Reform & Local Councils: no one likes us, we don’t care*
On May 1st the far right political business Reform, owned by Nigel Farage, won over 600 local Council seats in England. This gave them the control of some Councils and enough seats on some others to have a role in determining who should control them.
The BBC story below shows how this working out. It’s a good piece of reporting underlining that beneath the agenda driven household names of BBC political journalism there are actual journalists diligently reporting (not attempting to shape or promote) what is going on.
Its quite usual for local Councils to be NOC- No Overall Control- where different parties work together on things that need doing locally. Coalitions that would not occur at Westminster- Tory-Green for example- happen on this pragmatic level.
The problem for Reform here is twofold. Firstly it’s not a democratic political party, it’s a business. Secondly if, as events quite often make clear, anyone in Reform does something the owner doesn’t like they are given the boot.
Hence as the report notes Reform Councils have no local policies. Stopping the boats the mantra of the far right, is not something Town Halls can do, unless they have a municipal boating lake anyway.
Nor are Reform minded to seek to work with others because they need the agreement of the owner who has other matters on his mind (where the nearest wine bar is for example).
It’s a subset of the quote from the Great Gatsby. Reform UK are breaking things locally and they are careless people. Moving fast however is not on the agenda. As Fitzgerald writes in the book eventually other people will have to clear up the mess.
All this is the kind of really useful political knowledge that those who write the headlines about the inexorable rise of Reform aren’t interested in. It does however remain the reality
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c365y0190l7o
- Except apparently for Cornwall
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