When Reform UK won two mayoralties, 677 council seats and overall control of 10 councils earlier this month, it was hailed as a political tsunami.
Three weeks on from those election results, Reform is beginning to face up to "the enormous challenges that local government poses" – particularly for a party that's "been so rapidly thrust into positions of political power", said Local Government Chronicle. And already there are signs that things "could get messy", said The Independent.
'Embarrassing' councillors
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.
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Des Clarke resigned from Nottinghamshire County Council just days after being elected, citing "significant changes" to his personal circumstances. Donna Edmunds – elected in Hodnet in Shropshire – has also stepped down, after being suspended from the party just 48 hours after her election for a social-media post about her plans to defect. Andrew Kilburn quit his post in Durham after failing to declare that he worked for the council. Luke Shingler, who was elected in Warwickshire, is now serving as an independent because his RAF job prohibits him from representing a political party. And Staffordshire Reform councillor Wayne Titley resigned for "personal reasons", after posting on social media that the Royal Navy should use a "volley of gunfire" to sink small boats crossing the Channel.
Despite Reform's pledge to vet candidates "rigorously at all levels", an investigation by The Telegraph has uncovered other statements by a number of the party's new councillors that "may prove embarrassing" – including a Ku Klux Klan "joke" in response to a meeting of Grenfell Tower survivors. All this raises questions about and whether Farage "has what it takes to build a serious political machine".
Part of the problem lies in Reform's "sheer unexpected success" at the ballot box, said The Independent. It's meant many "'paper' candidates" – those who "were not expected to win" – are now elected, "with a job that they didn't particularly want to do".
'Collision course with reality'
Reform has "very clearly signalled that its approach will be confrontational", said The Covert Councillor in Prospect magazine. Deputy leader Richard Tice has announced a "war" against renewable energy projects and diversity initiatives. Reform councils will only fly the Union Jack, St George's flag and county flags, "banning shows of solidarity with war-torn Ukraine, for instance".
But this approach will put the party "on a collision course with financial reality". Any savings made from scrapping diversity and inclusion initiatives will be "nominal", unlike "the costs of picking fights with unions or stalling job creation and investment in solar tech".
On a wider level, the party "still hasn't really made up its mind" about some issues, said The Independent. This includes whether or not to back far-right activist Tommy Robinson, to endorse mass deportations or, indeed, "to publish a full manifesto with detailed policies and plans".
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