logo
Reform UK seizing control of councils sees rise in trade union membership

Reform UK seizing control of councils sees rise in trade union membership

Daily Record7 hours ago

Reform UK have said they will seek to cut waste in local government, leading to fears of job cuts.
Union membership in councils run by Reform has increased since the party took control of local authorities after the May elections, new figures reveal.
The GMB, led by Edinburgh-born Gary Smith, said workers were 'flocking' to join unions amid fears of cuts to pay, jobs and conditions by Reform.
Councils where the GMB has seen an increase in membership include Durham, Lancashire, Derbyshire, Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire and Doncaster.
GMB national officer Rachel Harrison told the PA news agency: 'Reform spouts a lot of nonsense about being on the side of workers, but these figures show people aren't buying it.
'Workers in Reform-led councils are flocking to join unions because they know the first thing Farage and his cronies will do is attack low-paid staff's terms and conditions.'
Smith, who is the GMB 's General Secretary, launched an angry attack against Reform in a speech to the union's annual conference in Brighton at the weekend, saying Nigel Farage and his 'ex-Tory soulmates' were no friends of workers.
'They've spent a political lifetime attacking trade unions and the rights we have all fought so hard for. Decent pay, better conditions, protections we cherish.
'Why is it always the posh, private schoolboys who want act like they're working-class heroes?
'Do they really think we can't see the bankers, the chancers, the anti- union blowhards?
'If Reform are so pro-worker, why did they just vote against protections against fire and rehire? Why did they vote against sick pay for all workers? Why did they vote against fair pay for carers? Why did they vote against trade union rights to access and organise in places like Amazon?
'Now they are going to run town halls, and the first thing they want to do is sack council workers.
'It's high time they were called out for their sneering, snooty attitude about so-called ' gold-plated ' pensions.
"Go ask a local authority care worker, refuse collector, street cleaner, school support staff member if they think their meagre pension is gold-plated.
' Reform 's abuse and name-calling of low-paid public sector workers is an utter disgrace.'

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Six candidates in Powys Council by-election in Llanidloes
Six candidates in Powys Council by-election in Llanidloes

Powys County Times

time5 minutes ago

  • Powys County Times

Six candidates in Powys Council by-election in Llanidloes

SIX candidates will be contesting the Llanidloes by-election next month, including one former council heavyweight. The deadline for candidate nominations was late on Friday afternoon, June 6 and the election is set to take place on Thursday, July 3. Canvassing is already in full swing as candidates and their supporters pounded the streets of Llanidloes looking for votes over the weekend. The election follows the resignation of veteran councillor Liberal Democrat Gareth Morgan last month, after more than 50 year representing the town in both the 1974 to 1996 and current version of Powys County Council. All mainstream political parties in Wales have put a candidate forward with two of them having served as county councillors in the past. Former cabinet member for education Phyl Davies, who represented the Blaen Hafren ward between 2017 and 2022, has thrown his hat in the ring for the Conservative party. His Tory predecessor in the now extinct Blaen Hafren ward from 2012 to 2017, Graham Jones will be standing on the Reform UK ticket. Applications to register to vote need to reach Powys County Council's electoral registration officer by midnight on June 17. Applications for a postal votes need to be made to the council's electoral registration officer by 5 pm on Wednesday, June 18. The deadline for application to vote by proxy is 5pm on Wednesday, June 25. Applications can be made online by visiting –

EXCLUSIVE Revealed: The new Reform chairman who used to be a TV presenter. ANDREW PIERCE lifts the lid
EXCLUSIVE Revealed: The new Reform chairman who used to be a TV presenter. ANDREW PIERCE lifts the lid

Daily Mail​

time5 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

EXCLUSIVE Revealed: The new Reform chairman who used to be a TV presenter. ANDREW PIERCE lifts the lid

A television presenter who made his name fronting a popular show about ghosts and the paranormal is to be unveiled tomorrow as Reform's new boss, the Mail can reveal. Dr David Bull, 56, who backs 'binning the burka', will replace Zia Yusuf whose resignation as chairman last Thursday threatened to plunge Nigel Farage 's party into chaos. The new chairman is a former hospital doctor who moved into broadcasting shortly after he qualified at London 's St Mary's Medical Hospital School in 1993. His most prominent presenting role was on paranormal reality TV show Most Haunted Live!. The openly gay Dr Bull, 56, follows the Scottish born Yusuf, 38, who is the son of Sri Lankan Muslims. 'I think we are ticking the right diversity boxes,' joked one senior Reform figure today. Last week, Yusuf, a multi-millionaire businessman, provoked uproar when he criticised Reform's newest MP Sarah Pochin for calling for a burka ban in the Commons at Prime Minister's Questions. The next day Yusuf, 38, unexpectedly quit to the relief of many of his senior colleagues who found him difficult to work with. Unlike Yusuf, the new Reform chairman is an advocate of banning the burka, which he regards as an 'anti-British symbol'. Farage hopes the Bull appointment will calm the frayed nerves of many party members coming, as it does, just three months after the resignation of the Reform MP Rupert Lowe. He quit in protest at Farage's 'dictatorial' style of leadership. When Yusuf resigned on Thursday he said he no longer believed that working for Reform to win power at the next election was 'a good use of my time'. Many Reform senior figures feared he would deliver a devastating post-resignation interview but, in a bizarre twist, he instead announced on Saturday he was rejoining Reform only 48 hours after he quit. He is being put in charge of Reform's 'Doge' team, which is modelled on the Department of Government Efficiency set up by US President Trump in the US. Asked today why he had resigned as chairman, Yusuf told the BBC: 'I've been working pretty much non-stop, virtually no days off. It is very difficult to keep going at that pace.' Yusuf alienated many party members with his abrupt manner and controlling style of management. Arron Banks, a founder of Leave EU who is a close friend of Mr Farage, said that Yusuf was a 'control freak' who was 'prone to changing his mind frequently'. One party source said: 'Yusuf's new role will keep him out of party HQ as he will be visiting the county councils which we now run across the country to try to cut out waste. It will be a better use of his talents and energies.' There had been speculation that Ann Widdecombe, 77, the redoubtable former Tory prisons minister who defected to Mr Farage's side in 2019, would be the new chairman. 'It's not Widdecombe even though she is very highly regarded,' said a source. Dr Bull, who is a presenter on the Rupert Murdoch channel Talk, is not wealthy like Yusuf, who netted £30 million from the sale of an upmarket concierge firm. Briefly a Brexit Party MEP, he is described by colleagues as collegiate and a team player. Before joining Farage's Brexit Party, Dr Bull was the Tory parliamentary candidate for Brighton Pavilion when David Cameron was party leader. But he stood down in 2009 and headed up a policy review on sexual health. He published his first book, Cool And Celibate?: Sex And No Sex, arguing the benefits of abstinence for teenagers. A former anchor of the BBC current affairs programme Newsround, he presented Most Haunted Live! between 2002 and 2005. A Reform source said: ''He looks and sounds good and he's been out and proud for years so we have no worries about any skeletons in his closet.'

Ministers FINALLY settle spending plans with Rachel Reeves' Treasury 48 hours before they are to be revealed, as minister says 'austerity is over'
Ministers FINALLY settle spending plans with Rachel Reeves' Treasury 48 hours before they are to be revealed, as minister says 'austerity is over'

Daily Mail​

time20 minutes ago

  • Daily Mail​

Ministers FINALLY settle spending plans with Rachel Reeves' Treasury 48 hours before they are to be revealed, as minister says 'austerity is over'

Ministers have finally all agreed spending deals with the Treasury, No10 confirmed this afternoon, just 48 hours before they are to be revealed by Rachel Reeves. Haggling had been raging this morning, with Home Secretary Yvette Cooper desperately trying to get more money for the police and borders funding. The Chancellor is due to lay out departmental allocations running up to 2029 - the likely timetable for the next general election - on Wednesday. But the generous fiscal envelope set at the Budget last Autumn has been put under massive pressure by the economic slowdown, calls for more defence cash, and Labour revolts on benefits. Speaking to reporters on Monday afternoon, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'The spending review is settled, we will be focused on investing in Britain's renewal so that all working people are better off. 'The first job of the Government was to stabilise the British economy and the public finances, and now we move into a new chapter to deliver the promise and change.' Ms Reeves has signalled she will announce real-terms increases to budgets for police as she tries to quell Home Office resistance. However, that is likely to be offset by cuts to other areas, with the NHS and defence sucking up funding. The political backdrop to the proposals this week is the Reform surge, with Labour panicking about the challenge from Nigel Farage. Touring broadcast studios this morning, Technology minister Chris Bryant denied the review will mark a return to austerity. But he acknowledged some parts of the budget will be 'more stretched'. He told Times Radio: 'That period of austerity where I think previous governments simply cut all public service budgets just because they believed that was what you had to do is over. 'But, secondly, we are investing, but it's not just about spending money, you have to get return, and that means we have to have change and we have to have a plan for change in every single one of our public services.' He pointed to increased investment in defence and health, but added: 'There are going to be other parts of the budget that are going to be much more stretched and be difficult.' Ms Reeves will have some £113billion to distribute that has been freed up by looser borrowing rules on capital investment. But she has acknowledged that she has been forced to turn down requests for funding for projects she would have wanted to back in a sign of the behind-the-scenes wrangling over her spending review. Economists have warned the Chancellor faces unavoidably tough choices in allocating funding for the next three years. She will need to balance manifesto commitments with more recent pledges, such as a hike in defence spending, as well as her strict fiscal rules which include a promise to match day-to-day spending with revenues. The expected increase to police budgets comes after two senior policing figures publicly warned that the service is 'broken' and forces are left with no choice but to cut staff to save money. Nick Smart, the president of the Police Superintendents' Association, and Tiff Lynch, acting national chairman for the Police Federation of England and Wales, said policing was in 'crisis'. In a joint article for the Telegraph, they said: 'Police forces across the country are being forced to shed officers and staff to deliver savings. These are not administrative cuts. 'They go to the core of policing's ability to deliver a quality service: fewer officers on the beat, longer wait times for victims, and less available officers when crisis hits.' The Department of Health is set to be the biggest winner in Ms Reeves' spending review on Wednesday, with the NHS expected to receive a boost of up to £30billion at the expense of other public services. Meanwhile, day-to-day funding for schools is expected to increase by £4.5billion by 2028-9 compared with the 2025-6 core budget, which was published in the spring statement. Elsewhere, the Government has committed to spend 2.5 per cent of gross domestic product on defence from April 2027, with a goal of increasing that to 3 per cent over the next parliament – a timetable which could stretch to 2034. Ms Reeves' plans will also include an £86billion package for science and technology research and development. But Sadiq Khan's office is concerned the spending review will include no new projects or funding for London. The mayor had been seeking extensions to the Docklands Light Railway and Bakerloo Underground line, along with powers to introduce a tourist levy and a substantial increase in funding for the Metropolitan Police, but his office now expects none of these will be approved. A source close to Sir Sadiq said ministers 'must not return to the damaging, anti-London approach of the last government', adding this would harm both London's public services and 'jobs and growth across the country'. They said: 'Sadiq will always stand up for London and has been clear it would be unacceptable if there are no major infrastructure projects for London announced in the spending review and the Met doesn't get the funding it needs.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store