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Reform UK swept into local government promising a shake-up. During the local elections, the party loudly condemned councils for hiking council tax while cutting public services, presenting itself as the champion of hard-pressed households and fiscal restraint.
Now that Reform UK holds power in a number of councils, reality has arrived and it looks remarkably like the politics they claimed to oppose.
Across the country, councils under Reform UK control have approved significant council tax increases. In Durham, bills are rising by 4.9%. Worcestershire residents face a staggering 10% increase. Warwickshire has approved a 5% rise, while Leicestershire has pushed through a 2.9% increase. Kent residents will pay 3.9% more, Lincolnshire 4.9%, and Staffordshire another 3.9%.
The pattern continues elsewhere. West Northamptonshire, North Northamptonshire and Derbyshire have all approved 4.9% rises. Nottinghamshire sits just below that at 4.84%, while Lancashire residents face a 5% increase.
These are not marginal adjustments. For many households already struggling with high energy bills, rising rents and stagnant wages, council tax rises of this scale are deeply felt.
What makes this especially striking is not simply that council tax has gone up and local government finances are under real strain, but that Reform UK built its local election campaign around attacking other parties for doing precisely this. They claimed council tax rises were evidence of waste, incompetence and political failure. They promised to be different.
They are not.
Instead, Reform UK councils are implementing the same tax increases seen elsewhere, while offering little evidence that services will improve as a result. The rhetoric of opposition has evaporated the moment responsibility arrived.
Politics always changes when slogans collide with spreadsheets. But voters are entitled to expect a minimum level of honesty. If council tax rises were unavoidable, Reform UK could have said so. If tough decisions were coming, they could have levelled with the public.
They didn’t.
Reform UK’s record in office so far exposes a familiar pattern: loud condemnation when out of power, quiet conformity when in charge. The party that accused others of squeezing residents while cutting services is now doing exactly that itself.
Hypocrisy isn’t an accident here — it’s the business model.
