Reform UK councillors have been accused of hypocrisy after voting to spend £150,000 on hiring political advisers at a county council despite pledging to cut waste and save money.
The plans were put forward by Reform councillor George Finch, a 19-year-old who was narrowly elected as the leader of Warwickshire county council during a meeting on Tuesday, which was picketed by protesters.
The protest came after a row over an attempt by Finch, as interim leader, to have a Pride flag removed from council headquarters before the end of Pride month. The chief executive refused the request, telling him she was responsible for such decisions.
However, there was fresh controversy during a meeting of the council, one of several where Reform became the largest party in the recent local elections, as it narrowly pushed through plans to hire political advisers but lost a separate vote relating to the climate crisis.
Opposition councillors accused Reform of reneging on promises to voters over the political advisers, who would be publicly funded for it and the other two largest parties, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats.
“These proposals are all about spending some money so they can have a chum in their group and I think that is not particularly helpful given the financial state of this council,” said George Cowcher, councillor and deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats. He added that it was almost a quarter of the way through the financial year and there had yet to be any proposals from Reform about managing the authority’s budget.
Sam Jones, a Green party councillor, said: “Reform have had a sniff of power, they’re making it so clear that they never cared a jot for the will of their supporters. No to overpaid, unelected bureaucrats before the election, but yes to up to £150,000 of unfunded spending on political assistants now the campaigning is over.”
Finch defended the plans, which would involve a political assistant for each of the three big parties, on the basis that it was permitted by legislation and occurred in other councils. If other parties were against it, he challenged them to vote against the plan and then choose not to hire political assistants. His colleague, the councillor Michael Bannister, said the party saw the move as “value for money” and funds would be found from elsewhere.
However, there was a defeat for Reform when opposition MPs supported a green motion to recognise that scientific evidence clearly states climate change is happening, and support the council’s 2019 vote to declare a ‘climate emergency.’
“We are here as local people sorting out local problems. It is ridiculous to be asking for anything else,” said Reform councillor Luke Cooper, who said he had experience of installing solar panels and measures that he said people could not afford.
Sarah Feeney, the Labour leader, said the climate crisis was a “not a hypothetical” and was already having a major impact on farmers, with flooding causing elderly people to sometimes barricade themselves in their homes.
Tracey Drew, a Green party councillor, said: “The least well off in our county are going to be the first and the most to be impacted by the effects of climate change.”
Outside the council meeting, demonstrators included Becky Davidson, a district councillor who said she was there to support the LGBT community. Finch was “using a marginalised community as a propaganda tool”, she said.
Carolyn, a resident of Stratford-upon-Avon, was holding a placard reading: “Donald Trump inspires Farage to import to the UK DEI: Division, Exclusion, Inequality”. She said she was worried about Reform overturning “policies around recognising the climate emergency” and that she was there to object to Finch’s “pettiness” over the Pride flag.