NIGEL Farage has vowed to be Britain’s Elon Musk and take a chainsaw to council waste if he sweeps to victory in local elections next month.
The Reform Party boss also blasted “fat and lazy” town halls – as he laid bare the colossal amounts of taxpayers cash being splurged on barmy projects.
Nigel Farage reveals the many millions of taxpayers cash wasted – including on pothole consultants, driving lessons for asylum seekers and recycling plants that do not work[/caption]
Farage has taken his inspiration from Donald Trump’s America – where billionaire space tycoon Mr Musk launched a waste-slashing offensive[/caption]
He also warned Net Zero could become the “new Brexit” and widespread fury at Westminster could trigger a political earthquake bigger than the EU referendum.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun on Sunday while out on the campaign trail, Mr Farage revealed that a Reform audit of council spending had exposed appalling waste.
Millions are being spent on frivolous projects – like free driving lessons for asylum seekers, trips to the south of France for civil servants and ergonomic chairs.
Mr Farage said he will “send in the auditors” to every council Reform wins on May 1 to slash this wasteful spending.
He has taken his inspiration from Donald Trump’s America – where billionaire space tycoon Mr Musk launched a waste-slashing offensive called DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency).
Mr Farage said: “Local councils have big budgets and they waste loads of it.
“They spend it on diversity agendas, climate change, consultants, contracts with firms that are meant to mend pot holes and don’t do the job.
“And they pay themselves vast amounts of money. The bosses all earn way more than the Prime Minister, loads of them are on £100,000 a year, and basically no one comes to work on Mondays or Fridays.
“The whole thing has to change. We need a British DOGE for every county and every local authority in this country.”
Local government “is fat and lazy” and “taking taxpayers for mugs”, he added.
Reform’s grim audit revealed that town halls are laden with debt and failing to do the basics like repair their roads – despite whacking up council tax year after year.
Up to 90,000 potholes are unfilled in some areas.
Cornwall alone pays an eye-watering £147,000 a day servicing its debts, Mr Farage claimed.
Reform sent in 3,000 Freedom of Information Requests (FoIs) to councils across the country to find out what they spend their cash on.
They revealed that Shropshire Council spent £1,000 a day on a pothole consultant.
It costs around £50 to fill a pothole – meaning they could repair 20 potholes.
Nearly £40,000 was spent by Durham County Council to send just four town hall executives to a property conference in the South of France
Devon County Council spent more than £1.7 million on electric cars for staff.
A staggering £150m was spent on a waste recycling plant that did not work by Derbyshire County Council.
Up and down the country, councils splurged hundreds of millions of pounds on Net Zero schemes and diversity and inclusion officers.
There has been a lot of scrutiny over the billions wasted by the central government on barmy projects.
But Mr Farage — a political insurgent who helped win Brexit and is now neck and neck with Keir Starmer’s Labour in the polls – said this town hall has gone under the radar “like it is a big secret.”
He was “gobsmacked” at the results of the spending trawl, Mr Farage says.
Sun on Sunday Political editor Kate Ferguson interviews Nigel Farage on the local election campaign trail[/caption]
Farage with Elon Musk[/caption]
Throwing his hands up, he said: “How can they be so complacent? How can they be so arrogant?”
There has been an explosion in the number of council staff working from home since Covid.
Under Reform, they will be told to stop working from home or be sacked.
“They will be tintacked – they will be sacked. Get rid of them!” Mr Farage declares as we talk politics and policy in the back garden of a Royal British Legion club.
“Public sector productivity has gone down the drain since the pandemic. A new lazy lifestyle seems to be acceptable.
“Well you know what – it is not to us and it is not to council tax payers either.”
Some will raise eyebrows that Nigel is drawing his inspiration from Musk.
After dangling the prospect of a massive donation in front of the party boss, Mr Musk later turned on him, saying Reform needed a new leader.
The pair are said to be on civil terms now – so has Nigel been in touch with the Tesla boss for tips?
“No – but you can see what he has done”, the 61 year-old said.
There is no doubt Nigel is the man of the moment.
Reform is aiming to win at least 200 council seats in local elections in just 11 days’ time – including in Labour Red Wall heartlands like Durham.
They could also clinch victory in the Runcorn by-election – triggered when Labour MP Mike Amesbury was convicted for punching a man outside a pub.
Several of the big regional mayor positions could also go Reform on May 1.
Spooked by this surge in popularity, No10 is ramping up its attacks.
They claim Reform will introduce NHS charges and accuse Mr Farage of being soft on Putin’s Russia.
Both accusations are strongly denied by Reform.
For Nigel these local elections are a crunch test.
Critics say Reform is just the “Nigel show” and that, scratch the surface, his party is full of has-beens and eccentrics.
Can he prove them wrong?
More broadly, the City trader turned blue collar champion needs to prove he can turn his massive poll bounce into real-life town hall victories.
“The general election was just a sighting shot, that was just to get us in the field”, Mr Farage said.
“This is the most important set of local elections in many many years.”
He said Reform could do deals with other parties to control town halls if there is no overall winner.
“We are not going to form coalitions with anybody, but we might do confidence and supply”, Mr Farage explained.
Nigel has a knack for sensing which way the political wind is blowing.
He predicted and helped ram through Brexit.
And he called the popular anger that brutally turfed the Tories out of power in last year’s general election.
And he reckons anger at the soaring costs associated with Net Zero
“could be the next Brexit”.
“Everyone can see the logic now”, Nigel – who wants to ditch the Net Zero by 2050 target – says.
“Why would you export manufacturing and then re import the goods? All you’ve done is you’ve exported CO2 emissions and actually added to them in many cases.
“The lunacy of this. This could be the next Brexit – where Parliament is so hopelessly out of touch with the country.”
Earlier this week, Nigel gleefully declared he was parking Reform’s tanks firmly “on Labour lawns”.
He kicked off their local election launch at a working men’s club in Durham.
Reform has been calling for the nationalisation of British steel.
Party deputy Richard Tice has even wore a trade union badge declaring “Save Our Steel” on his suit jacket in an emergency debate in Parliament last week.
Taunting Labour, Mr Farage doubled down on his union flirtation.
“If we want to re-industrialise Britain at that macro level with big companies, producing big stuff then you have to have a good relationship with the trade unions”, he said.
“I mean listen to what GMB trade union leader Gary Smith says about Net Zero and what it’s doing to well paid manufacturing jobs, we have quite a bit in common.”
Mr Farage said he wants to sit down with the union big cheese after the election.
Most of the trade union rank and file members are “patriotic, working people” and many are Reform supporters and before that backed Ukip, Mr Farage said.
And he reveals the late trade union firebrand Bob Crow once told him “Nigel I’m really worried, many of our members are voting for you…”
Some close to Labour fear the party could even see a trade union defect and back Reform one day.
That would turn many decades of politics on its head.
After the local elections Nigel is setting his sights on Downing Street.
So can he be the man to make history and overturn Labour’s winning 174 seat majority in just one electoral cycle?
“Well it has never happened before, but history is made by things that happen. I’m going to give it a go.”
Pothole consultants, ergonomic chairs and posh trips to the South of France: How councils have been spending YOUR money
Here are some of the controversial projects councils have spent taxpayers money on, according to the Reform Party:
Durham Council Council spent nearly £40,000 sending 4 town hall executives to a property conference in the South of France
Devon County Council spent more than £1.7 million on electric vehicles for staff
Lancashire County Council spent £520,000 on ergonomic chairs and computer screen assessments for staff
Staffordshire County Council spent £18,000 on driving lessons for asylum seekers
Wiltshire County Council spent £929,000 installing biomass boilers to “decarbonise” 3 council offices
Shropshire Council spent £1,000 a day on a pothole consultant. It costs around £50 to fill a pothole – meaning they could repair 20 potholes a day with this cash
Derbyshire County Council spent £150m on a waste recycling plant that did not work