Reform are all for freedom of speech... unless they disagree

Reform’s attitude to free speech increasingly appears to be: we will fight for your right to say whatever you want – unless we don’t like it, in which case we’ll take legal action!

Last week Rats in a Sack reported on how cash-strapped Lancashire Council, now under the control of Nigel Farage’s mob, is looking to slash its care provision after the ‘easy’ savings it promised to find in the budget failed to transpire.

Having failed to save the tens of millions of pounds a year the party promised could be found by scrapping net zero commitments, DEI schemes and all-round wokery, it has now turned to something rather more tangible in a bid to manage its budget: saving £4m a year by closing five council-run care homes and five day centres and moving residents into the private sector.

This led to questions around possible conflicts of interest surrounding Graham Dalton, Reform’s cabinet member for adult social care… who owns a private care company in Lancaster. First for Care GB offers private care, including 24-hour complex and respite care.

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Seems like a fair question to pose? Apparently not, as Kim Snape, Labour for Chorley Rural East on Lancashire Council and the woman who raised the concerns, has now received an email from a senior member of staff at the authority warning her that Dalton had threatened legal action.

In the email, published by the website The Lead, the member of staff refers to a Facebook post by Snape and says: “Councillor Dalton has asked me to contact you to ask you to delete this post immediately, and to post this apology. He advises that he is seeking legal advice on the allegations contained.”

The allegations, of course, are that Dalton is Reform’s cabinet member for adult social care (a matter of public record), that it is proposing moving care residents into the private sector (also a matter of public record) and that he owns a private care company (First for Care GB, whose Companies House listing shows has a director called, er, Graham John Dalton).

But that is enough to take legal action for freedom of speech-loving Reformers. When Nigel Farage appeared before US congress in September he spoke of “the really awful authoritarian situation that the UK has sunk into” and asked “at what point did we become North Korea?”. Quite!