Who is Sean Matthews? The former Met Police officer named Lincolnshire's Reform leader

The Reform councillor who was chosen to lead Lincolnshire County Council previously spent most of his working life as an officer in London’s Met Police.

However, he has previously spoken about how he was interested in politics from a young age, claiming one of his earliest memories is Margaret Thatcher’s election as Conservative leader.

He served in the capital’s police force from March 1993 to February 2018, including time in royalty protection.

A Reform website says his time as a family liaison officer was “especially formative, shaping his belief in the importance of compassion, care, and living fully in the present”.

In 2018, the father-of-four retired and moved close to Horncastle to be nearer family.

He became active in politics, becoming branch chair of the local Conservative association and standing as a candidate in local and county elections.

In his first attempt in 2019, he came bottom of six candidates attempting to be elected in Horncastle.

As Conservatives Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss were forced to quit as Prime Minister, Coun Matthews says he became “disillusioned with the party’s shift towards a left-wing agenda”.

His unhappiness with the national party led him to leave after Rishi Sunak was elected Prime Minister, and he joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK instead.

He told the i newspaper: “To have [Sunak] hoisted on us is too much. It is an outrageous coup.”

His first election as Reform in 2023 wasn’t promising as he received only 61 votes (less than 10 per cent) in a race contested by the Conservatives and independents.

When the General Election was called in 2024, he was selected to stand for the Louth & Horncastle seat.

He was one of five Reform MP candidates tipped to win by pollster YouGov, although he ended second as former health minister Victoria Atkins managed to hold on to the seat.

However, he remained a major organiser for Reform as the party continued to gain ground in the polls.

When the party swept into power on Lincolnshire County Council in May, he was one of 44 victorious Reform candidates, and he was soon chosen to lead the group.

Coun Matthews – now representing Tattershall Castle – was frank that most of the candidates had little political experience.

“Out of us here, there really are no experienced councillors, and so we’re going to rely on the county council to get us up to speed as quickly as possible,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“I just can’t wait to get started on the real work, which is bringing Lincolnshire back into fiscally sound policies and trying to make it a better place for all the people that live here.”

Reform now commands a large majority, but it will be the first time that the party has needed to turn their promises into reality on a large council.