The Reform Inefficiency Department tracks all the times that Reform ending up wasting everyone’s time, breaking things that work, banning things that don’t exist, fighting imaginary problems, or costing more money than they saved. Every by-election triggered costs in excess of £20,000. (See also: Quitting)
Reform has run councils for a year. As local elections near, we ask: how has the party performed in power?
Broken promises, broken roads, and broken council leadership teams – that’s the outcome of Reform UK’s first year in power, an investigation by openDemocracy reveals.
[…] Reform raised taxes in every council where it holds or shares power. Potholes continue to cause accidents and damage, and councillors’ struggles over where to make promised savings have put much-loved local services at risk of closure.
Reform UK have secured an extraordinary meeting of the City of Doncaster Council in attempts to regain control of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Committee (OSMC).
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands the meeting, scheduled for October 23, 2025, will see the party nominate new chairs and vice-chairs of various council committees.
A group spokesperson declined to comment on their exact plans for the meeting, including on who they would be nominating to chair key committees.
Leaders say proposals fly in face of pre-election pledges to identify efficiencies and savings from Musk-style DOGE unit
Reform UK-run Kent council plans to raid £2 million from schools’ already-squeezed budgets to pay for vital services it can no longer afford, sparking fears of more classroom cuts.
Leaders say the proposals fly in the face of Reform’s pre-election pledges to identify efficiencies and savings through a pilot of its own Elon Musk-style DOGE unit.
The party also admitted this week it’s likely to hike council tax charges for its residents.
The Conservatives have won back Eccleshall & Gnosall on Staffordshire County Council
Reform UK has lost one of the Staffordshire County Council seats it won on May 1 – just 78 days after that landslide victory. Reform UK swept to power in May after winning 49 of the 62 Staffordshire County Council divisions.
But a by-election was triggered just days later after offensive social media posts from Councillor Wayne Titley led to his resignation. Now the Conservatives have regained Eccleshall & Gnosall following this morning’s election result.
Holding office in local government is a poisoned chalice for a party that bases its electoral appeal around issues where it has no power whatsoever, argues NICK WRIGHT
For two months after Reform UK took over the council the council failed to conduct business, subcommittees were cancelled, Reform UK councillors failed to sign their declaration of acceptance of office, others failed to complete their register of interests and the planning committee’s work was on hold after half the Reform UK members failed to turn up for their statutory training that qualifies them to take planning decisions.
The interim leader of Warwickshire County Council has defended plans to bring in political assistants costing up to £190,000 per year in the face of outrage from other parties.
Councillor George Finch (Reform UK, Bedworth Central) confirmed he had instigated the proposals that will be considered by all councillors next week.
They would see the biggest three parties at Shire Hall – Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives – have a dedicated council officer to “undertake research and provide administrative support to members of political groups in the discharge of any of their (council) functions”, although the Lib Dems have spoken out to object to the idea.
National legislation allows councils to employ up to three people, one for each of the council’s three biggest groups provided they have at least 10 per cent of the seats available.
It was reported on 16 July that County Durham council, presently dominated by Reform UK, is now thought to have become the first council in the country, to revoke its climate declaration. In its place the council has declared a care emergency.
Darren Grimes, Deputy Leader of Durham County Council and a former presenter on GB News was reported as saying: “We are done with expensive virtue signalling tripe and care about our residents,” and was also noted as saying that the ongoing social care crisis is the “most urgent threat to the well-being of our children and the financial stability of our county”
It was also said that the previous council had approved an environment pledge aimed at achieving net zero emissions by 2045 running alongside the current Climate Emergency Response Plan.
Another Reform councillor, Andrew Husband seemed to hint that global warming would be a good thing as: “During the Roman-occupied era not far away from County Durham, around 45AD, there is evidence of Roman vineyards along Hadrian’s Wall. This is because the Roman period in Britain is known for having a relatively warm climate which would have been conducive to growing grapes. Mind, how the climate has changed”
The recently elected leader of Warwickshire County Council has resigned, leaving his 18-year-old deputy in charge.
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard, who was in power for 41 days, said he had made the decision with “much regret”, citing health reasons were behind his departure.
Speaking today at Church House in Westminster, Nigel Farage announced that Reform will introduce a ‘Britannia card’ that will let wealthy foreigners pay a £250,000 fee to move to the UK, and live here exempt from all tax on their foreign assets. The move is an attempt to win over ‘non-doms’ alienated by Labour and Conservative governments and bring their wealth back into the country.
The party says the policy will raise between £1.5 and £2.5 billion annually. Our analysis of the data suggests it is more likely to cost around £34 billion over five years.
The by-election is expected to cost taxpayers £27,000
The deadline to register to vote in a by-election triggered by the resignation of a Reform UK councillor after just a fortnight is now looming. People in Eccleshall and Gnosall have a week to register to vote in next month’s Staffordshire County Council by-election which is costing taxpayers £27,000.
Former Eccleshall & Gnosall councillor Wayne Titley was one of 49 Reform candidates to be elected onto the council as the party secured a landslide victory on May 1.
But just two weeks later he resigned after coming under intense online criticism of social media posts attributed to him, including one which called for the Royal Navy to shoot at small boats in the English Channel.
Zia Yusuf, who resigned as Reform UK chairman on Thursday, is to return to work for the party in a new role.
Yusuf will lead what the party calls its “Doge team” – which is modelled on the Department of Government Efficiency set up by US President Donald Trump.
Earlier this week, Yusuf quit the party, saying working to get it elected was no longer “a good use of my time”, without expanding further.
Nigel Farage’s “economically illiterate” climate policies could wipe £92 billion off the UK economy, according to the New Economics Foundation.
Reform UK’s policies to “scrap net zero” would cost more than 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the UK economy, according to a new study.
Nigel Farage’s party — which took control of 10 councils in the recent local elections — this week claimed that the government could save £45 billion every year by ditching climate policies.
However, analysis by the New Economics Foundation (NEF) published today suggests that Reform’s policies would cost jobs and investment, and could raise household energy bills.
Reform UK has said it will scrap net zero and cut all renewable subsidies – the impact would be hugely damaging
[…]
Reform UK has said it will scrap net zero with various figures banded around by the party’s representatives for how much this will raise – anywhere from £225bn to £45bn. The Institute for Government, who’s analysis is used to calculate the larger of these two figures, has already said the Party has misrepresented its analysis and failed to acknowledge that most of this investment will come from the private sector – in other words, Reform UK’s policies would likely destroy much needed investment into the UK economy.
But what is the real cost of their anti-renewable and anti-net zero policies? It is important to ensure all political parties are accountable to the public and the impacts of their policies are estimated in a transparent and consistent manner.
REFORM UK will take official command of Warwickshire County Council tomorrow (Friday) with no-one having the faintest notion of how the party will run the authority.
Although people have a rough idea of Reform’s policies at a national level, the party did not issue a manifesto for the county council elections on 1st May.
Nigel Farage’s fiscal arithmetic is as eye-catching as it is unserious.
[…]
That reality is the sticking point. Raising the tax threshold to £20,000 is estimated to cost between £50bn and £80bn all on its own. Reform claims to have found a cool £225bn down the back of the Treasury sofa by scrapping net zero and insists it could save more still by cutting funding to quangos. Good luck, as they say, with that.
But how successful will Reform’s opponents be at pointing this out? Shadow chancellor Mel Stride has been out and about, calling Farage’s plans “fantasy economics”, while Labour has gone for “fantasy promises”. Farage’s answer to this charge was that all parties fudge the figures in their manifestos, suggesting Reform’s creative accounting was par for the course. Against the general backdrop of disillusionment with the political establishment, the narrative will be that Reform are no worse than the other parties – and that official estimates should be viewed sceptically anyway.
One attack line might get through. “Trussonomics on steroids” was how the Liberal Democrats responded to Tuesday’s proposals.
Reform UK presided over its first full Kent County Council (KCC) meeting last week, with the new leader announcing a cut in councillor allowances and a special post for finding savings.
On a morning dominated by frequent applause and table thumping by Reform’s members, KCC’s new leader Linden Kemkaran said she regarded her new role as a “privilege”.
But she pledged to look at every area of spending at the authority with the creation of a department of local government efficiency (DOLGE) and proposed to cut member allowances by 5%.
Reasons range from dodgy social media posts to not being eligible to stand in the first place
Over 600 new Reform councillors were elected in the May 2025 local elections – and many seem to have been unprepared for it.
Reform is seeing an unusual number of councillors resigning in their first few weeks in office. In each case, this will trigger a council byelection costing in excess of £20,000.
Reform scraps Derbyshire’s climate change committee, prompting fears on flood prevention work
Derbyshire has been hit by numerous floods in recent years and this committee handled much of the work to mitigate future damage and assist residents and businesses
Reform has scrapped Derbyshire’s committee on climate change, biodiversity and carbon reduction, with fears this will directly impact flood prevention. In its first series of decisions with the keys to Derbyshire County Council, Reform UK has chosen to axe one of the authority’s scrutiny committees, formed four years ago by the Conservatives.
Reform promised much to voters and now runs £8bn worth of public services. After three weeks, what has party accomplished?
When Nigel Farage held a victory lap of England after his mammoth local elections win on 1 May, he was characteristically bullish about Reform UK’s plan to shake up town halls.
[…]
Yet three weeks into power in nine of England’s cash-starved local authorities – where Reform UK now runs £8bn worth of public services – Farage’s “Reform-quake” has been limited to smaller but symbolic acts of the “war on woke”.
In Kent and Durham, councils with a combined £1bn of debt, one of Reform’s first acts was to take down the Ukrainian flag – hoisted to show solidarity with the war-besieged nation – and vowed not to fly rainbow-coloured flags in support of LGBTQ+ residents.
The Reform UK leader of a council has accused other political parties of hypocrisy over their reaction to the cost of a by-election, after one of his councillors resigned.
Wayne Titley won the Eccleshall and Gnosall ward for Reform earlier in May but faced criticism over a social media post around immigration and stepped down.
His resignation means a by-election at an estimated £27,000 cost and the Conservative leader on the council called it a “waste of money”.
Nigel Farage hailed his party’s election success as proof that Reform had professionalised but, just a few weeks on, “the truth is beginning to emerge”, said The New European, “as newly-elected Reform councillors begin to quit, wasting tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money” on by-election costs for their replacements.
All 10 council areas controlled by rightwing party tell the Guardian they have no low-traffic neighbourhoods
Reform UK’s pledge to remove all low-traffic neighbourhoods from the council areas it controls looks to be achieved in record time after the 10 local authorities said they do not actually have any in place.
Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s chair, said last week there would be a “large-scale reversal” of existing LTNs in the 10 areas across England where the party won control of the councils in local elections on 1 May.
“We view these schemes with the same suspicion as mass immigration and net zero,” Yusuf told the Telegraph, adding: “You can expect, if you live in a Reform council, for there to be a much higher bar for any proposals for LTNs and for the large-scale reversal of these existing LTNs.”
The Guardian contacted the councils now run by Reform – Derbyshire, Doncaster, Durham, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, North Northamptonshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and West Northamptonshire – and they all said they had no such schemes.
A new Staffordshire County councillor has stepped down, just two weeks after being elected.
Wayne Titley won the Eccleshall and Gnosall division for Reform UK, beating the Conservative Jeremy Pert by just 27 votes.
However, he attracted criticism for a post on his Facebook account in March that called on the navy to intercept small boats attempting to reach Britain and use a “volley of gun fire aimed at sinking them”.
A Reform UK councillor elected just over a week ago has resigned after failing to declare that he worked for the council.
Andrew Kilburn will no longer take up his role as a Durham county councillor for Benfieldside.
He was elected with 1,007 votes alongside fellow Reform candidate Sandra Grindle as the party gained both seats in the Benfieldside ward – one from Labour and one from an independent.
Desmond Clarke said he is ‘unable to deliver’ what people need
A Nottinghamshire Reform councillor has stepped down only a week after he was elected as he felt he was ‘unable to deliver’ what people need. Desmond Clarke won his seat for Newark West on Nottinghamshire County Council only one week ago in the May 1 elections.
A new Warwickshire county councillor has apologised for a “mistake” that means he will be unable to serve under the Reform UK banner for now.
Councillor Luke Shingler swept to a comfortable victory in Nuneaton’s Galley Common ward having been promoted as the Reform candidate until five days before the ballot.
He took to social media on the Saturday before the polls to tell residents he was not allowed to “run under a political organisation, party or movement due to my employment” but that it was too late to change ballot papers that linked him to Reform.
The councillor had posted on social media about her plans to defect from Reform UK after the election
A newly elected councillor has quit Reform UK after she was suspended over a social media post just days after being elected.
Donna Edmunds, who was elected in Hodnet in Shropshire, was suspended for writing on X, formerly Twitter, that she was planning to defect from the party after the local elections.
Ms Edmunds on Sunday had written on the platform that she had been suspended from the party “pending an investigation”.
She had previously posted about waiting for the party’s ousted MP Rupert Lowe to set up a challenger party “and then I will defect”.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns has doubled down on Farage’s pledge to sack diversity officers in Lincolnshire but the county council has revealed it does not employ any
Andrea Jenkyns’ vow to get rid of council diversity officers as one of her first acts as the new Reform mayor for Lincolnshire has fallen flat after it emerged that the county council doesn’t employ any.
Firefighters’ union leader Steve Wright has warned that Reform’s electoral advances pose a risk to public safety, especially in areas where wildfires are an increasingly common occurrence.
The total area burnt by wildfires this year is already bigger than any year in over a decade. Wright said that the FBU would resist cuts from figures like Andrea Jenkyns, who this morning became Reform’s first metro mayor in Greater Lincolnshire.
Jenkyns has promised to launch a “Lincolnshire DOGE”, echoing Trump’s cuts agenda. She is also a member of the board of ‘Net Zero Watch’, which lobbies against action on climate change.
