Reform councillor dramatically quits over council tax betrayal

A Reform UK councillor in Worcestershire has dramatically quit the party. Councillor David Taylor made the decision as a result of the party’s plan to raise council tax — something which the far-right party previously stood against:

Gone

Taylor told the BBC:

I walked in here today as a Reform county councillor – I won’t be leaving this studio as a Reform county councillor.

As from today, I will be an independent councillor.

He added that his constituents won’t be able to afford a “massive upheaval in council tax” and that:

What will happen is they’re going to pay more and receive less

Also:

I think we could have made decisions sooner and I think leaving it this late in the day to make cuts and to expect people who are already not doing so well… to expect them to pay more council tax, I just don’t think I can support that.

As we’ve covered, the trend of Reform councils raising council tax has happened despite the following:

Reform — Bankruptcy

This isn’t the end of the bad news for Worcestershire, either; the Council is also facing bankruptcy. And it isn’t the only Reform council facing this problem:

To be ever so slightly fair to Reform, this chaos of councils going bankrupt is a product of successive Tory governments. The austerity ideologues purposefully underfunded local areas, and predictably everything went to shit.

But to be fair to reality, meanwhile, this is happening under Reform’s watch. They need to own it.

And also, there’s zero reason to think that they will undo the underfunding problem if they form a government. In fact, it’s likely that the billionaire-backed party will only make it worse.

Featured image via BBC