A cabinet member of Kent County Council, which Nigel Farage’s Reform UK won at the May local elections from the Tories, said she expected council tax to increase by 5%
A Reform-led council is likely to hike council tax by the maximum amount next year – admitting services are already “down to bare bones”.
Kent County Council, which was snatched from the Tories by Nigel Farage’s party at the May local elections, is set to increase the levy by 5%.
Earlier this year the right-wing Reform UK promised to assess “wasteful” council spending. It also launched its own Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) modelled on the tech billionaire Elon Musk’s US outfit tasked with cutting spending and jobs.
But Diane Morton, a councillor and cabinet member for adult social care and public health at Kent council, told the Financial Times services were already “down to the bare bones”. “We’ve got more demand than ever before and it’s growing,” she said. “We just want more money.”
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With town halls expected to set their budgets in early 2026 -alongside decisions on council tax – Ms Morton added: “I think it’s going to be 5 per cent.”
Earlier this year the vast majority of councils across the country hiked council tax by 4.99% – the highest allowed without a referendum – as they struggled to balance the books. Six councils were also given the green light to raise it above 4.99% by the government.
Other Reform councillors said they wanted to avoid hitting the maximum, but one official told the FT: “Everyone thought we’d come in and there were going to be these huge costs we could cut away but there just aren’t.”
Reform’s Kent County Council leader Linden Kemkaran has previously suggested the council was a “shop window” for what a Nigel Farage-led government would look like.
She said over the summer it would “through which the electorate are looking to judge whether they think they can put their trust in a Reform government at the next general election to take the reins of power for the entire country”.
Labour MP for East Thanet Polly Billington said: “Reform’s leader in Kent said that Reform councils were ‘the biggest advert’ for what a Nigel Farage government would look like.
“Well, she’s right. Now we know what putting Reform in charge means: huge promises about savings, then failing to find any because they don’t know what they’re talking about.
“That’s what they’re doing in local government and it’s what they’d do to Britain. Only Labour can renew Britain by securing our borders and making working people better off.”
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