Why Keir’s latest U-turn has Farage laughing all the way to the bank

I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling pretty darn peeved that I’m going to be paying Nigel Farage’s legal fees for his successful case against the government’s plan to delay some local elections.

Okay, I paraphrase – it was local councils who wanted to postpone the pointless contests for soon-to-be defunct local authorities, but it was central government that offered them the choice – and many councillors, staring defeat in May in the face, gladly took the opportunity for another year in power, allowances and expenses undecided. Granted, Farage didn’t actually have his day in court, but it was worse than that because the housing secretary, Steve Reed, presumably with the acquiescence of the prime minister, decided not to try and put up a fight.

Farage must be rolling in the aisles. Reed & co caved in the day before the hearing instead, and agreed to abandon their case, and cover the fat fees paid to Reform UK’s lawyers. That is said to be a six-figure sum, so thousands of pounds of hard-earned taxpayers’ money, my money, going off to Farage’s learned friends.

That, of course, is on top of the £63m that the government is going to have to find to fund local elections that will now have to be organised in an enormous hurry – funding that could have been spent on, let us say, fixing those potholes that are tearing chunks out of people’s tyres.

That is some mess. A municipal omnishambles. If you ask me, Farage is a hypocrite. He has, so far as I’m aware, never previously objected to elections being postponed for a year or two because a local authority is about to be abolished.

I imagine if it were Reform councillors at risk of losing their jobs, he’d be perfectly happy with the idea, and, for that matter, would, I suspect, happily restrict and load the franchise to the advantage of his own party by ending postal voting, Trump-style, and allowing the kind of foreign mega-donations that could deform British democracy for good. It’s clear to me that all he wants on 7 May is to harvest the protest vote and attempt to rebuild some of the momentum that his party has lost in recent weeks, thanks largely to it being stuffed with ex-Tories who haven’t got the nobs and honours they wanted from Kemi Badenoch.

But Farage should be careful what he wishes for. The record of the Reform UK fruitcakes and clowns who got into power last year has hardly been one of achievement. Their leaflets, at least in some cases, did promise they’d lower the council tax, and they certainly gave the impression that there were huge savings from waste and corruption to be found by Farage’s “British Doge”, which turned out to be no more useful than the real version run by Elon Musk. If they have found “savings”, it’ll be through closing down services – so not savings at all, just old-style cuts.

A long list of Reform councillors have re-defected elsewhere, stood down and generally proved only that Reform is not ready to govern a whelk stall, let alone a county or the country.

If they win control in more councils this year, then they will fail and be seen to fail in the most spectacular and depressing fashion in the year ahead, as the new councillors also discover that the town hall they’ve taken over is skint. They’ve even started moaning about local government being underfunded.

That’s not much comfort as we watch Farage grinning all the way to the bank like a frog that’s just swallowed a particularly fat and succulent bluebottle. However, just remember that wherever Reform win they’ll prove that they are unfit to do anything except waste time and money on their flag policies.

In a little over a week’s time, too, we may also see Reform’s candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election defeated by a working class plumber standing up for social justice. She happens to be a Green, but never mind about that. Like the by-election in Caerphilly where Reform were thwarted by Plaid Cymru, it proves that these dangerous charlatans can be beat. When he loses in Manchester, it’ll wipe the smile off Farage’s face. Is it too much to hope he’s peaked too soon?