To chortle my face off at this fucking farce from Reform

[Salemsplot]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/oct/18/suck-it-up-leaked-video-exposes-bitter-infighting-at-reform-uks-flagship-kent-council

But in seriousness, imagine these kind of people running your council, let alone your country…

To be fair Kent voters welcomed the massive .lorry parks needed for Brexit. In fact they donated some of their own land - village greens and cricket clubs to make sure it happened.

Removing several layers of costly administration or having to know what your Parish, District and County Council are each responsible for in order to access services appropriately. Having one authority who has the local knowledge but all the responsibility that the district and county council has now.

You see, this is the sort of fact free, deluded fantasy believed by people who read the Daily Mail with an uncritical eye.

Marxist, my hat! Virtually no one believes in open borders, the problem is that, as successive Governments have learned, small boats are difficult to stop.

Of course you’re correct. But it’s always good to ask questions on threads like these to the people spouting off about things they clearly know nothing about. It’s also good to watch them steadfastly refuse to answer and pretend they just haven’t seen the post….and that’s fine for people on MN nowhere near local government but worryingly/hilariously (depending on how much it affects you personally I guess) it seems it’s also the way Reform are trying to run a political party. Sorry, I mean Ltd Company.

Well, I’m not so sure they. Because their main response to stuff like this on the local Facebook pages seem to be ‘fake news’ (lol) and ‘What do you expect, it’s the Guardian!’ (as if the Guardian somehow made them act this way in a local government meeting). And apparently Reform increasing Council Tax (by anything at all, not just the max) is never going to happen, also fake news. Presumably they wouldn’t be largely responding like that if they were ok with it all. It would almost be funny if it weren’t so depressing.

Because all they seem capable of is burdening the small number of people who are still able and willing to work with higher taxes.

I'd really like to know why, if you don't support Reform, and think that there's nothing wrong with the people in this video, you're Marxist?

wait till their council tax goes up.

Yes they have…

people who are still able and willing to work

Willingness and ability are not synonymous - the UK still has a massive skills shortage in jobs that do not involve sounding off on social media about how dreadful things are.

Well they voted for them. It will be the same in the GE if too many vote for them.

I contacted our Reform cllr with responsibility for SEND and education asked him if he'd explain his understanding of LA's statutory duty around SEND so that I could tailor the explanation of the problem to meet his understanding of the process. His response was he knew all he needed to know because he had worked in a nursery and had responsibility for handing children over to parents😂Needless to say I didn't trouble him further sorted it with a PAP and a complaint to LGO. He's just resigned five months in after closing 5 adult education centres unilaterally with no consultation. Will cost £30k for a new election for his replacement. LGO ordered LA to pay me £4k end of August and new school year before I even got the £4k they did the same again!

@hiredandsqueak Was this the Long Eaton councillor?

Yes that's the one, pretty sure he won't be missed. Interested to discover what his "personal reasons" for resignation are though.

@1457bloom because I think there options are somewhat limited- the Tory’s stuffed the country and made sure they created problems for Labour - personally I’m social minded and I’m all for getting tight on those who have been taking the piss and don’t care if they are27 or 77 .

Lol.

I was more disgusted than “lol” ing, personally.

I live in a Reform controlled area and most certainly didn't vote for them.

It was presumably also the Guardian which removed the whip from four of the councillors today.

I don't think you have much experience of how meetings operate behind closed doors

This wasn't a council meeting
This was a meeting of a sub-group of councillors, the reform lot, who are in the majority discussing the choices that they are making and will be expected to support.

As such there are, if one compares them to parliament, the "cabinet", the leader of that cabinet, and the "backbenchers".

I think you'll find this pretty commonplace where the cabinet gets.annoyed by backbenchers who want to "interfere" at every turn.

Lord knows, the Labour and Tory meetings with the backbenchers are pretty acrimonious and they have the advantage of whips to silence backbenchers.

So, for me, storm/teacup.

As they are finding out in the US, racism is expensive and the people who voted to keep the black/brown lady out of office will be the same people who won't give a shit about how much Reform will fck us up .

They care about the boats and nothing else .

@Doingtheboxerbeat indeed -

Reality Bites I’m afraid.

They campaigned on an undeliverable ticket. A number of them didn’t seem to understand the difference between what a council can do, and what Central Gov does … they seemed to think they they had a lot more power than they did. Local Politics is 90 % balancing the books, and providing Statutory Services. There is little wriggle room outside of that.

We are in budget setting cycle now, which is why the arguments have started. They don’t have the savings they thought, so either need to stop stuff they said they weren’t going to stop, or, not introduce new stuff they said they were going to introduce.

It’s easy to get elected making pie-in-the-sky promises .. it becomes a lot more difficult when you have to explain why you can’t meet them.

The whole farce is a stark demonstration that there is being in charge, and being in power. And Reform are fit for neither.

Hopefully this demonstration they are just another political party, and not the second coming will corrode the public consciousness and usher in a swift return to ignoring politics for who's banging who on Strictly.

They're the Dad's Army of political parties. They would be laughable but no one on the ground was laughing after Liz Truss, just whatever venture capitalists swooped in to clean up. People have no real idea how bad things can get without a semi-competent government. However bad things seem now or over the last 15 years, they really can get worse.