Nigel Farage has vowed to be Britain’s Elon Musk if he is successful in the local elections next month. The Reform UK leader has taken aim at “fat and lazy” local councils who are splurging money from the taxpayer on frivolous projects.
The Clacton MP spoke to The Sun while out on the campaign trail, and revealed that a Reform audit of council spending showed millions of pounds are being wasted on projects such as free driving lessons for asylum seekers, trips to the south of France for civil servants and ergonomic chairs. Farage added that he will slash this wasteful spending in every council his party wins in the May 1 elections.
Inspired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the US, he said: “Local councils have big budgets and they waste loads of it. They spend it on diversity agendas, climate change, consultants, contracts with firms that are meant to mend pot holes and don’t do the job.
“And they pay themselves vast amounts of money. The bosses all earn way more than the Prime Minister, loads of them are on £100,000 a year, and basically no one comes to work on Mondays or Fridays.
“The whole thing has to change. We need a British DOGE for every county and every local authority in this country.”
The audit showed that, as well as being in debt, local councils are failing to complete basic jobs such as fix potholes. There are up to 90,000 unfilled potholes in some areas of the UK despite increasing council tax bills.
Reform UK submitted 3,000 Freedom of Information Requests (FoIs) to councils across the country to find out what they spend their cash on.
Farage claimed that Cornwall Council pays £147,000 a day servicing its debt. Meanwhile, Shropshire Council spent £1,000 a day on a pothole consultant.
Durham County Council spent a whopping £40,000 to send four town hall executives to a property conference in the South of France, while Devon County Council spent more than £1.7 million on electric cars for staff. At Derbyshire County Council, £150m was spent on a waste recyling plant that did not work.
Councils across the nation also splurged hundreds of millions of pounds on Net Zero schemes. Wiltshire County Council spent £929,000 installing biomass boilers to “decarbonise” 3 council offices.
Farage said he was “gobsmacked” at the results of the resarch. He added that, under Reform, council staff “will be sacked” and blamed the Covid-19 pandemic for a drop in productivity.
When asked if he had been in touch with Elon Musk, Farage said: “No – but you can see what he has done.”
Reform UK is aiming to win at least 200 council seats in the local elections next month. It is also hoping to gain big regional mayor positions on May 1.