Sweeping to council and mayoralty successes up and down the country, Thursday marked a
red-letter day for Reform, and for British politics, it was an indicator of the radical shift taking
place amongst Britain’s electorate.
But for Nigel Farage’s burgeoning party, victory has been accompanied by a challenge. Can they actually walk the walk? Can they go beyond platitudes and actually deliver the “reform” they promise discontented voters? On the road to what is the party’s ultimate goal–winning a general election–can 677 (mostly inexperienced) Reform councillors demonstrate political competence?
Well, if a prediction can be permitted based on the goals they’ve set themselves, then
probably not. For the stick that Farage has decided to thump hardest with, is his vision to
see “a DOGE in every county”.
“DOGE”– or as it is fully known, the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency–is the brainchild of tech billionaire and presidential sidekick Elon Musk. Established with a view to reduce inefficiency and cut wasteful government spending, it has already led to thousands of job cuts, with many probationary government employees out the door and some specialists too.
DOGE has certainly reshaped American government, its own website claiming to have amounted over $160 billion worth of savings–a figure which is contested. But its creator has admitted himself that it hasn’t “been as effective as I’d like”.
Despite Musk’s own misgivings about DOGE, Farage has said that he wants his councillors
to follow that American template in order to tackle “wasteful spending and a lot of
complacency”.
He has gone on to say: “We should ditch the stuff that county councils shouldn’t be getting involved with at all.
Slimmer government, leaner government. And a different culture.”
With short-changed local authorities buckling under the pressure of spending cuts, recent inflationary pressure, and more and more people trying to access services, Farage is right to question how scarce resources can best be utilised.
However, blaming it on workers “involved with climate change policy, or involved with DEI”–as he told newly elected councillors in Staffordshire–feels, well frankly, tired. Oh, and also possibly not even applicable, with a source telling the Guardian that Staffordshire county council didn’t actually “currently employ any staff who focused on diversity initiatives”.
That Reform’s proposal is to suggest making cuts–albeit with a view to redirect those resources to other services raises question marks over the party’s creativity. With voters entrusting their support in Reform after seeing their local services decline year after year, how can the solution be to get rid of a minority of staff members that might not even exist?
DOGE is an odd thing to pin one’s flag to anyway, not least because Reform councillors won’t have nearly the same autonomy that Trump’s protégé had across the Atlantic; if you think chainsaws à la Mr Musk are about to be taken to the branches of local authorities, then yield hailing timber.
Despite Farage calling to “send in the auditors”, union bosses have been quick to remind Reform councillors that they cannot just march in and sack workers on the spot, as in the manner of “the real” DOGE. With stronger rules here than the U.S., those Reform-led councils would quickly find themselves with a flurry of employment tribunal claims, and the mission of reducing spending gone with the wind.
And making DOGE like changes to services will be difficult too. For, certain services are statutorily mandated for councils to provide, including: social care, waste collection, and housing services. The requirements for some of these services are heavily influenced by central government, and so Reform councillors will find little mileage making cuts here.
Other mandatory services are given leeway in how they are delivered, such as libraries. But should they look to these areas, again they must tread carefully: precisely as Northamptonshire county council apparently didn’t, when they ended up in a court case over their own attempts to close libraries in 2018.
If anything, it all seems slightly madcap. Thinking about how to make government more
efficient–both at local and national level–is an important endeavour.
But doing so by calling for “British DOGE” is risible. Has this been some unctuous ploy by the Clacton MP to signal his affinity to the Trump administration? Maybe, maybe not. But come on Nigel, we need something a bit more credible than American imitation.
Featured image via ComposedPix/Shutterstock.
