‘People are more unkind’: a glimpse inside Reform’s councils 

In May 2025, Reform UK won 44 of 70 seats in Lincolnshire County Council. Shortly after the new councillors were sworn in, Anna* felt the mood inside her workplace shift. 

“Within days of the election, people had already taken their pronouns out of their email signatures,” she says. “And then lots of people were talking about joining the union.” 

Anna is speaking out under conditions of anonymity because she is worried about the security of her job. The new councillors have announced sweeping cuts to local services, and there is the fear of council job cuts too.   

The changes the new councillors are making, Anna says, “are very much about the optics and how the party looks nationally. They are here to follow the party line. And that line is, ‘We don’t do climate, we don’t do EDI’.”  

She feels like there is a clear message that “women don’t matter”. Of the 70 councillors, only 13 are women, 12 of whom are white. Anna describes it as a “roll-back of the times”.  

Anna anticipates that the council’s equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policy will be scaled back to the legal minimum. “A lot of the explanations for managers around protected characteristics will be less clear,” she fears. What worries her more, though, is that she feels that some of her colleagues, who are supportive of Reform, agree with this move.  

“There’s a real sense of people being unkinder, that people have always wanted to say: ‘I don’t like working with gays, I don’t like working with Black people. Those people feel able to be meaner.” 

On top of all this, Anna tells me that in its first council meeting Reform voted to scrap the flooding committee. “Lincoln is an area that has had a lot of serious flooding because it’s very flat. That’s why the committee was set up. There are some houses that have been flooded more than once in some areas, but that committee has gone now.”  

She concludes: “A local authority is politically led, yes. But ours now seems to be politically-run. Their politics are impacting us already.” 

‘More divisive, ignorant statements’ 

After winning 23 of 55 seats in Leicestershire County Council’s 2025 local election, Reform UK formed a minority administration. The party announced its reign by calling an emergency meeting about flags. It was decided that the Pride flag, which had been flown outside the council building, was to be taken down and replaced with the union flag, the England flag, and the Leicestershire flag.  

“Taking away the Pride flag, with all of the struggles that it represents, erases those people’s voices,” says Alex*, who works at the council. “The fact that we now have more violent attacks on trans people than we used to shows that this divisive rhetoric leads to more people being assaulted. It is so damaging.”  

However, flags were just one of Alex’s many worries. As a qualified social worker who now manages a team at the council, he was deeply troubled that the Reform UK councillor who had been put in charge of adult social care was 22-year-old Joseph Boam, who declared in a post on X that “depression isn’t real” and, hours after ICE agents in the US killed nurse Alex Pretti, said “I stand with ICE”. 

Boam, whose comments put the council into national headlines, was then removed as lead member for adult social care. His replacement was Carl Abbott, who in January of this year said that he was worried about “seeing children in primary schools being taught to pray the Muslim way”. 

“It was just more divisive, ignorant statements,” says Alex. “It’s so disheartening. We have a lot of Muslim employees at Leicestershire County Council, and we’re proud of our diversity. His statement goes against everything that council employees should stand for.” 

The statements have attracted media attention, at the expense of the local community, and the hard-working UNISON members in public services. 

“It’s frustrating to see the council’s name in the news again and again, not for all the amazing work that we do for our communities, but because of hateful things councillors are saying,” says Alex. “It’s sad that this is what the public see about our local authority. Who would want to come and work here, when there are such horrendous comments being made by councillors?”  

Fighting back 

But Alex and the workers at the council are fighting back. After the Pride flag was taken down from outside the council building, Alex coordinated an open letter in which 102 social workers declared that the decision went against their values. 

The letter read: “It is vitally important there is a visible symbol from the council that we are supportive of marginalised groups.” 

Inside the council building, workers then covered their desks in Pride flags and rainbow banners were put up in the office. One employee attached a 4-foot flagpole to the roof of their car and flew a Pride flag from it.   

“We wanted to make sure that our position as an inclusive workplace is still clear,” says Alex. 

And when Reform councillors tried to implement a new rule that all council employees had to work from the office for 50% of the week, UNISON led the fightback and won. 

“It’s now the decision for individual teams to do what’s best for their team,” Alex explains. “That was a massive achievement and shows the importance of having a strong union and having that bargaining power to fight back.”  

Nevertheless, he wishes there wasn’t so much fighting. “All of us working in the council just want to come to work and crack on to support the local community. Instead, we’re having to put out fires that Reform UK are starting, which are so damaging.” 

Attacking unions 

Reform UK has announced that, if it were in government, it would seek to abolish the new Employment Rights Act, which has introduced a host of new individual and collective workplace rights, and returned stronger striking powers to trade unions.  

This concerns Alex. “Any political party that would weaken union power is only going to make things worse for workers,” he says. “Limiting union powers means weakening workers’ powers.” 

Alex is now more determined than ever to work for the local residents in Leicestershire. “We can’t let that rhetoric win. There’s not a chance I’m going to leave my job and leave the people I work with to people who have those kinds of views. I’m here to fight, and to support everyone, and not scapegoat people.” 

Alex’s message for UNISON members living in areas that may see a Reform-led council in May is this: “Do as much as you can to support your local community in understanding what the risks are. And make sure you’re ready to fight.” 

UNISON general secretary Andrea Egan says: “It’s UNISON’s job to look out for members and warn them about threats to jobs, terms and conditions. What we see is that Reform UK want to turn the clock back on the workplace improvements that make a positive difference to our members’ lives. 

“Reform UK stir up our communities on culture war issues and then, amidst all the noise, they plan to remove statutory sick pay, reintroduce zero-hours contracts and reduce the value of our pensions. Most people just see the tip of the iceberg.”         

• *Names have been changed.