Reform UK Gets Its First Taste Of Real Power

Illustration by Will Allen/Europinion

Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, declared the “end of two-party politics” following his party’s stunning set of results in the United Kingdom’s recent local elections. Reform UK picked up a staggering 677 councillors, 2 mayors and a fifth member of Parliament in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, held on the same day. These results mean that Reform have now taken control of 10 councils, while being the largest party on an additional four. 

By the time the votes had been counted, Kemi Badenoch’s Conservative Party had lost a total of 674 councillors and 16 councils. Keir Starmer also had a tough set of results with Labour failing to defend the parliamentary constituency of Runcorn and Helsby by a margin of six votes; Labour lost 187 councillors. Up until this point, Reform’s political surge had not been translated onto Britain’s electoral maps – the 4 million votes it received in last year’s general election only translated into 5 MPs. Yet, having been around the top of the polls since the start of 2025, Nigel Farage’s party took its chance to prove that it is a political force to be reckoned with.

Having run an effective campaign, Reform now must show what it can do with its new power and how it plans to adapt to the realities of power.

Reform UK’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, has admitted that there will be a period of adjustment for many of the party’s councillors – a large portion of whom have little previous experience in local government. Moreover, Reform has struggled previously with accusations of incompetency and suitability with numerous cases of its candidates having faced backlash over previous comments. 

Speaking to the BBC, Tice portrayed this inexperience as a positive for his party. He pointed to his party’s fresh approach without the baggage of the traditional parties as the base of Reform’s optimism. 

The question, then, is what the policies of these new Reform-controlled councils and mayors will look like. 

Immediately following the news of Reform’s stunning results, Nigel Farage reiterated campaign promises of resisting housing asylum seekers, slashing local council spending and cutting diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at the council level. 

Reform has long railed against high levels of immigration and promised in its 2024 general election manifesto to freeze non-essential immigration. Local councils do not have control over immigration policy, yet Reform’s new councillors could be deployed in challenging the government over the housing of asylum seekers. Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s party chairman, suggested that the councils his party controls would seek to use “judicial reviews, injunctions and planning laws” to prevent local hotels from being used as temporary accommodation. 

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the new Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, suggested in her victory speech that instead of housing asylum seekers in hotels, they should be “put in tents”. Similarly, Darren Grimes, a new Reform councillor in Durham, has promised that the Reform-controlled council in Durham would not “allow our communities to be a dumping ground for illegal migrants”.

Nigel Farage and his party have also taken inspiration from Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s project of slashing government spending in the United States. Farage, who has often boasted about his warm relationship with Trump, has stated that he wants to see a similar project recreated in the United Kingdom.

This opens the door for potentially radical changes to be carried out on newly Reform-led local councils. Along with a reduction in the number of hotels that are used to house migrants, DEI initiatives and environmental projects are likely to become targets of spending cuts. New councillors have suggested that they would conduct audits of local government spending to ensure that taxpayers are receiving value for money.

Farage and Jenkyns have floated the possibility of holding talks with fracking companies in Lincolnshire to “really save money for Lincolnshire taxpayers”. A moratorium is currently in place, effectively banning fracking in the United Kingdom; Labour pushed back against Jenkyns’ move by calling it a substantial risk to energy security and harmful to future generations. 

Yet, Anthony Travers, a public policy expert, pointed out to the Today Programme that Reform may find it hard to find significant savings in local government budgets after more than a decade of austerity which hit local authorities particularly hard. 

Yusuf claimed that his party’s aspirations were “realistic” despite the power of local authorities paling in comparison to that of Westminster and Whitehall. Donald Trump’s agenda during the first 100 days of his second term have perhaps served as a potential blueprint for what might be achieved at the lower level of British politics by an insurgent Reform UK. To keep up the considerable momentum that the party has gained over recent months, new councillors will have to prove that they can deliver the reform that they have promised. The party will know that there are limits to what it can do at this level of government, but that the action it takes now will show the public what its radical agenda looks like in practice.

If Reform UK wants to translate the successes of these local elections into national success, it will have to show the voters who have turned away from the traditional parties towards them that they really are able to radically change British politics. They will find that being in power is a very different task to being on the side-lines. Even if they find themselves able to forward their agenda at a local level, they may find that they alienate the public. The response to Trump’s return to the White House and subsequent policy frenzy illustrates the dangers of an agenda that gets carried away in ideological fervour. Whatever Reform UK does from now, expect them to try to make a splash.

Image: Wikimedia Commons/Owain.Davies Licence.

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