Downing Street has reacted with fury to revelations that Nigel Farage plans to use Reform’s control of councils across England to launch a series of legal challenges to tie Sir Keir Starmer’s government in knots.
The announcement by Reform’s new mayor for Greater Lincolnshire Dame Andrea Jenkyns came as she spoke to The Independent in her first major interview since her victory was declared on Friday morning.
She said that high on the agenda were plans to take the Labour government to court in a bid to block net zero projects like solar and wind farms, as well as attempts by the Home Office to house asylum seekers in Lincolnshire.
It came as The Independent revealed that another top priority, to sack council diversity officers, has fallen flat after it emerged Lincolnshire County Council does not employ any.
With Reform winning nearly 700 local council seats and holding a majority in Kent, Staffordshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Durham and three in Northamptonshire, Sir Keir government could be facing a flurry of legal challenges.
Taking control of councils means Reform has an opportunity to spend taxpayers’ money on expensive legal challenges which they would have struggled to afford as a political party.
It brings the prospect of legal tactics imported from the US to try to bring government to a standstill by tying it up in the courts.
The threat could play out in the political battlefield until the next general election, expected in 2029, where Farage hopes his populist right-wing party can win and install him in Downing Street.
The threat has provoked a furious warning from Downing Street as Labour, already bruised from defeats in the local election just 10 months after winning power, gears up for a fight.
A Number 10 source told The Independent: “The public rightly expect more than legal challenges and faux anger from their MPs, mayors, councillors. As the Tories learned the hard way, people want change. This Labour government will deliver it.”
As she prepares to be sworn in on Thursday next week as mayor with a large majority of Reform councillors on the county council, former Tory MP Dame Andrea admitted: “All eyes are going to be on us.”
Setting out her early agenda, she explained how she and Reform deputy leader Richard Tice, who represents a Lincolnshire seat as an MP, discussed how to get on with legal challenges.
“What we really want to do is really push back on the Miliband stuff, really be a thorn in their side and do legal challenges against it. We’re going to get quite strong with them, and we’re going to start doing stuff on the migrant hotels as well in Lincolnshire.
“We’re going to start pushing back and put pressure on [the Labour government]. I was speaking to HQ yesterday about possibly starting legal challenges, and that would be brilliant.”
As the new mayor was speaking to The Independent she received a message from a local company inquiring about finding tents for migrants to be put in.
Dame Andrea had said in her acceptance speech that asylum seekers should be housed in tents, rather than hotels, and she said she has “no regrets” over the remarks which sent shockwaves around the country.
“I think most people think that. I mean when you get homeless veterans and you house illegal migrants in hotels. To me that’s absolutely bonkers. So for me, I’m surprised, because I’ve been saying this for weeks, but the mainstream media hadn’t picked up on it.”
While Sir Keir’s government has increased returns of illegal migrants, a plan to obtain from landlords to house asylum seekers broke in the middle of the al election campaign.
Added to that, the crisis at British Steel in Lincolnshire, which ended up with the government nationalising it, and an intervention by Sir Tony Blair, put massive pressure on Sir Keir and Mr Miliband over their net zero policies.
The legal challenge strategy was partly confirmed by Reform chairman Zia Yusuf on the BBC.
He said his party would use “every instrument of power available”, when asked how the party would stop migrants from being housed in the areas where it now controls the councils, because contracts for such provisions are drawn up between the Home Office and accommodation providers.
“Judicial reviews, injunctions, there’s planning laws, he told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme.
“You know, a lot of these hotels – there has been litigation around this already – a lot of these hotels, when you suddenly turn them into something else, which is essentially a hostel that falls foul of any number of regulations, and that’s what our teams of lawyers are exploring at the moment.”
