History. Stand-in base by actor: two of the eight cases are this same council and group (2025 and 2026), the other six are other English councils with the same rule that the full council elects the leader. In the base the full council never voted down a named successor; the one miss came when the successor withdrew 8 days before the meeting.
Hunch. Two of the three Reform leaders before Hayley Coles left after claims of racist social media posts, and this time there are 44 days before the vote for something new to come out.
The leader market resolves on the Staffordshire County Council news page: YES if the full council meeting on 10 December 2026 elects Hayley Coles as Leader of the Council, and NO if it elects someone else, she withdraws, or no leader is elected that day because the meeting is moved or the item is dropped. BBC News and PA Media settle it if the council page is silent, and if the council page does not open, two of them decide.
We looked for cases where the leader of the ruling group on an English council stood down in the middle of a term, and the full council had to vote on the successor the group named. We found eight such changes from 2015 to 2026. Each time we checked whether the council elected the named person at its first meeting with that vote.