When Reform UK swept to power in several county councils earlier this year, Nigel Farage hailed their victories as a “tectonic shift in British politics.” Kent, in particular, became the test bed for what Reform called a new era of efficiency — modelled on the “chainsaw” approach of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

Yet five months in, that bold experiment already looks battered by the realities of local government. Budget rows, tax U-turns, and leaked footage of infighting have revealed an administration unprepared for the complexity and constraints of running a council. Kent — Reform’s flagship authority — is now the case study in why political revolution rarely survives first contact with the balance sheet.

Ideology Meets Reality

The early days were full of bravado. Reform promised to slash council tax, root out waste, and prove that they could run local government with private-sector efficiency. But almost immediately, the new leadership discovered what every experienced councillor already knows: there are no secret cupboards full of cash, no “forest of waste” waiting for the chainsaw, and no simple fixes in an era of chronic underfunding.

Kent’s new leaders have now admitted that, far from being able to cut council tax, they may have to raise it by the maximum 5 per cent. As their own social care lead confessed, “spending is down to the bare bones.” It is not hard to see why. Councils are legally obliged to balance their budgets, even as the cost of adult social care, special educational needs, and homelessness continues to rise faster than inflation.

For over a decade, councils have lived through austerity, absorbed inflation, and delivered repeated “efficiency savings.” The reality is that the easy cuts were made long ago. Local government has already embraced digital transformation, automation, and shared services. “Doing more with less” has been the mantra since 2010. Reform may talk about “leaning services,” but most councils have already cut them to the bone.

Experience Matters

It would be unfair to mock the inexperience of Reform’s councillors without recognising the scale of the challenge they inherited. Modern local government operates within a dense legal and financial framework — spanning social care law, education, housing, waste, and environmental regulation — and interacts daily with the NHS, police, and voluntary sector. Every decision has statutory consequences.

Established parties, whatever their faults, have networks of national experts, think tanks, and training structures to draw upon. Reform UK has none of that. Its councils are largely left to navigate alone, reliant on new and untested teams other than Reform’s DOGE teams, if available. When that lack of institutional depth collides with the sheer complexity of a £2.5 billion organisation like Kent County Council, the results are predictable: frustration, factionalism, and missteps.

The leaked video of Kent’s Reform leadership berating colleagues to “suck it up” over budget decisions illustrates more than poor tone. It shows a group struggling to reconcile internal divisions, legal constraints, and public expectations with the simplistic slogans of the campaign trail. Governance is hard work, and the skills it demands — collaboration, consultation, due process — are not built overnight.

Private Sector Analogies Fall Short

Reform’s enthusiasm for Elon Musk’s “chainsaw” style of management also betrays a misunderstanding of what public administration actually is. The private sector can restructure, sell off divisions, or pause services when costs rise. Councils cannot. They must still collect bins, educate children, support the elderly, and keep the streets safe.

Musk himself has learned that dismantling governance — whether at Twitter or elsewhere — is easy; rebuilding the systems that make an organisation function is not. In public service, the stakes are far higher, because residents, not shareholders bear the consequences of failure.

The Hard Truth of Local Government

What Reform has encountered is not a political conspiracy or bureaucratic resistance. It is simply the reality that councils operate on the edge of financial sustainability. After years of funding pressures, there is little left to cut without closing libraries, reducing care packages, or breaching statutory duties.

Kent’s debt of £732 million did not appear overnight, nor will it vanish through wishful thinking. Like every other authority, it faces the same trade-offs between financial prudence and social need. The difference is that most councils have learned — often painfully — how to balance those pressures within the law and with their communities’ trust intact.

A Lesson in Governing, Not Just Campaigning

None of this should surprise anyone familiar with local government. Running a council is not a simple extension of political rhetoric; it is an exercise in governance under constraint. Reform’s councillors now face the same hard arithmetic that has confronted every administration since austerity began.

If they learn from it — by investing in training, seeking expert advice, and engaging constructively with officers and residents — they may yet mature into a credible force in local politics. But the lesson from Kent so far is clear: slogans about “cutting waste” and “draining the swamp” mean little when you are the one holding the mop.