Meet the three Reform councillors battling it out to lead Suffolk

When Reform UK's 41 newly elected county councillors gather at Endeavour House on Thursday, 21 May 2026, one of their first acts will be to elect a new Leader of Suffolk County Council. As is normal, the contest is being conducted out of public view, but Ipswich.co.uk understands that three names are in the frame: Chris Hudson, Phillip Faircloth-Mutton and Michael Hadwen.

Each represents a different route into the role. One is a long-serving county councillor who defected from the Conservatives 20 months ago. Another is a former Conservative cabinet member who crossed the floor only eight months ago. The third is a controversial career politician who, until last Thursday, had never held elected office.

The decision they make will set the tone for an administration responsible for a budget of around £1 billion, statutory services touching every household in the county, and overseeing Suffolk's transition to a new unitary system in April 2028.

Christopher Hudson: The county veteran

The Councillor for the Brook division is widely considered the frontrunner. He has the longest record of the three in local government, having served on Suffolk County Council since 2012, including a year as Chairman in 2014/15 and a year as Deputy Leader in the year that followed. He previously represented the Kesgrave and Rushmere division before switching to Brook.

Hudson defected from the Conservatives to Reform in September 2024. In a statement at the time, he said: "Unfortunately, the broken manifesto promises over stopping the boats, safeguarding our borders, keeping taxes low and reducing them have all been betrayed."

He added that he would "work hard for a Greater Britain that is free, strong, secure and optimistic" and that Reform "is the best and only way to secure these aims".

Hudson lives in Framlingham and works, by his own description, as an "Independent Public Relations and Communications Professional". He was educated at St Gregory's College in the London Borough of Brent and holds a BA and MA in Classics, along with a PGCE.

In March 2026, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showed that he had attended just one of the 115 parish council meetings held in his Brook division between the end of 2023 and the time of the request — meetings that took place across the parishes of Belstead, Burstall, Chattisham, Copdock and Washbrook, Hintlesham, Pinewood, and Sproughton. The figures suggested he had not attended any meetings at all in Belstead or Sproughton.

At the time, Hudson told Ipswich.co.uk: "I work evenings from home as a public affairs consultant, which has precluded my attendance at these important but voluntary meetings. Of course, I make myself available online and by mobile through my details, available publicly, since data travels better, economically and environmentally than other means in an online, digital setting."

The outgoing Conservative Leader of the Council, Councillor Matthew Hicks, described the figures as "truly shocking" and accused Reform UK of caring little about local communities "unless it's a rally attended by their leader".

On policy, Hudson has long been a vocal opponent of the proposed Ipswich Northern Bypass — although in recent comments to Ipswich.co.uk he indicated his position may be softening, saying "all options now remain open on the table".

Phillip Faircloth-Mutton: The young challenger

The Councillor for the Stour Valley division has, like Hudson, made the journey from the Conservative benches — but far more recently. Faircloth-Mutton defected to Reform UK in September 2025, after 20 years as a Conservative. He was the third Reform UK councillor on Suffolk County Council at the time, joining Hudson and Councillor Martin Robinson.

Explaining his decision, Faircloth-Mutton said: "On every big national issue – immigration, raising productivity and reforming our broken tax system – the Conservatives have let the country down."

As a Conservative councillor, he served as cabinet member for environment, community and equality, a role to which he was appointed in 2024. During that time, he oversaw the council's takeover of Suffolk Community Libraries, a decision that drew significant public criticism.

In an opinion piece written shortly after his appointment to cabinet, Faircloth-Mutton described his "Suffolk belief that no one should be stopped from getting on in life based on their identity", citing protected characteristics including age, disability, gender, ethnicity, religion, pregnancy and parenthood, and sexual orientation. He wrote of championing "the cherished British and Suffolk value of fair play with empathy".

Hicks, on Faircloth-Mutton's defection, described him as "one of the staunchest advocates of the net zero agenda" who had "led on the council's work on equality, diversity and inclusion with passion" — a characterisation that sits somewhat uneasily with Reform UK's national positioning on both subjects.

Outside the council chamber, Faircloth-Mutton works in London as Vice President for Broking Specialties Retrocession at Guy Carpenter, a global risk and reinsurance specialist based in New York with more than 60 offices worldwide. He previously held roles at Howden Re, Aon and Willis Re, drafting reinsurance contracts for international markets. He holds an LLB from Queen Mary University of London and an LLM in American law from William and Mary Law School in Virginia.

Faircloth-Mutton's parish meeting attendance was also picked up in the March 2026 FOI figures, with his attendance recorded as having fallen to 38 per cent in 2025.

Michael Hadwen: The controversial career politician

The Councillor for the Felixstowe Clifflands division is the contender with the deepest roots inside Reform UK — and the only one with no prior experience as an elected councillor.

Hadwen served as Reform UK's Head of Candidates and Director of Campaigns and Training, playing what he describes as "a key role in the party's historic breakthrough in the May 2025 local elections, securing 677 council seats, control of 10 councils, two directly elected mayors, and our first parliamentary by-election victory". He has described his work as having "rebuilt the candidate operation from the ground up".

His most recent role, from December 2025 to April 2026, was as Political Advisor to the Leader of Kent County Council — a role he held under Linden Kemkaran, the Reform Leader who took control of Kent in May 2025. Kent is the largest local authority in England and is widely viewed as a test case of Reform's ability to govern. Its early months in office have been turbulent: a proposed council tax rise of 3.99 per cent drew criticism from opposition councillors who said it was not high enough to protect services and reserves, and upset Reform voters after breaking the party's pre-election promise not to raise taxes at all.

Before joining Reform, Hadwen worked as Constituency Assistant to the former Conservative MP Dr Thérèse Coffey in Suffolk Coastal, and as a Campaign Manager for the Conservative Party in Wales, Nottinghamshire and Suffolk Coastal between 2022 and 2024.

Hadwen has, on several occasions, attracted attention for his public statements. In April 2018, following a joint US-UK statement on malicious cyber activity attributed to the Russian government and shortly after the Salisbury poisonings, he said: "Russia is not my enemy" and that "we should be working with them".

In the same month, he said that "Enoch [Powell] was right, just behind the times". The reference was to the late Conservative MP whose 1968 "Rivers of Blood" speech strongly criticised Commonwealth immigration and proposed anti-discrimination legislation, warning of severe social, cultural and violent consequences. Powell argued that while "many thousands" of immigrants wanted to integrate, the majority did not, and that some had vested interests in fostering racial and religious differences "with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population". The speech caused major controversy at the time and led to Powell's dismissal from the Shadow Cabinet.

In February 2016, Hadwen said that if elected as an MP, he would hire Milo Yiannopoulos as his PR Manager. Yiannopoulos, then an editor at the American far-right news website Breitbart News, was banned from Twitter in July 2016 for the online harassment of actress Leslie Jones, and permanently banned from Facebook in 2019. He resigned from Breitbart in 2017 after video clips circulated in which he stated that sexual relationships between 13-year-old boys and adults could be "perfectly consensual" — comments that also led to his invitation to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference being rescinded and a book deal with Simon and Schuster being cancelled.

How they stack up

The three candidacies map onto three quite different propositions.

Hudson offers experience and perhaps a level of continuity — 14 years on the council, including time in senior roles.

Faircloth-Mutton offers cabinet experience, but his handling of the Suffolk Community Libraries takeover will likely raise question marks over his credentials to lead a council during a period of intense scrutiny, and his staunch support for net zero and equality may be less easily reconciled with the views of his fellow councillors and party members.

Hadwen offers none of the council experience of the other two, but brings an understanding of Reform's national operation and, in his recent Kent role, a close-up view of what the early days of a Reform administration actually look like. However, his past comments and views are likely to become an unwelcome distraction and easy target for opposition councillors if he were to become the council's leader.

The scrutiny to come

Whoever emerges as Leader on 21 May will face a Green opposition that is likely to share few of their political views.

Councillor Richard Rout, elected as the new Leader of the Suffolk Conservative Group after outgoing leader Matthew Hicks stepped down, said: "I'm grateful for the faith my colleagues have placed in me, and it is now our job, in opposition, to hold the Reform UK administration at Suffolk County Council to account."

He added: "While they made little mention of their plans for our county during the election, instead relying on a national campaign message, Reform have made some sweeping assertions about the state of Suffolk County Council's finances and their ability to find large savings, make staff redundancies and reduce some services."

It is a line of attack the new Leader, whoever they are, will need to be ready to answer from day one.

The bottom line

The mechanics of choosing a new Leader of Suffolk County Council are simple enough: the Reform group will pick one of its own, and on 21 May that name will be read out in the chamber. The harder question is what kind of leader the group wants — a long-serving, experienced hand, a young challenger with no prior public-sector leadership experience, or a controversial career politician whose past statements are likely to provide an unwelcome distraction from the outset.

Ipswich.co.uk will be at Endeavour House on 21 May to report on the outcome.

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