More Reform councils will mean more broken promises

Following last week’s local elections, I don’t know how to even begin to put down in words the wave of emotions I am feeling right now as a disabled person. Unfortunately, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that there has been such an extreme political shift to the right.

I think the difficulty many Reform voters now face comes down to their level of understanding of what local councillors do compared to MPs. Local councillors will have no influence on immigration, for example, yet so many hold onto this policy like it’s one of Farage’s horcruxes. The same can be said for ‘law and order’.

What alarms me is how heavily focused Reform representatives are on delivering results in policy areas that don’t belong in local government. They are, in fact, national. It is for the same reason that cracks have started to show across the councils that are already under a Reform banner.

Rising taxes

Multiple Reform candidates have recited pledges around tax cuts that are connected to 2024’s national Reform campaign. Again, if they understood the meaning of what tax cuts implies in local government, it would be connected to council tax. Despite these promises, recent reports have shown that nine Reform councils have raised Band D council tax for 2026–27.

These broken promises tell us that Reform will follow the same principles as mainstream parties when it comes to managing public revenue, debt and government finance. To break it down even further, Band D is £68,001 to £88,000 regarding property valuation, so raising the council tax for this band would have an unfair impact on poorer households.

Trashing the Equality Act

Let’s now focus on the figurehead, Nigel Farage, who seems to be more pliable in conversation than wet clay. Admittedly, it has brought me moments of much-needed laughter amongst the pain, knowing that this man has been professionally challenged and held to account. But he will continue to dodge bullets like Neo from The Matrix – or Trump, if you want someone comparatively closer in mindset and demeanour.

It’s clear that Nigel has a distaste for ‘woke’ ideologies, but the real danger lies around the party’s fixation on the 2010 Equality Act, which is a very necessary piece of legislation that protects people in the UK from discrimination, harassment and victimisation in the workplace and within wider society.

The nine protected characteristics, which are there to protect individuals from unfair treatment, can potentially be reconfigured in a way that makes discrimination legal. Not only does this undermine the hard-fought battles people faced to reach that monumental milestone in UK law, but scrapping the Act will enable a dangerous carefree culture that will destroy the bedrock for us to challenge cases legally.

Many of Reform’s voters come from working-class backgrounds. It is ludicrous that they are fine with the idea of the Equality Act being scrapped if they get into power when it protects them also. This is where my interest is piqued. In trying to understand the psyche of a political party that favours the super rich and ultra-wealthy donors, how are they ever going to match the wants and needs of their working-class voters?

Misinformation and AI

So much of what I have seen and witnessed of Reform’s campaign strategy has come from their use of AI platforms and technologies to spread misinformation. Unfortunately, we live in a time where this tactic thrives under the right algorithm.

If you can pull enough traction from an AI-generated video or image, social media platforms will show it without regulating it properly. AI is being used to simplify the complex, which means critical thinking no longer applies. I’m sure this trend is also reflected in the breakdown of our education system.

I know for a fact that critical thinking is a sought-after skill. It is so important to practice when deciphering information and backing it up with evidence. However, so many choose to accept information at face value, because it’s simpler than doing your own research.

The way AI works is that it will use sources or information that regularly appear, instead of being clever enough to only use factually correct ones. Reform is exploiting this. According to recent analysis from ResultSense, Reform appeared in more searches than any other political party on AI platforms, which shows that their strategy to focus on social-media visibility is working, even if the information may be wrong, from overseas, or not well-balanced with other perspectives.

Reform are a threat to the most marginalised

A lot of my engagement with central and local government over the last year has been independent because Labour made its bed by turning on disabled people in 2025, which I challenged alongside many other disability campaigners and activists.

I sat in multiple consultations and reviews; collectively, we fought back, which led to a u-turn around the disability benefit reform. However, this all feels for nothing when there is a very serious threat to the welfare system and services attached to this change in the political tide.

I am an ex-professional who has worked and supported adults who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. I was attached to the Home Office, social services, NHS outreach, the housing team at my local council, and the police. The amount of misinformation being used infuriates me to my core, since I know just how intricate the system is and the amount of red tape attached to it.

It’s fascinating that there are people who would rather listen to a councillor or MP who has no lived experience and allow them to shape how we should feel about immigration or the distribution of support and services amongst marginalized groups. But again, that’s easier than researching and understanding the facts for what they really are.

More councils, more broken promises

Reform holding more councils across the country could result in more broken promises, simply because they are exhausting their energy on delivering national-level policies that are not associated with local issues.

I personally fear Reform’s lack of interest in VCSE sector funding. I also can’t see this party wanting to help pay for any lifeline services that support SEN provision, neurodiversity, racial equality, domestic violence/rape survivors, disabled people, the LGBTQ+ community and refugees.

The fact that this party sees me as a burden will probably be made a lot worse due to my ongoing activity as an activist. This isn’t even me exaggerating. The leader of Reform has pretty much exclaimed with a crocodile smile that there’ll be riots when decimating the welfare system to fit his warped ideas around productivity.

We must do everything in our power to ensure the communities we live in are rich in value – a value that this party could never touch, muster or understand.

Featured image via the Canary