Reform vs Green: When Protest Meets Power – Britain's Twin Disasters in Local Government.

Why both parties are imploding in office, but only one could actually govern nationally.

Nov 23, 2025

Why both parties are imploding in office, but only one could actually govern nationally

Britain’s political theatre loves a binary. Progressive versus populist. Woke versus anti-woke. Green versus Reform. But strip away the tribal signalling and you find something more revealing: two protest parties discovering that campaign promises and council administration are very different things.

Bristol’s Green Party has run the city council since May 2024. Reform UK seized ten councils in May 2025 – including Kent, England’s largest county council. Both promised efficiency, accountability, and an end to establishment failure.

Eighteen months of Green governance and six months of Reform power reveal remarkably similar results: chaos, incompetence, and the grinding discovery that running things is harder than criticising things.

But there’s a critical difference that explains everything: Reform could govern nationally if it won power. The Greens couldn’t govern nationally even if they wanted to. Their structure prevents it. Their coalition forbids it. Their principles make it impossible.

Bristol’s Green Theatre.

Bristol’s Green administration has perfected “advanced incompetence” – maintaining democratic forms while defeating their substance.

The scorecard: promised 1,000 new council homes annually, sold 1,222 existing ones. Promised community consultation, implemented Low Traffic Neighbourhoods despite 54% opposition. Promised transparency, delayed audit reports until after key votes. Failed climate targets. Cut services deeper than Labour ever did.

FOI requests stonewalled. Council meetings ending in walkouts. Enforcement operations with police and drones. The procedural forms remain – consultations happen, votes occur, minutes get published. The substance has evaporated.

It’s transparency theatre. Democracy as performance art. The appearance of accountability without its reality.

Reform’s Six-Month Shitshow.

Reform promised to end “woke waste” and deliver efficiency across ten councils. Six months later:

Kent County Council – their flagship – descended into warfare. Leader Linden Kemkaran, who’d never been a councillor before leading England’s largest county, was caught on video: “You’re just going to have to fucking suck it up.”

Mass expulsions followed. Started with 57 councillors in May. By October: 48. Nine expelled for “undermining party interests.” Seven Kent MPs wrote to Farage describing “chaos and infighting.” Reform’s response? “We are totally battle fit.”

Lincolnshire – Reform councillors so “inexperienced and under-prepared” that they cancelled planning meetings because they couldn’t vote on applications. Chairman admitted his group wasn’t ready.

Derbyshire – closing adult education centres and refusing fire sprinklers in schools. One school burned completely in 2020 due to a lack of sprinklers. Reform reversed the safety pledge.

Their “DOGE” efficiency units? Letters sent on Reform UK headed paper, signed by Farage and chairman Zia Yusuf, demanding staff cooperation with disciplinary threats. Problem: neither has legal standing to instruct council staff. The unit was a party organisation with no council authority. Potentially unlawful. Cost: £36,000 annually. Results: nothing.

The Statutory Reality.

Both parties hit the same brick wall: up to 80% of council spending is statutory obligations. Adult social care. Children’s services. Education. Legal contracts signed years earlier.

You can’t “cut waste” when the waste doesn’t exist. You can’t “stop the boats” from a county council. You can’t abolish diversity roles when equality legislation requires them.

Reform promised savings while facing £100 million shortfalls. Bristol’s Greens promised new homes while selling existing stock to balance the books. Same delusion, different packaging.

The Critical Difference: National Viability.

Here’s where the comparison matters.

Reform’s National Clarity:

If Reform won Westminster, you could measure their success:

Did immigration numbers drop?
Did they withdraw from the ECHR?
Did boat crossings stop?

These are real policy levers central government controls. Terrible policies, perhaps – but policies. Clear, actionable, measurable. When Reform councils fail, it’s a mismatched ambition: trying to deliver a national agenda with local powers. The incompetence is operational, not structural.

The Greens’ National Incoherence:

Imagine the Greens winning national power. What would they actually do?

They can’t answer because they’re not a political party. They’re an emotional refuge for people who’ve run out of options and lack the intellectual rigour to articulate what they’re for beyond “stopping fascism”, – which has been diluted to mean “anything I don’t like.”

Councillors are literally joining them right now to fight “fascism” – by which they mean democratically elected parties they disagree with. Every progressive cause that doesn’t fit elsewhere ends up with the Greens. Every grievance. Every wound.

Zack Polanski has inherited 170,000 members, bringing mutually exclusive demands:

Palestine activists demanding arms embargo
Trans rights activists demanding Self-ID
Radical feminists demanding single-sex spaces (direct conflict)
Climate activists demanding immediate net-zero
Anti-development activists demanding no housing
Housing activists demanding massive building (direct conflict)
Anti-war protesters demanding NATO withdrawal
Ukrainian activists demanding military support (direct conflict)

Every member joins with a different wound, a different cause, a different enemy. United only by what they oppose. Incapable of coherent governance because governance requires choosing between incompatible demands, and every choice becomes “collaboration with fascism” to whoever loses.

The Green Party’s grassroots democracy and consensus structures actively prevent the hierarchical authority needed to say “no.” Every demand is equally valid. Every cause is equally urgent. Every compromise equal betrayal.

They’re not building a government. They’re building a support group that occasionally makes budget decisions – and discovers it can’t, because support groups validate feelings, they don’t prioritise competing demands.

Bristol as National Template.

Bristol demonstrates what happens when the orphanage governs. They promised everything to everyone. They delivered nothing to anyone while maintaining the appearance of an inclusive process throughout.

When Reform fails in Kent, it’s straightforward incompetence: rookies trying to deliver policies outside their power.

When Greens fail in Bristol, it’s structural: competently maintaining democratic theatre while satisfying none of their incompatible constituencies. The orphanage structure prevents disappointing anyone – so they disappoint everyone.

The Membership Surge as a Warning.

Reform: 260,000 members. Peaked before taking power at 237,000, dropped 10,000 in one month after Kent chaos. Growth has stalled.

Greens: 170,000+ members. From 60,000 in early 2024 to 170,000 by November 2025 – doubled in two months. Exploding while Bristol demonstrates their governing incoherence.

You’re not joining the Green Party. You’re joining your cause within it. Climate movement next to trans rights next to Palestine solidarity next to Labour refugees “fighting fascism” (meaning: electoral outcomes they dislike).

Polanski inherits 170,000 different definitions of what the party should be. None is willing to accept that governing means disappointing someone. The membership surge isn’t strength – it’s catastrophe in slow motion. Political participation as therapy for people who need validation more than administration.

Why Reform Could Govern (Badly) and Greens Couldn’t At All.

If Reform won Westminster, they’d implement terrible policies incompetently. But they’d be trying to do specific things. Measurable. Identifiable. Their failure would be obvious.

If the Greens won Westminster, they’d fracture immediately. Every decision requires consensus among incompatible demands. Every policy alienates constituencies with opposing goals. Every choice becomes an existential battle rather than pragmatic governance.

They wouldn’t fail from incompetence. They’d fail because their structure makes decisive governance impossible. The orphanage provides refuge – it cannot provide direction.

Polanski’s Impossible Inheritance.

He’s not leading a party. He’s managing an orphanage of political refugees, each with their trauma, each demanding their healing be prioritised, each with their own definition of “fascism” to fight.

Every decision alienates someone. Every prioritisation feels like abandonment. Every pragmatic compromise becomes collaboration with evil.

And he’s doing this while Bristol demonstrates the endgame: democratic theatre, transparency performance, consultation without substance. The appearance of caring for everyone while effectively caring for no one.

Meanwhile, Farage just says “stop the boats,” and everyone nods. Simple. Clear. Wrong, perhaps to some, but coherent.

The Brutal Truth.

Reform represents concentrated grievance around clear issues. Terrible for pluralism, dangerous for minorities, but governmentally coherent. They know what they want. They lack competence, but the vision is clear.

The Greens represent diffused grievance seeking institutional home. Each member carries their wound, their cause, their personal definition of the fascism that must be stopped. Beautiful in its inclusivity, catastrophic in its incoherence.

When concentrated grievance meets governance: Kent. Authoritarian chaos, mass expulsions, visible failure.

When diffused grievance meets governance: Bristol. Democratic theatre, invisible failure, political participation as therapy.

Both are disasters. But Reform’s disaster is operationally fixable – get competent people, deliver policies. The Greens’ disaster is structurally unfixable – the coalition itself prevents coherent governance.

Reform could govern nationally. Terribly, but they could attempt it. They have a clear agenda, measurable goals, willingness to impose authority.

The Greens couldn’t govern nationally. Their structure prevents it. Their coalition forbids it. When everyone defines fascism differently, every governing decision becomes existential rather than pragmatic.

And 170,000 people are joining anyway – each adding another incompatible demand, each expecting validation rather than governance, each one convinced their cause is the priority.

The orphanage is full. The children are fighting. Nobody’s being cared for. And councillors are still joining to “fight fascism” – fleeing democratically elected parties they don’t like to join a movement that maintains democratic forms while defeating democratic substance.

Bristol’s eighteen months under Green control provided the template. Reform’s six months followed it almost exactly – with one critical difference.

Welcome to Britain’s protest party disaster. At least when Reform disappoints you, you can measure the failure. Try getting a Green to acknowledge their council just sold the social housing they promised to build – you’d have more luck converting a megachurch pastor to atheism.

Source Links for Article

Bristol Green Party Governance.

Housing Failures:

Bristol Green Council housing sale figures: [Bristol City Council budget documents]
East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood opposition data: [Bristol City Council consultation results]

Transparency Issues: