On Tuesday 26th August 2025, Politics in Pubs Manchester hosted a discussion on the progress of reforming Lancashire County Council. This was stimulated by Reform UK’s exceptional performance in the recent local elections in May 2025.

It’s fair to say that expectations are exceedingly high, as is the scrutiny. In this talk we found out about how Reform are doing locally, with a first-hand account of what it’s like suddenly being in power.

Our guest speaker was Councillor Daniel Matchett, Chairman of the Reform UK Rossendale & Darwen branch. He was also the Parliamentary Candidate for the constituency. At the recent May local elections, Danny, a NHS mental nurse, became one of many new Reform councillors when he was elected as county councillor for Whitworth & Bacup. As well as handling day-to-day constituency issues, he was appointed cabinet member for Health & Wellbeing.

He discussed some of Reform UK’s key election pledges and why they matter for Lancashire and across the country:

• Preserving Freedom of Speech – safeguarding one of our most fundamental liberties.
• DOGE (line-by-line audit) – Reform’s commitment to full transparency by auditing exactly how every penny of taxpayers’ money is spent.
• Exposing Labour’s Failures – challenging the impact of uncontrolled immigration on our communities.
• Confronting the Net Zero Blight – protecting our moorlands and countryside from damaging environmental schemes.

Introduction

During Covid, Danny (a registered NHS mental health nurse since 2006) was not politically motivated. He became interested while listening to Nigel Farage on LBC and started to notice opposition to Covid in terms of lockdown (how long, why). In particular, he took exception to the enforcement of mandatory vaccinations. He had Conservative ideas, supported Brexit and was disappointed with non-delivery of low taxes and immigration by Tories, post the Brexit referendum. He was prompted to do something when he was summoned for a mandatory Covid vaccination despite recently having had Covid and hence natural immunity. He found himself attracted to the Reform-UK policy of common sense and values like free speech and minimal state intervention.

Danny stood as a Parliamentary Candidate for the Rossendale and Darwen Constituency in the 2024 General Election. He published a campaign video that introduced him as a candidate and outlined his professional background. The video went viral. He believes the video, funded by members in Rossendale and Darwen, was professional, compliant with regulations, and aimed to introduce himself and his background, including his work as a Mental Health Nurse.

However, the day after posting the video, the NHS Trust demanded that he take it down. Through fear of reprimand, he complied, edited out 8 seconds where he appeared in an unidentifiable Trust uniform, and reposted it with their approval.

Despite this, he came under investigation with the following allegations:

1. Publishing a campaign video on multiple social media platforms related to his candidacy where elements (8 seconds) of this were filmed on trust premises.
2. Wearing his Trust uniform in the video.
3. Referencing his employment as a Mental Health Nurse.

The Trust claimed this breached its “Social Media Policy” and NHS England’s Pre-election guidance. At one point they referenced a policy against racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, threatening, abusive, or other unlawful comments. However, after reviewing these documents, the reasons for the disciplinary action had shifted, and the Trust had provided vague accusations.

After the FSU (Free Speech Union) support (which he paid for), the charges against Danny were dropped. However, Danny is taking the Trust to an industrial tribunal to recover the costs.

As a county councillor he stands for lowering legal immigration and stopping illegal immigration, scrapping NetZero and allowing freedom of speech for all.

He is currently a cabinet member for Health and Wellbeing where his experience as a registered Mental Health nurse is of great value.

Working with Council Staff: trying to get Reform policy through existing staff has been somehwat challenging. However Reform continues to work in unison with officers at Lancashire County Council, where the Councillors and staff work together to deliver the Reform vision of providing the best service for the council taxpayers.

DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency): DOGE, is an Elon Musk terminology adopted from USA interpreted, which has been interpreted in Lancashire as providing value for money by reducing waste and improving efficiency. LancashireCounty Council’s implementation of DOGE is progressing carefully as the administration ensures that data sharing, GDPR compliance, and access to financial records are managed responsibly.

In the meantime, the council has already begun applying DOGE principles internally, reviewing spending line by line, comparing it with public data, and identifying opportunities for greater efficiency and transparency. This structured approach is laying strong foundations for the full rollout of DOGE, ensuring thatonce the external team joins the process, it can operate effectively and build on well-prepared groundwork. Similar DOGE initiatives are already underway in other councils across the country, demonstrating growing momentum for this reform-driven approach to accountability and financial

Other Progress: Method of efficiently identifying and repairing potholes using modern technology is being used.

Discussion

Discussion centred around details of:

• Danny explaining differences between County Council, District Council and in some areas Borough Councils, their roles, boundaries and responsibilities
• How Reform councillors have persuaded the council staff to co-operate with them
• How Reform are developing DOGE methods and process maps for reducing council spendings.
• How the lessons learnt at local council level could be applied at governmental level
• Concerns re council job losses were raised: Danny’s response was that initially use of expensive agency staff is being reviewed. However, it was pointed out that identification of hindrances/ helpfulness by people and systems is important during this exercise, otherwise it could lead to a brain drain.
• Flying of Union and St George’s flags at Lancashire County Council offices
• Moving Gritters from Rossendale to Burnley Depos and its impact on roads during winter
• Provision of single sex spaces in Lancashire
• How do we stop Reform from being Conservative 2.0 especially with ex Darwen conservative MP Jake Berry recently joining Reform with his anti-Brexit and Pro Net Zero views?
• A mention of Krakow being safer than Manchester: we need to keep our streets safe, provide effective policing and control our borders.
• A statement was made that Reform-UK is offering a real change from the uni-party of Labour, Conservatives and LibDems on immigration and border control,Net Zero, policing, law and order etc.
• Question asked whether NHS will be privatised under Reform and the answer was No though a lot of the NHS is in effect already privatised, think GP practices.

Thank you

Politics in Pubs Manchester would like to thank Councillor Danny Matchett for introducing our topic tonight with a fascinating and thought-provoking talk. also like to thank our wonderful hosts at The Welcome Inn. Cheers all!

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