Joey Gwinn: Where Reform wins, their own voters lose the most
Reform's local councils, after gaining 13 in the previous year's elections, have reversed their core pledges of reducing debt, council tax, and waste. Despite promising fiscal responsibility, these councils have committed to significant borrowing and imposed some of the highest council tax increases in the country. Internal failures, particularly the collapse of the DOGE efficiency initiative, have undermined Reform's credibility and disproportionately affected their own voters.
- ▪Reform-led councils have committed to £2.31 billion in borrowing, contradicting their pledge to reduce debt.
- ▪Durham County Council plans to borrow £446.3 million over four years, the most aggressive borrowing plan among Reform councils.
- ▪All Reform councils proposed council tax increases, with Worcestershire planning an 8.98% hike, the highest in the UK.
- ▪The DOGE team, meant to eliminate waste, collapsed within a week and failed to deliver on its promises in multiple councils.
- ▪Derbyshire abandoned DOGE and spent £5 million on external consultants to complete the work it was supposed to do.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Joey Gwinn is a parliamentary assistant, researcher, and a former county and city council candidate. When Reform gained thirteen councils in last May’s local elections, it was fair to say they’d pulled off a resounding success – startling too, given the lack of ground campaigning in many of the areas where they performed their best. True too was that it became clear that Reform’s ability to govern would indeed at least be partially tested before the next general election. Farage left little room for clarity for what his voters should expect – an end to opportunist, dishonest and self-serving politics at council levels. It was asserted that Britain was broken.
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