It’s fair to say that the recent elections in some English local councils might turn out to be politically significant. The massive gains by the Reform Party were not what many people including myself expected. I expected them to gain a lot of councillors, because we’ve been in a position in Britain before when we’ve had challenger parties, such as the SDP in the 1980’s that have done this. But I never expected them to take two mayoralties and win enough council seats to to take control of 10 local councils from what is for Reform a standing start. They went into these elections with 0 councils that they controlled, and got 10. That is a remarkable achievement for Reform and testament to how broken is the trust between the people of Britain and the big three Westminster Parties the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats.
The county of Kent for example has been in Conservative Party hands for thirty years and many of us might have thought that the Tories were unassailable there. What opposition to the Tories that existed would in the past have probably voted Lib Dem rather than Labour with Labour’s support often confined to the more urban parts of the county. But Reform swept the board in Kent. They now control the council. Similarly in Lincolnshire where Reform not only gained overall control of the council but also took the new county Mayoralty position. In Lincolnshire as with Kent the Reform Party ousted the Tories and in Lincolnshire Reform gains reduced Labour to just three councillors.
There were also surprising second places for Reform in other contests, most notably the West of England Mayoralty post where Reform came in second after Labour and in an election that Reform had not fought before. It was a close contest, with just ten thousand votes separating the Labour winner from the third place Green candidate.
Turnouts have not been brilliant in these elections but they often are not contests that create high turnout. The West of England Mayoralty election for example had a 30% turnout, down 6% since the last contest. I suspect that at least some of the regular supporters of the Westminster Big Three parties may have chosen not to vote out of disgust at the policies promulgated by these parties. Others appear to have expressed their frustration at the Tories and Labour in particular by voting for Reform. There’s a lot to be frustrated about with regards to the policies that have been imposed on Britons by the increasingly out of touch Tory and Labour Parties, immigration and public services in particular. Both the Tories and Labour have propped open the nation’s doors, saddled Britain with the Net Zero lunacy, appeased some of the worst of the worst of the followers of Islam in our towns and cities and embarked on plans to scatter Dinghy Invaders, far too many of whom are likely to be either criminal or extremist or both, across some of the poorest and most economically challenged parts of the country. Is it any wonder then that voters are now choosing not to put their X next to the name of a Westminster Party candidate?
The win by Reform is clearly spectacular and could represent the beginnings of a electoral shift away from the Big Two and Big Three parties that have so clearly messed up Britain’s governance. But, the big question is how will Reform govern and what resistance will it face from the liberal / left permastate in local government administration and the Quangos that have mushroomed in number since Tony Blair’s first term in office as Labour Prime Minister from 1997? So far the pushback from the Establishment-aligned Left on social media and elsewhere has been composed of hand-wringing and mockery over Reform announcements about their intention to ban the flying of foreign, LGB and Trans flags from council buildings, which is to be expected, but the big test for Reform in local government will be when the administrative rubber meets the road. Reform are going to face many of the problems that other parties in local government face which is massive demands on resources for things like child and adult social care some of which is fiscally supported by local government but some is not. Reform councils are going to be in a bit of a bind when it comes to cutting the money that their councils extort from the people in their area because there’s other statutory spending requirements that they must make not just on social care but also things like libraries and education.
Some of the noises coming from Reform Party activists and new councillors are ones that I like. I certainly agree that there is a vast amount of DEI waste that can be trimmed and in areas like culture and arts there are prospects for cuts as well. DEI and culture are areas of council activity that have been almost entirely captured by the political Left and cuts there would be inline with Reform’s ideas of making councils work better for the majority. Libraries could be supported by local authorities but maybe not run by them and there’s potential for resource sharing with other councils to bring down the costs of libraries and also having voluntary groups being funded to provide a more affordable library service and maybe one more reflective of the public’s needs and desires than one dominated by Leftist activists. The librarians professional association the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) has been involved in some gross and unpopular left wingery in recent years such as the promotion of the cult of trans and removing the influence of these activists from libraries might be a popular and inexpensive action for Reform councils to take.
A big upcoming clash between Reform councils and national government will be the Government’s plans to disperse Dinghy Invaders and other illegal migrants across the country. Some Reform councillors have expressed the desire to stand up to the government on this issue and try to refuse the Invaders that the Government is going to push them to take. Bearing in mind that public anger at excessive levels and inappropriate types of immigration is a major driver of support for Reform this will be a popular policy but they are going to face resistance to this not just from central government but also from the idiot left and the equally idiotic ‘refugees welcome’ types. I can see big rows here with central government who might use the state’s big sticks to force Reform councils to take in these invaders. If that happens then both sides, the government and the Reform councils are going to take political hits, the government for riding roughshod over the desires of the electorate in these Reform areas and the Reform councils who will look ineffective and weak for failing to do what many of their electors want them to do.
Reform are not a party known for it’s detailed policy statements and others have pointed this out. They are going into local government as an unknown entity but one that people have chosen because they are pissed off with the mess that has been made of their areas and indeed the nation by the Big Three Westminster parties. It’s difficult to point to what detailed policies Reform have worked out that they could apply to those ten councils that they now control but they’ve got to hit the ground running and I hope that they can.
The cutting of waste and bureaucracy, the attacks on DEI nonsense and hopefully green nonsense as well are things that I and many others would be very glad to see but Reform are at present giving us very little detail on how they will do this. Maybe more flesh will be put on the bones now that Reform are in office and I’m keeping an open mind on how they will achieve what they set out to achieve and formulate policies that align with what their voters want. Reform are going to face massive challenges to their policies from the perma-Left embedded in local government administration and from those of an activist mindset who administer eduction and how they deal with these challenges is going to be key to how the party is viewed by the public. For example: Making a lot of noise about getting the cult of trans out of local schools but doing sod all about it practically is going to make some voters think that Reform are no different from the other parties.
But, whichever way you look at it, no matter how many questions I have about how Reform will deal with the messy business of governing and the legal restrictions they will have on their actions, to take so many councils and gain so many councillors is a massive achievement. I don’t think that even the old Social Democratic Party (SDP) (1980’s version) did as well when it came to controlling councils on their own although they did win quite a few seats in local council elections in the 1980’s. It’s difficult in Britain for challenger parties to do well in the long term in part due to the electoral system and to sustain any success. We saw from the example of the SDP in the 1980’s that a party can gain massive polling support, win Parliamentary seats but still flounder and tear themselves apart with internal divisions. This might be the fate of Reform or it might not but Reform are picking up far more working class votes, especially the votes of working class Britons opposed to the excesses of the far Left, than the SDP ever did and this might help the party’s sustainability.
Reform have to deliver policies that their voters and the general population want. They are somewhat restricted in local government on what they can do but they’ve got to win those battles that they choose to fight. The more little wins whether over Net Zero nonsense or Troonery or waste or politicised council departments the better for them in the long run. If voters can see their lives getting better by way of improved services, less waste and more local pride then it could go well for them. But if they don’t, if they fail to deliver on the things that they’ve promised then they are going to be seen as little different from the Westminster Big Three and be punished by the electorate accordingly.