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“This motion is bizarre to say the least,” said a bemused Doncaster Labour councillor as Reform proposed that the council fly no flags apart from the union flag from its buildings.
It would not just mean no Pride flag on Pride Day, a debate heard. It would mean no white rose flag on Yorkshire Day, no Rovers flag celebrating the football team winning the league, no St George’s flag marking England’s Lionesses’ Euros triumph, and no green flags celebrating municipal park management achievements in the city’s green spaces. The motion was “a waste of time and a waste of resources”, one councillor said.
Meanwhile, at Nottinghamshire county council, climate change was being discussed. Bert Bingham is the Reform councillor now responsible for the council’s environmental policies. He does not believe human-made climate change exists, saying it is a “hoax” and that declaring a climate emergency is “ridiculous and nonsensical”. The media had brainwashed the public about the whole subject, he said.
In Kent, a Reform councillor boasted about ensuring the removal of “trans-ideological material and books” from the children’s section of the county’s libraries. It later emerged the books were not there in the first place.
In Durham, the Reform deputy council leader, a gay man, pledged that Durham Pride “won’t get a single penny from this council next year”. It received less than £10,000 from the council this year.
Welcome to the world of local government in England after the success of Nigel Farage’s Reform party on 1 May this year. The party recently celebrated 100 days in power in local councils with an extensive press release trumpeting its work, including “rolling back the net zero agenda” and “flying patriotic flags”. It boasted of Staffordshire county council’s attempt to stop all solar, wind or battery farms, and Kent council cancelling climate-friendly property modifications, as well as other decisions including not upgrading buses to electric vehicles and scrapping EV charging points.
Farage has been front and centre on the summer front pages, which aides said was part of a desire to look more prime ministerial, holding a press conference every Monday of the parliamentary recess. Here, he has announced a slew of defections, not only of former Tory MPs but a number of key local politicians, including a Tory police and crime commissioner and a member of the Scottish parliament.
Though much of the national party focus has been on small boats and asylum hotels – particularly the controversy over the Bell hotel in Essex – Farage has begun to turn the national spotlight on to houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) used to accommodate asylum seekers. Reform councils are also beginning to emphasise these, setting up another potential national flashpoint. Durham and West Northamptonshire councils have begun crackdowns on the use and conversion of HMOs.
Reform is on a high but how effective is it in power? Has anything changed for residents? Why did people vote for the party and what do they expect?
Reform won outright majorities in Kent, Durham, Derbyshire, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, North Northamptonshire, West Northamptonshire and Doncaster. In the Hull and East Yorkshire combined authority, Luke Campbell, a former Olympic boxer, was elected as its first mayor.
The party was mostly wresting control from the Conservatives but election night was also terrible for Labour. In Durham, Reform succeeded a coalition of Liberal Democrats, independents and Conservatives in what was once a solid Labour stronghold. This year, Labour won four seats compared with Reform’s 65. To put that into perspective, in 2017 Labour had 94 of the council’s then 126 seats. It now has four of 98 seats.
‘Telling us like it is’
On the streets of Consett, once a proud, thriving steel town in County Durham, it is easy to find people who voted Reform. It is easy to find people who voted Labour at the general election. It is hard to find anyone who says they would vote for Keir Starmer’s Labour today.
Corey Barron, 27, who was recently made redundant, said he used to vote Labour like all of his family. “Up here, all of us were Labour but look what has been done to the country in the past year,” he said.
“Reform are the only ones telling us like it is. Labour have told us about a load of policies but haven’t stuck to them. Reform are the only ones being honest. People can see we need someone different.”
Yvonne Hillier, a McDonald’s worker, said she was “Lib Dem through and through” but understood why so many people were voting Reform.
Her two children, in their 20s, still live with her. “They just can’t afford to get on the housing ladder,” she said. “There are so many problems, so I can see why people voted Reform … but I couldn’t vote for them. I liked Nigel Farage in the jungle. I don’t like him the way he is now.”
