The Reform Red Wall council hiking tax after ‘Doge cuts’ never came ...Middle East

Reform is facing the “hard reality” of having to raise council tax by 5 per cent for a further 1.2 million people at one of its flagship authorities, The i Paper has been told.

Local leaders in eight of the 13 councils led by Nigel Farage’s party have already indicated they are likely to raise council tax next April, despite having pledged to to freeze it.

Now opposition leaders say they are expecting the same at Lancashire County Council where Reform took control in May’s election.

It is the third-largest authority in the country, but like all councils, it is struggling with increasing costs and is on course to overspend by almost £28m by the end of the financial year.

Reform’s national leaders promised to send in Elon Musk-style Doge units to find waste and inefficiencies but no visit has materialised at Lancashire, or any of the other councils led by the party.

Stephen Atkinson, Reform’s leader of Lancashire county council, ordered officers to carry out an internal efficiency review which is due to report back later this month.

But he has already admitted they are struggling to find significant savings.

“We have ever-growing demand and government is not giving us the money to meet that demand,” he said at the party’s conference in October.

‘There’s no flesh left to cut after 15 years of austerity’

Azhar Ali OBE, an independent councillor who is leader of the opposition, said he believes Reform have been told by council officers there is no choice but to increase council tax by 4.99 per cent.

“There is a danger to the taxpayers of Lancashire of being hit with the maximum council tax increase by Reform despite their pledge to freeze it,” he told The i Paper.

“The hard reality of running Lancashire County Council is starting to hit Reform.

“After 15 years of Conservative cuts equating to over £500m from Lancashire County Council’s budgets there is not any flesh left.

“Reform pledged to do things differently but the reality is that they have continued with implementing the Conservative budget.

“Reform seem more worried about keeping their national HQ happy than focusing on the people of Lancashire.

“As the official opposition we are, where possible, coming forward with ideas to help deliver improved servces which is the job of a pragmatic and responsible opposition as Progressive Lancashire.”

Infighting over plan to close care homes

Six other Reform-led councils serving around 4.8 million people – Durham, Kent, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Leicestershire and Lincolnshire – are already expected to put council tax up by 5 per cent.

If Lancashire joins them this would mean at least 6 million people are facing the maximum increase in bills.

The prospect of raising council tax comes as Reform’s Lancashire leaders are also dealing with a deepening crisis over plans to close care homes.

Reform says the move would save £4m a year but the proposition has proved hugely unpopular in the communities affected with several local campaigns already launched to save specific buildings.

Dorothy Devereux, a 92-year-old former nurse living in the Woodlands care home in Clayton-le-Moors, Accrington, told The Guardian she is devastated and has pledged she will stay until “forcibly removed or in a box.”

The i Paper understands the plans have caused upset within Reform itself with some councillors not happy with the decision.

“There’s people [in Reform] saying ‘you’re not touching my care home’, they have no collective group identity,” an insider said. “I think there will end being a massive U-turn.”

Reform’s leadership has also faced criticism over other issues since coming to power six months ago including a new library in Preston which has repeatedly been closed due to a lack of staff, changes to waste services in Pendle and a plan to move a gritting depot from Rossendale.

The insider said these rows were symptomatic of the difficulty Atkinson is facing maintaining discipline within his new group of councillors.

“His battle is to try and keep 53 members of his group happy and I think they are sinking,” the insider said.

“They’ve got some good people who came in for the right reasons because they wanted to serve their community and they were sick of two-party politics.

“Then they’ve got a chunk who never thought they would win, they were paper candidates and they never turn up for meetings apart from full cabinet so they can claim their allowance.

“There are some people who are retired and can’t give the job what it needs.

“And there are a chunk who are troublemakers towards the far right who keep causing problems on social media.

“He’s battling all this and they’ve taken their eye off the ball which is services.

“That’s how this care home closures stuff happened.”

‘People are asking what else do Reform stand for?’

Last month the Lib Dems won a by-election on Preston city council ahead of Reform with the ruling Labour group in third.

Mark Jewell, a Lib Dem councillor on Lancashire county council, was involved in campaigning and said he believes voters are starting to be more critical of Reform.

“We did have to fight very hard but the thing that struck me was people are beginning to ask – what else are Reform for?” said Jewell.

“We know about stopping the boats, but what are they doing for me in my life?

“I just thought that was interesting, people are beginning to pick up on it.

“People are really hacked off with politics, they’ve had enough and they sometimes say ‘it’s you (Lib Dems) or Reform’.

“We’re 180 degrees from each other so it shows they’re actually just pigged off with politics in general.

“People know we are present all year round, what else do Reform stand for?

“It will be really interesting when it comes to the budget – they’ve pitched this expectation that they will reduce council tax, now they will have to start delivering.

“It’s not adding up at the moment.”

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What Reform says

Stephen Atkinson, Reform’s leader in Lancashire, has been contacted for comment.

He told The Times last week: “After decades of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dem mismanagement, Reform has made huge strides in local government in just six months.

“We’ve slashed £100m of waste in our first 100 days, and far more since. In Lancashire we’ve just frozen councillor allowances for the first time in 15 years, and in Derbyshire we’ve almost cleared the Tory pothole backlog from 26,000 to just 3,000.

“Reform is recalibrating councils to deliver the priorities of residents. Within the next few weeks Reform UK councils will be working on their first budgets, delivering many more millions of savings.”

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