Reform Local Election Candidates Plan Musk-Style Savings And Diversity Cuts
4 min read
Reform UK local election candidates plan efficiency drives and cuts to diversity programmes if they win councils on 1 May.
Lee Anderson MP, Reform MP and the party whip, told PoliticsHome the "first thing" that Reform will do if elected to run councils next month is bring in an Elon Musk-style department of government efficiency (DOGE).
This echoes the remarks of party leader Nigel Farage, who said last week that he felt every county council is likely to need a DOGE unit similar to what the X owner has brought to the Donald Trump administration.
Reform is expected to make significant gains at local and mayoral elections in two weeks' time as it continues to poll ahead of both Labour and the Tories in some opinion polls.
There are questions over how exactly Farage's right-wing party will run councils in the event of winning them on 1 May. Earlier this month, PoliticsHome revealed that Reform had not yet finalised the rules for how it their councillors run local authorities, after the person the party had originally asked to complete the work had resigned.
Thomas Mallon, a Reform county councillor for Kent County Council who is running for re-election in May, told PoliticsHome that the party would be "cutting DEI for a start" if they win control of the councils. Kent in the south of England is a major target region for Farage, with his party seen as in a strong position to win control of the county.
The role of DEI programmes have become a bigger talking point in recent months after Trump launched a crackdown on diversity practices in US workplaces.
PoliticsHome reported this month that British universities receiving US grant funding had been asked by the Trump administration to fill out surveys about their DEI practices.
Mallon told PoliticsHome that once DEI is cut, "we will look at the books and see where we can save further".
Anderson, the Reform MP for Ashfield, told PoliticsHome that the "first thing" Reform will do if it wins councils is enact a DOGE-style approach.
Anderson, who was a Labour councillor for Ashfield District Council for three years before defecting to the Tories, said he had seen the "waste" in councils "first hand".
But he said it was difficult until you are elected and "see the books" to know exactly what will need to be cut, but said "it may be DEI [programmes]".
Anderson added that local authorities needed to be more transparent about their spending, but sought to stress: "We won't be cutting frontline services."
Robert Potts, who is the leader of the Durham Reform Group and a councillor on Durham County Council told PoliticsHome "nothing is off the table" in terms of cuts.
The northeast is another area where Reform is expected to perform strongly on 1 May, with the party having come second in a total of seven constituencies in Durham and Northumberland at the July general election.
Potts, who is running for re-election, said: "The first thing we would do is an audit of the council and the services that are currently provided."
On whether council DEI programmes need to be cut, Potts said he did not think all DEI programmes are unnecessary, and some even need to be provided by law. While Potts said he would not specifically go after DEI programmes, he said he would look into "every aspect of every department".
Some Reform candidates PoliticsHome spoke to said that it would be hard to say what needed to be cut in their county council until they were elected and got access to the books.
Adrian Findley, who is running for election in Lincolnshire County Council and is the mayor of Skegness, said: "Without getting on the council, I don't really know how you can get into the depths of finding out [what needs to be cut]."
However, he said that as a Skegness resident, he did not see how the area was getting its "value for money".
