Reform are not your friends in Sheffield

I wasn’t happy to see this leaflet from Reform in Sheffield, as it contained so much misinformation. I’ve marked it 0/7! Let’s have a look at the facts.

Reform say they are going to audit the Council’s finances. Don’t they believe this has already been done! They will “cut waste”, but they don’t say what this waste is. That’s vital public services to you and me.

Reform wants “Zero Tolerance on Crime”. Crime is actually falling in Sheffield, with a 2% drop in total offences last year. Burglary has fallen by 11% and vehicle offences fell by 8%, but it is true that robbery and shoplifting are on the rise. Reform consistently blames migrants and asylum seekers for this, to divide communities and increase hatred.

Reform says they will recruit more community officers. But this is the job of South Yorkshire Police, not the Council, so unless they replace the Mayor, they will not be able to do this! Most police funding comes from the Government. Council Tax payers pay a precept towards it, but the South Yorkshire Mayor has taken over the role of Police and Crime Commissioner, and sets this precept. By ending “woke” policing, they mean reintroducing racist measures like stop and search and copying Trump’s tactics, employing ICE officers to harass and arrest people of colour for no good reason. But again, this is not something the Council could do, even if Reform were in power. A good place to start a crackdown would be to stop the millionaires and billionaires getting away without paying their taxes, but this is unfortunately also beyond the control of the Council! 

Reform says they will “End Woke policies in Sheffield”. But they don’t say what these “woke” policies are! I believe they mean ending diversity and climate change training for Councillors and staff, and stopping pension fund managers investing in low-carbon initiatives. I believe they want to discriminate against minorities such as trans and gay people and people of colour, and hate anything that prevents that. The amount of money spent on such training is tiny anyway. 

They haven’t said it in this leaflet, but they also want to stop the Council spending on anything that helps us transition away from fossil fuels. We must do this as soon as possible, not just to avert climate collapse, but for our national security. We can’t keep relying on oil imports from the Middle East, so the Council should be investing in insulating homes, solar panels, batteries and other renewable sources as much as finances will allow. Presumably, they will stop Green Bonds that are funding solar panels for school roofs at the moment, bringing down school bills so more money can be spent on the children, as well as reducing our CO2 emissions.

Scientists tell us we are in a climate emergency, and nothing Reform says can change that. Unless we quickly reduce our emissions, temperatures will continue to rise, and we are greatly at risk of reaching tipping points that could lead to billions of deaths. Migration will continue to increase as people find they are unable to live off the land anymore, where they live, due to flooding, drought or war. Investing in renewables at least makes us self-reliant and not dependent on oil-rich countries.

Reform says they will scrap the Clean Air Zone. This may sound popular, but Sheffield City Council has raised over £13 million from the CAZ since its launch in February 2023, and it has been successful in improving air quality in the city. Reform wants more people to die from air pollution and will happily forfeit the money that currently goes to road safety schemes outside schools, improving public transport and active travel and reducing accidents.

Reform says they will protect the countryside and prioritise only brownfield sites for development. But this was not an option in the recent vote on the Local Plan. Without a Local Plan, developers will have a free-for-all, with inappropriate developments proposed anywhere on the Greenbelt. To protect the Greenbelt, we need a Local Plan, and this has to meet the Labour Government’s targets. So what the Council has agreed (voted for by Labour and Greens) is to protect 97% of the greenbelt. What Reform and the Lib Dems are arguing for is not to protect 100% of the Greenbelt.  

Fix the Potholes. Again, Reform simplifies a complicated situation. Of course, the potholes need fixing, but the contract with Amey that was negotiated by the Lib Dem Council in 2008-11 and signed by the Labour Council in  2012 and is still heavily redacted, so we can’t see what it says. We are completely hooked into this mad £2.2 billion contract, which was responsible for the tree dispute and now the pothole crisis. The two Green Councillors at the time, Jillian Creasy and Bernard Little, sensibly opposed the contract. It is not going to be easy to force Amey to do a better job, but this badly needs doing! Derbyshire Council is run by Reform, so do take a drive over the border to see if the potholes are any better there! 

Reform says they want Social Housing for local people. They will “fight against government rules and put local people at the front of the queue”. Local people are already at the front of the queue! The queue is far too long because of the lack of investment in social housing for many years and Thatcher’s right-to-buy policy. What Reform is insinuating here is that somehow migrants and asylum seekers are allowed to jump the queue. This is not true. Asylum seekers can’t join the Council waiting list. If they are given Leave to Remain in this country, they can join the queue like anyone else, but they don’t receive any priority. 

Reform likes to portray itself as a party of the people, but you only have to look at their funding to see they are actually a party for millionaires, billionaires and oil interests. Reform UK is primarily funded by mega donations from wealthy individuals, notably a record-breaking £9 million donation from businessman Christopher Harborne in 2025. He is a crypto investor and aviation entrepreneur who lives in Thailand, gave a record £9m in 2025, the largest single donation to a British political party by a living person, reported the BBC. Two of Mr Harborne’s businesses – AML Global and Sherriff Group – are linked to private aircraft and aviation. Other significant backers include entrepreneur Zia Yusuf whose career involved the automotive and armaments businesses before founding a luxury concierge company, Velocity Black, of which Yusuf was the CEO and was mired in controversy about bullying. Other major Donors include biotechnology entrepreneur David Grainger and businessman Gary Dutton.

In comparison, the Green Party’s total donations for 2025 were just £294,069, 3% of just one of Reform’s donations! It is high time that massive political donations are outlawed, because they completely undermine our democracy.

Please don’t believe the misinformation Reform will push through your letterbox in the next few weeks. We have seen they are incompetent in the Councils where they are in power. They promised to reduce Council Tax in all of them, but lo and behold, when they got to power, the Council Tax was increased. 

Derbyshire up 4.99% 

Staffordshire up 4.99%

Durham County Council up 4.99%

North  Northamptonshire up 4.99%.

West  Northamptonshire up 4.99

Kent up 3.99%

Lancashire up 3.99%

Lincolnshire up 2.99%

Find out more about Reform by following Reform are Not Your Friends on Facebook.

Reform are not to be trusted. Vote for Hope, not Hate.