Beyond performative provocations, Reform will find it difficult to make an impact in local government, but the left can counter by raising real working-class issues, argues John Westmoreland

Reform’s spectacular success in the local elections and their win in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election has given Farage’s far-right outfit a huge boost. Farage may well be right to say that the two-party electoral system that has dominated British politics for a century is at an end.

The Conservatives took the worst beating ever, losing former strongholds in Kent, Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire. However, Labour is reeling too, with electoral heartlands like Durham and Doncaster seeing a majority for Reform candidates.

The problem that confronts Reform is the very limited political power that their electoral success has given them. In local government, there is little chance of departing from the current management methodology.

Council budgets have been cut, and for the past twenty years, the power of the executive has been ramped up through the adoption of mayoral governance, with finance controlled from Westminster. This was put in place to stop Labour councils giving their working-class constituents ‘unfair’ benefits. For example, limits were imposed on councils’ ability to raise income through rates that might be seen as wealth redistribution. Further, every council is compelled by law to enforce ‘best value’, which means facilitating business growth.

Reform’s commitment to cutting back ‘red tape’ and ‘getting things done’ was always hot air too. Environmental safeguards and planning laws have already been seriously undermined, as Dame Andrea Jenkins, Reform’s Lincoln mayor, recently discovered when she promised that she would get rid of equality and diversity officers, only to learn that the council didn’t have any.

Performative nationalism and racism

Reform will probably make little headway on electoral promises like stronger policing, mending potholes and cleaning up the community. In all honesty, if the money had been there, Doncaster’s Labour council, for example, would have already done these things. Whatever we think of their slavish obedience to Westminster, the council was managerially competent for the most part. And this poses a problem for Reform.

If Reform is to stand a chance of winning the general election, or even forming a winning coalition with the Tories, they have to appear to be a force for change. To achieve this, we will see Reform ‘personalities’ grabbing headlines and media space with a variety of crusades against all things woke. Andrea Jenkins got the ball rolling by calling for asylum seekers to be housed in tents rather than take up otherwise empty hotel space.

In Doncaster, despite Reform having 37 seats compared to Labour’s twelve, Labour won the mayoralty and controls the council. Reform councillors intend to stand on anti-woke platforms that they hope will embarrass Labour mayor, Ros Jones, and force her to concede to their agenda.

The main totems Reform will promote are immigrants, flags, net zero and efficiency savings. Their politics will be performative: carrying out stunts that provide media opportunities and keep their boat afloat.

Already, Reform’s thug-in-chief Lee Anderson has said he wants to see an end to home-working for council employees, even though this has proved to be more efficient and productive than commuting every day. Council buildings, that already fly the Union Flag, will be forced to fly, well, the Union Flag.

Doncaster is of particular importance to Farage. He said in the run-up to the council elections that taking Doncaster would be key in helping him gain MPs in the general election, because Tories would see that Reform could do something they had never done: take a Labour stronghold.

The scalp he wants to take most is that of Doncaster North MP Ed Miliband, the minister for net zero. For Farage, it is a campaign worth fighting. It will help undermine Labour’s tenuous commitment to lowering greenhouse gases, even if Miliband hangs on. In Conisborough and Denaby, former mining villages, there has been a public campaign to stop a planned solar-panel farm. Sitting Labour councillors signalled during the election that they opposed it, but it didn’t save them. Miliband will become a hate figure for Reform at national and local levels, and the left can’t sit and watch.

Demand reforms and damn Reform

Reform represents an attempt to rally nationalist forces that can dominate politics and divert working-class anger onto immigrants and other groups. The antidote is for the left to rally working-class forces that embrace solidarity and internationalism.

Reform should more accurately be called Reaction. They hate the idea of working-class democracy and winning meaningful reforms for us. That’s why raising working-class demands and building on working-class anger is so important.

There are two things that the left should avoid, though. The first is conflating the vote for Reform with fascism. Farage will do all he can to use his new support as a stage army. For example, he has held most of his national gatherings in Doncaster, and after the election results, his supporters are going to treat him as the Messiah. So he will come to Doncaster frequently between now and the election. He will stir up trouble and try to disrupt local politics.

However, the vote for Reform in Doncaster was largely because Labour has chosen to attack pensioners and the disabled and demand more austerity. The truth of this fact is made obvious by the anger of Labour stalwarts like Ros Jones and new MP Lee Pitcher, both of whom have called out Starmer’s austerity. Of course, immigration was part of Reform’s success, but no wonder when Labour is aping the right over the small boats. We can turn Reform voters against Farage if we resist the urge simply to denounce his racism and instead confront him with the working-class demands we want and he opposes.

Instead of damning Reform voters as racist, we have to tell Farage our hospital and care services are run by immigrants, so hands off. And our NHS needs to kick out the private sector if it is to become more efficient. The reason Britain has the worst public services in Europe is because they are the most privatised in Europe. This will do more to discourage Farage than calling out his racism, which he wears as a badge of honour.

The second thing the left needs to avoid is putting an electoral strategy ahead of campaigning on the streets. The deplorable state of Labour, the traditional party for the working-class vote, has brought many on the left to a fever pitch over the creation of a new party. This is understandable but what could an elected left party achieve in Westminster without meaningful forces on the streets? The answer is very little.

We have a chance, as never befor,e to give shape to working-class anger. Austerity isn’t necessary, it is a choice. It is demanded by the super-rich, corporations and financiers because the alternative is to tax them and redistribute wealth to pay for our services.

The ruling class doesn’t lie awake at night worrying about a left electoral party. We can give them sleepless nights when we convince sufficient numbers that wealth redistribution, along with democratic rights, is the answer to the crisis.