A Reality Check for Reform UK as Challenges Mount Up
Government Spending Review could see across the board council tax rises.
Good week, bad week: who climbed up the greasy political pole and who came down with a bump?
Reform party: after the euphoria of victory in Kent, comes the reality of being on the political frontline. And it was no surprise when Kent Labour MPs lined up to take fire at the new political kids on the block - it was almost as if it had been planned - with denunciation of the party led by the Dover MP Mike Tapp.
In a letter - described as strongly worded - he told the party leader, Linden Kemkaran, that decisions under her leadership appeared “driven more by populist rhetoric than by sound governance or the best interests of Kent’s residents”.
Not one to take such accusations lying down, she replied:
“The first thought that springs to mind when you mention ‘chaos, infighting and imported gimmicks’ is that people who live in glass houses probably shouldn’t throw stones,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, the Labour leader of Medway council, Vince Maple, voiced concern over the tone of a letter sent by the Reform party to staff, which he said was ‘threatening’ and a disgrace. The letter warned KCC employees that they should co-operate with an investigation into the county council’s finances.
Cllr Maple said that the threat was ‘disgraceful’ especially as it had been signed by two people who had nothing to do with the authority.
Closer to home and the probably inevitable news that the Whip had been removed from one of the 57 newly elected Reform county councillors after it emerged police were investigating an unspecified issue.
The party had hoped that its careful sifting of candidates might spare it from this kind of publicity - and it is important to stress no action has been taken by police - but altogether, it has been a week in which the Reform party has discovered that there is something about the saying that politicians campaign in poetry and govern in prose.
As to how this sniping will affect cross-party collaboration on the key issue of devolution, there is a growing sense that there won’t be much harmony between the Reform party and others when it comes to determining how the county council will be replaced by a group of unitary authorities.
It is quite possible that there could be some kind of legal challenge over the government’s proposals, for which support is not so much lukewarm as decidedly chilly.
Budget blues
So far as Kent was concerned, there wasn’t much to hang out the bunting for. Despite record numbers of irregular migrants continuing to find a way to cross the Channel, the Home Office budget will fall by 1.7% between 2025-26 and 2028.
And there is a presumption in the statement that suggests the government is pencilling in council increases of 5%.
Despite this, the Chancellor repeated a pledge to MPs that the government “will be ending the costly use of hotels to house asylum seekers, in this Parliament” by way of something called the transformation fund. This would, she told MPs, be achieved in this Parliament and save £1bn .
But where would they go? You can’t just stop using accommodation and close the doors to dozens of hotels. It was a question that went unanswered as the Chancellor ploughed on through her statement.
With Labour now having to fight its corner with the political up-starts from the Reform Party, there were some trinkets for 25 areas where Labour might be deemed vulnerable.
Some 25 so-called “trailblazer neighbourhoods” stand to receive up to £20m each over the next decade to tackle social problems - and, hurrah, they include Maidstone - the only place in the county to qualify for a slice of funding.
Note the careful language - it is not a £20m handout but a scheme in which ‘up to’ £20m might be available. And the money will be over a ten-year period.