In the May 2025 local government elections in England, Nigel Farage’s Reform party scored some notable successes. Mainly at the expense of the Conservatives.
Reform won outright majorities in 10 local authorities – Kent, Durham, Lancashire, Doncaster, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire.
In some places – like Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire – they are now the largest party, but not a majority, and they are attempting to govern alone as minority administrations. In others, like Cornwall, they have been blocked by other parties and independent councillors forming coalitions.
So, what is Reform going to do with this new-found power in local government?
Constitutional context
The first and most important constitutional fact about English local government is that it exists at the whim of central government. It has no constitutional right to exist and can be abolished, merged, broken up or even taken over by Whitehall relatively easily.
The last time a major insurgent force took over large sections of local government was the Labour left in the 1980s under the Thatcher government. The various attempts at rebellion resulted in the abolition of the Greater London Council and 6 other metropolitan county councils in 1985. Beyond this, severe financial restrictions and punishments were imposed on councils – like the surcharging of Lambeth Labour councillors for setting a deficit budget.
This episode demonstrated forcefully the precarious position of English local government. And since the 1980s it has been systematically stripped of many powers and public service functions it used to deliver. These include losing control of most of education (from primary to higher), outsourcing of much of social care, nationalisation of various environmental services, and so on.
The new Labour government plans to make major changes to the structure of English local government. The councils Reform have captured are not in the first wave of re-organisations – which is why they went ahead with elections unlike some others. But many are due for re-organisation.
Reform’s triumph in Kent County Council, for example, may prove short-lived. Prior to the May local elections, and the take-over of KCC by Reform, the 12 district and borough councils in the Kent area, the one unitary authority (Medway) and KCC had agreed in principle to a reorganisation of the area into 3 or 4 unitary authorities.
It’s now unclear what KCCs position will be under Reform leadership, but their new council leader in her first speech referred to the ‘the spectre of Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) hurtling down the tracks at a quite incredible speed.’ ‘I’m not entirely convinced it’s the right thing for Kent. I will be making it my priority to find out as much as I can over the coming weeks and months to help formulate our response to LGR’, she added.
As Ken Livingstone and others found out in the 1980s, if central government decides to, it can impose a re-organisation, and there will be little KCC or Reform can do to stop it. Some of the other county councils Reform have taken over may face a similar fate.
Legal context
Simon Goacher, Head of Local Government at national law firm Weightmans, has provided a useful analysis of the legal and governance challenges facing newly elected Reform UK councils as they transition from opposition to administration across ten local authorities in England.
According to Goacher, Reform have promised to:
- Reduce spending in local government via an equivalent of DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency in the USA formerly headed by Elon Musk) in each local authority area
- Stop employees working from home
- Reject any proposals to house asylum seekers in the area of a council they control
- Remove any employees with Diversity and Inclusion responsibilities in their role
- Stop all net zero projects.
He goes on to point out that each of these promises probably faces legal hurdles – either from legislation specifically covering local government’s role, obligations and powers or from more general legislation covering things like employment and equalities rights.
For example, a number of councils have already lodged Judicial Reviews against hotels in their areas being used to house asylum seekers because it constitutes a “change of use”. According to Goacher all but one has failed.
Similarly, on net zero projects, in most cases ultimate legal authority will rest with central government.
It’s worth adding that the so-called DOGE initiatives are also likely to face some legal problems if the experience of Kent County Council is anything to go by. Shortly after Reform took over control of KCC, a letter was sent to staff announcing the DOGE initiative and demanding their co-operation, with threats of disciplinary action if they failed to do so.
The letter was signed by the new Reform Leader of KCC, Councillor Linden Kamkaran. So far so good – as long as she had ensured she had the authority to do this and it was legal (the disciplinary threats bit is obviously controversial).
But the letter was also signed by Nigel Farage as the Leader of Reform UK and Zia Yusuf as the (then) Chairman of Reform UK. And was on Reform UK headed paper. Neither Farage nor Yusuf had, or have, any legal standing to instruct KCC staff and the letter makes it clear the DOGE unit is actually a Reform Party organisation, with therefore no legal standing with KCC.
Whether this was simple naivety by Reform’s leadership or a blatant attempt to test the boundaries of what is legally permissible remains to be seen. The chaos surrounding Zia Yusuf’s resignation from Reform resulted in the DOGE Unit’s lead, Nathaniel Fried, also resigning. Yusuf is now back as the head of Reform’s DOGE but Freid’s position is unclear.
Financial context
In May last year, just before the General Election, I wrote about the huge crisis in local government for this blog. The most important financial fact was that central government funding for local government had fallen by 40% between 2009/10 and 2019/20.
“All councils have been caught in an iron triangle of falling funding, rising demand, and legal obligations to deliver services” say Stuart Hoddinot and Alex Thomas of the Institute of Government.
Analysis by the Financial Times’ Jennifer Willaims shows that the 10 councils taken over by Reform had already identified £500 million in cuts in the February-March budget papers this year alone.
The same FT article reports Nigel Farage as claiming that “We are going to make big savings. We will stand here before you in one year’s time and show you the excessive costs that we have taken out of local government”.
In Kent CC, for example, in 2023/24 71.6% of its spending went on statutory adult and children’s social care and only 1.2% on head office costs. It’s difficult to see where any further “big savings” could come from without cutting statutory provision – which could face legal challenges (see above).
And finally, the politics – ‘no mates’ Reform?
One final interesting detail concerning Reform’s gains in the English local elections is those places where they did well, and sometimes became the largest party, but did not win an overall majority.
The BBC reports that Reform UK is not involved in any coalitions, pacts or deals in any of the councils where it’s now represented. In some places – for example Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Leicestershire – Reform UK has enough councillors to try to form minority administrations and is trying to do so.
In Cornwall although they are the largest party, the Liberal Democrats have teamed-up with independents to form a minority administration, much to the fury of Reform UK. This may become a feature across the UK, with Reform boxed into a corner by other parties and independents, and unable to control councils effectively.
In sum, it appears Reform are going to struggle to deliver on their many promises. Some are simply outside the powers of local government. For example, Kent County Council can do very little to “stop the boats”. Other extravagant promises on savings are going to be almost impossible to achieve because of purely practical reasons. And some promises on issues like equalities and employment rights may prove illegal.
As a final note – in May 2015 Reform’s predecessor, UKIP, won control of Thanet Council in Kent. They won 33 seats, up from just two previously. Less than three years later – March 2018 – they lost control of Thanet to the Tories after 12 of their, by then only 25, councillors split and set up their own group. A premonition of things to come?
Colin Talbot.
Colin Talbot is Emeritus Professor of Government, University of Manchester. He also has relationships with the Cambridge Judge Business School and the Federal Trust. Colin has worked extensively with all levels of British government and public services, including being an advisor to two House of Commons Select Committees and appearing as an expert witness over two dozen times in both Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament, and the Welsh Assembly. He has also advised more than a dozen other governments, from the USA to Japan.
The Constitution Society is committed to the promotion of informed debate and is politically impartial. Any views expressed in this article are the personal views of the author and not those of The Constitution Society.