Alex Dale: In Derbyshire, Reform UK are proving chaotic yet oddly unambitious

Cllr Alex Dale is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Derbyshire County Council.

Like so many other Conservative counties, Derbyshire fell to the tidal wave of Reform UK in May. After a bruising count, Reform swept to 42 of the 64 seats, leaving the Conservatives as the main opposition on 12, with Labour, Lib Dems, Greens and Independents sharing the scraps.

Since then, the question I’ve been asked most is: “what’s life like under a Reform council?”

Well, from day one, Derbyshire was rudderless. It took weeks for Reform even to elect a Leader, with the contest ending in a 21-21 vote deadlock before a second ballot produced a winner. The Deputy role went the other way – leaving two rival camps glaring at each other from across the Cabinet table.

Unsurprisingly, cracks soon showed and internal tensions have spilled out in public. I’ve witnessed Cabinet Members shouting at each other and almost coming to blows while lining up for our official Council photo. A Cabinet Support Member has already been let go after less than two months in the role.

Officers, too, are voting with their feet. Our Chief Executive is leaving, and there’s a steady trickle of long-serving and adept staff heading for the exit. Reform’s early bravado on issues like home-working and slashing staff numbers may please their activists, but it jars when, at the same time, they’re still advertising for several high-paid roles. It’s damaging their ability to build the relationships they need to govern effectively. And they will pay the price.

Of course, fresh blood can be welcome, but when only a handful of your 42 councillors have any experience of local government, the learning curve is steep. Many are nervous and risk-averse, terrified of looking foolish. The result? Poor attendance, cancelled committees, and the few that do run are led by Chairs who are, frankly, out of their depth. It was all just too much for one of them who appeared to be on the verge of catching 40 winks in his own meeting…

This lack of confidence has also manifested itself into an unnerving degree of continuity. Perhaps we should be flattered, but for all their talk of reform, they seem devoid of any ideas of their own and the new administration has clung to the plans they inherited from us.

Their Finance Cabinet Member recently went out of his way to praise the state of the budget we left behind. And unlike any other new administration sweeping to power and desperate to implement their manifesto, Reform has opted to make only modest wording tweaks to the Council Plan we left them.

Despite our repeatedly asking questions, their flagship efficiency programme, the so-called “DOGE” approach, remains undefined. The only project they can point to is “One Council”, again inherited from the Conservatives, which will hopefully save millions by further centralising and improving back-office functions.

When pressed on when the national DOGE team might actually visit Derbyshire, the Finance Member shrugged “it may never happen… who knows”. It was almost an allegory for their whole approach: vague, uncertain, and hopeful nobody notices.

And for all the local election promises on boats being stopped, buses magically restored, or compensation doled out for roadworks, not a shred of delivery has followed. And most of it lies well outside the powers of a county council in any case.

Perhaps most striking is Reform HQ’s grip on its councils. We hear of Cabinet Members being double-vetted, key decisions signed off only by party bosses, and diktats to avoid controversy before the next General Election. Farage knows a few badly run councils could impede his national ambitions, so the order has gone out: “keep your heads down and don’t do or say anything stupid”.

Locally, that’s meant they’ve ducked debates on issues where you might have expected them to show some conviction. We’ve asked questions on issues like flags, Ukraine or wokeism, only to receive officer-drafted waffle in response.

But ultimately, the poor things just can’t help themselves. Controversy has followed them around like a bad smell. In just a few short months, we’ve seen: climate change dismissed as “an ideological term.” Five adult education centres were closed illegally and behind closed doors, despite promises only a few weeks before that thorough consultation would be a prerequisite to any decision being made.

Barely two weeks in, they rushed out a press release boasting of early savings that turned out to be pure fantasy. And on local government reform, they’ve jumped into bed with Labour, proposing to carve Derbyshire up and dumping the beautiful historic market town of Ashbourne into a “Greater Derby City”. Unsurprisingly, it’s gone down like a cup of cold sick locally, especially among their own voters.

Several Reform Councillors and local branches have also been exposed for inflammatory social media posts, including one monologue linking fluoride, chemtrails, 5G masts, vaccines, cashless society and Covid. It was tinfoil-hat politics of the highest order.

So what’s life like under a Reform-run council? Chaotic, conspiratorial, over-controlled and oddly unambitious. For all the noise, they’ve delivered little beyond what they inherited, while alienating officers, antagonising communities and exposing their own inexperience.

Our group of 12 Conservatives may be small, but between us we bring decades of local government know-how to the Council. As the main opposition group, we’ll keep exposing the chaos, holding Reform to account and making sure Derbyshire sees their true colours.