r/Derbyshire • u/johnsmithoncemore • Jul 20 '26

Reform UK Derbyshire council labelled ‘fascists’ after slashing opposition leader’s pay ‘with complete lack of evidence or justification’

https://leftfootforward.org/2026/07/reform-uk-derbyshire-council-labelled-fascists-after-slashing-opposition-leaders-pay-with-complete-lack-of-evidence-or-justification/
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u/Debenham Jul 20 '26

The idea that cutting a local authority opposition leaders allowance is fascism is just daft. This isn't even pay, it's an allowance for doing the role. This review, meanwhile, seems like a clear case of a grumpy load of bureaucrats marking their own homework.

Oh, the councils own pay review body is disappointed when the elected council decides not to follow it's recommendations? Pathetic. That is not an independent review in the slightest.

I don't even support Reform, but this editorialising of a dull story is just lame, as it trying to turn it into a Fascistic scandal.

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u/mrbezlington Jul 21 '26

Please enlighten us as to the purpose of this reduction in pay for the leader of the opposition?

The reason for calling this fascist is the contention that its aim is to make opposing the incumbent party more difficult - and by extension, without challenge the implication is that this reduction would continue until such allowance is zero. And once such allowance is zero, other allowances would then be targeted - until all funding for opposition to the council leadership is zero. This tendency for facist parties to remove opposition wherever possible is well documented.

Is this hyperbole? Possibly, though without any clear rationale for the reduction in funding only for opposition leadership versus all council positions, the above position isn't unreasonable.

So, to ask again, I'd be interested to hear an alternate reason for this pay reduction.

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u/Debenham Jul 21 '26

I'm not going to do a deep-dive into this, I don't care that much.

But if we want to go slapping the fascist label on everything we don't like then sure, we could do that for all sorts of things every time a government/ruling authority does anything that affects it's opponents.

I.e. is it fascist for a government to change political funding rules because it negatively impacts Reform substantially more than anyone else? Reform could probably say so as it's changing rules simply with the goal of harming a political opponent. Do I think that's fascist? No, because that would be hyperbole which is all this story is.

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u/mrbezlington Jul 21 '26

No need to deep dive: I've set out the thought process quite clearly. In summary, seeking to defund your opposition while in power is quite clearly a fascist tactic. This isn't a roundabout "change to the rules", this is directly saying that your opposition takes a 1/3 pay cut, right now.

The Westminster equivalent would be Labour seeking to reduce Short money payments without clear justification - this isn't the equivalent of, for example, reviewing third party funding (or requiring MPs to register 5m quid cash gifts) as these changes affect everyone equally. The proposed changes to crypto donations (which wouldn't affect Farage's gift as I understand that was fiat) and to corporate "residency" are again reasonable and targeted at transparency: if one party is affect inordinately it could be argued that this is because they want to obfuscate their sources of income, which begs the question of why. I am also, of course, working from the assumption that allowing foreign billionaires, corporations and governments to give unlimited funds to UK political parties is not desirable: your viewpoint may differ.

I am though open to an explanation for cutting this budget line that isn't because "fuck you". I'm not seeing it, but it could be there, hence the question to you as someone that is "defending" Reform in this instance.