunate, and I totally understand [the criticism], I take it on the chin. But believe me, I worked through that holiday very, very hard, because of the importance of everything that was going on. I didn’t spend much time on the sunlounger – I was in the room and working. Whether I should have made a different decision, I don’t know. What’s done is done, we’ve moved forward.”
Having recently retired at age 66, Cllr Howard said he was dedicated to his new role. “I’m a good listener,” he said. “I like to hear all the angles. I like to assimilate all the options. I’ve deliberately made a point to talk to all the different party leaders of the council, really because we have to work together.”
Cllr Howard admitted that although local policies would be based on Reform’s national ones, none had actually been worked out yet. But he did say that any changes at the council would be done slowly.
“The council has been a fairly stable ship going in a nice direction in a fairly calm way,” he said. “There’s no way you can suddenly turn that ship to go the other way, but what you can do is look at changing little areas which will hopefully suit what the people of Warwickshire want.”
He was also at pains to shrug off characterisation of party members as being racist or bigots.
“We’re not the sort of ogres that sometimes people make us out to be,” he told the Herald. “We’re just normal people. We’re your neighbours. We live next door to you.”
Full interview:
WHAT was your route into politics and what made you want to stand?
For probably around 40 years, I just voted Tory. From when I left school at 18 and the first time I could vote, I felt as though Tories had what I considered to be my political background.
But I started to question that when the subject of Brexit came up. I felt as though we needed to leave the EU, and that as a country we were putting too much money into Europe.
I got behind that. And initially I wanted the Tory party to embrace it as well, which seemed to be a struggle.
When Nigel Farage formed the Brexit Party in 2019, he launched it from an industrial site in Coventry. I was lucky enough to get a ticket to go, there was only about 100 or so people there.
I sat and listened and thought how fascinating. It was my first flavour of what politics really was all about when it came to leaving the EU.
After the formation of Reform, I was an early adopter. That’s when I really started to get involved and had training and took part in selection processes, and became spokesperson for Nuneaton.
That was when we probably had a one per cent share of [votes in the] polls. Most of my friends thought I was mad.
I sometimes queried what I was doing it for, but I stood by my convictions.
Reform were thinking more about the people and what they wanted, whereas the Tories had just lost that touch a bit. They seemed more corporate-minded and a little bit more self-interested.
You’ve worked in business, starting in sales and marketing and working your way up – what qualities do you bring to the leader position?
I like to think I’m a fair person. I have a mantra with all my people to say that I don’t expect them to do anything that I couldn’t do myself. I’d like to do what I can to develop people if they’re ambitious.
I’m a good listener. I like to hear all the angles. I like to assimilate all the options. I’ve deliberately made a point to talk to all the leaders of the council, the different party leaders, really because we have to work together. We’re not going to fight because ultimately we have to make decisions that go forward and achieve what the council needs to achieve for moving on.
Who are your political heroes or who do you admire?
I did admire Margaret Thatcher about a lot of things. I wouldn’t say I agree with every single one, but she radically changed a lot of things within the country, in terms of how we live now.
Obviously as he’s the party leader, I have to mention Nigel Farage. He talks in a very understandable and very straightforward way. It may not be what everybody wants to hear, but he’s prepared for that.
This is the second time you stood for a councillor position; and also were a candidate in the last year’s general election – tell us about that.
I did actually stand for county council four years ago, 2021 for Attleborough, and must have got all of 45 votes. It was the Covid period, so you were very limited to what you could do.
There was only me and one other Reform candidate in the whole of Warwickshire that stood. It was very much a bit of a baptism by fire.
From then on, I started to build the Reform following. My major platform was the Facebook page that I created, Reform UK Nuneaton, which started from nothing and has around 6,800 followers now.
I threw myself totally into the whole campaign process for the general election, got a great crowd of people backing me. I got a commendable third place with 22 per cent of the votes [drawing away from the Tory vote and seeing Labour win].
After the election, Reform then wanted to take the next step of trying to professionalise the party, and started to call on people to identify themselves as potential candidates for future council positions.
We introduced the vetting process and started to build the jigsaw puzzle within Nuneaton to fit somebody within each area.
You won more seats than any other party in May, but not quite enough for a clear majority – why didn’t you collaborate with the Conservatives to give you a majority leadership?
We’ve come from an administration consisting of 41 Tories and very few others, where things were very easy to put through this council, to a situation where you’ve got a new administration that’s never done it before.
When we realised we had no overall majority, we had considerations and choices to make. At the time, we were under strict instructions [from national HQ] not to make any decisions.
We voted for the leader of the party on 12th May – there was another gentleman called Scott Cameron who also stood. Despite the fact I wasn’t there I was proud to win – and as I’ve said I was on a plane. The next day we thrashed out our choices on Teams, and the decision was to offer the Tories certain positions.
We considered it carefully. We had a number of things which we felt comfortable to lay on the table for the Tories.
Most of your councillors lack experience in public office, is that a worry?
I don’t make any apologies for that. We’ve come from nowhere to suddenly running a council. What I have got is a huge amount of enthusiasm and energy, commitments and open, new and fresh ideas.
They may not have the depth of experience that people might want, but they’ve got to be open-minded about it.
The council has been a fairly stable ship going in a nice direction in a fairly calm way. There’s no way you can suddenly turn that ship the other way, but what you can do is look at changing little areas which will hopefully suit what the people of Warwickshire want, and they want to see us doing.
It goes back to that mantra of trying to listen to the people and what they consider to be the important things, and make sure they’re done.
The length of time it took you to appoint the cabinet has been criticised – and have yet to name the portfolio holder for transport. What’s your reason for the delay?
Having only 22 people to choose from wasn’t the easiest, because we had 55 committee positions to fill. We concluded the committee thing, and then we realised that now to suddenly think about somebody as a good portfolio-holder is going to have some effect on the committee. There’s been a lot of having to consider the impact across those factors.
I’m pleased to say, although I can’t give you a name, we have now got that final part of the cabinet sorted.
I’ll be honest, there’s been a bit of ignorance sometimes about timings and what we can do and can’t do. We realised there wasn’t the urgency to make appointments, so it just gave us breathing space where things could be considered a little bit more.
The appointment of George Finch as cabinet member for children and families has been particularly criticised, as he’s only 18 and it’s a serious role. What would you say to that?
I’d describe George as a bit of an enigma. He acts more like someone in their 20s, he’s got incredible knowledge and attitude. There’s no immaturity about him. I’d like to think that the county will give the guy the opportunity to see what he can do.
The other thing that the party’s taken flak for is a lack of policies. Can you outline some key policies and what your priorities will be going forward?
I’ll be honest with you, it’s going to be difficult to be very specific about that. Everybody knows what the main Reform national policies are and it’s how adaptable they would be at council level. So I prefer not to actually talk about policies specifically.
We aren’t here to disrupt what is ongoing at the council, as it’s a requirement of the council to continue to maintain its services to the residents of Warwickshire.
It’s going to take us a little while to get up to speed, understand how the processes work, before we can probably consider which of our policies can actually influence the council to change.
I’m not trying to dodge. I know you always like straight answers from people like me. It’s not the answer you want, but maybe there’s a conversation we can have in three or four months.
Before you came into office you mentioned cost-savings at the council, including looking at high salaries paid to staff – is that still the case?
It’s not even occurred to me at this moment in time. I’m doing what I can to catch up with everybody, understand how it works, talk and meet and so on. What I will say is that we’ve been embraced by the council staff. They’re doing everything they can to get us up to speed.
It’s probably been a bit of a shock to them because they’ve been used to the normal processes with the previous administrations. We’re a completely new party within the council.
The underlying thing about money is that it’s all of our taxpayers’ money, isn’t it? And everybody would like to think that every single penny is being spent on what they consider to be the most positive things.
I understand that very key positions demand salaries that they need. There are going to be places where I’m sure there’ll be some savings, and others that need more funds.
It’s early days but we’re going to be looking at every single penny that we bring in and what it’s spent on overall.
You’re a very white male cabinet – is that something you are conscious of?
We tried desperately to attract females in terms of standing for council. And we ended up placing people that were available. I’m deliberately wanting to encourage more ladies to come forward to make sure we have a fairer balance in the future.
Most of your councillors are based in the north – what reassurances can you give people in the south that their needs will be listened to and met?
I need to make sure I make myself known around the south, and to understand what the challenges are here, they’re going to be very different to the north’s.
That’s going to be one of my initial explorations, once I’ve got through what is quite an extensive introduction, knowledge absorbing process, is to go and find out all the different places.
Would you like to see Warwickshire as a unitary power? And what is your view on Stratford and Warwick districts combining to create a separate south Warwickshire unitary power?
I’m around 65 per cent through a very thick document about the benefits of being a unitary council. I’ve deliberately taken my time reading it, as you would imagine. I have a similar document which allegedly gives the virtues of a split council. My thoughts at the moment, but not decision, is that splitting would be wrong. You’d be creating two administrations, splitting services – losing the economies of scale. They are just my initial thoughts.
What will Warwickshire look like after four years of Reform?
The dream is having what I would like to think is people’s happiness levels higher. I don’t know how they can be measured apart from how people react – and I guess how they vote.
If we deliver, people will have more confidence in getting behind us. If we don’t, then maybe we’re going to be a one-hit wonder. We don’t know.
Warwickshire is a beautiful county. We’ve got so much that’s going for us in terms of culture, heritage and environment – the global phenomenon of Shakespeare – we should be making more of that.
There’s a perception that Reform UK is an alt-right party, and that the anti-immigration policies seem racist. What would you say your party stands for?
I’m always very disappointed to hear that [racist accusation]. I’ve got friends that have different colours, different religions. I get on with them as equally as anybody else.
We are people that respect each other.
But getting down to our concerns of immigration, I’m worried about how that word is starting to get a little bit misused and misinterpreted. Because we do have a problem with too many people coming into this country, irrespective of whether they’re coming on a legal visa or coming over on a boat.
And when we look at things like the problem with new housing, pressure on roads, potholes being created because of overuse, you can’t get a doctor's appointment, classrooms are getting fuller. There’s a population explosion, and concern about the social and economic impact.
I don’t think there’s a magic wand that’s going to suddenly be waved over the country that will just make everything as nice as candy.
We’re not the sort of ogres that sometimes people make us out to be. We’re just normal people. We’re your neighbours. We live next door to you.
I hope that helps quash fears of what we may be all about.
