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Reform UK would allow ministers to ignore international law and give them the ability to fire civil servants in a Donald Trump-style overhaul of government powers, the party’s new efficiency tsar has said.
Danny Kruger, who defected to Reform from the Conservatives last month, set out the party’s plans to change the way the government and civil service operate, handing more power to the cabinet.
The party’s department of government efficiency (Doge) chief said he would want to rewrite the ministerial code and the civil service code to free the government from current constraints.
“There is a glaring objection that I have to the ministerial code … which is that it requires them to acknowledge international law in their decision-making. That is an immediate change we would make,” Kruger said.
A line in the code says: “The ministerial code should be read against the background of the overarching duty on ministers to comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations.”
Kruger also said civil servants would be brought more closely under the command of ministers, at least half of whom could be brought in from outside parliament as political appointments to the House of Lords.
Reform’s other plans include a 30% cut in the size of the civil service to pre-Brexit levels, as well as closing down six central government offices – most of which are already being shut by the Cabinet Office.
Kruger also raised the prospect of stricter anti-trade union laws, saying most civil servants would respect the government they worked for but there would be some “malevolent actors” trying to frustrate any Reform administration.
The MP acknowledged that Reform was an “ill-disciplined” pirate ship led by a “buccaneering” Nigel Farage that needed to transform into a well-oiled Royal Navy battleship in order to govern successfully.
His press conference was given on the day that Reform expelled a further three councillors in Kent, taking the total to five, after the leak of a chaotic council meeting obtained by the Guardian.
The party has also been criticised in recent days over comments made by its MP Sarah Pochin, who apologised for “poor phrasing” after saying she was maddened by what she saw as the over-representation of black and Asian people in television advertising.
Kruger himself came in for scrutiny over comments that the UK could in future be led by a coalition involving an “appalling Hamas-supporting, LGBT-supporting nationalist party”.
At the press conference, Kruger said he had been talking about the “incredible incoherence of the coalition” against Reform and the idea that a politician could support both Hamas and LGBT rights at the same time.
Kruger said many ideas about reform of the state were yet to be worked out and he would not put a specific number on the size of the civil service.
However, he said it would be a priority to rewrite the ministerial and civil service codes. “Public servants will answer to ministers, who answer to parliament,” he said. The party said this would mean giving the cabinet greater “hire and fire” powers.
Asked if they would try to emulate Trump, Kruger said: “In a nutshell, yes. I think he came into government with exactly the same sort of analysis that we have, which was in his case the federal government was not under the control of the administration … we are very serious about deep structural change to the system and the analogy of the US is legitimate.”
Despite that, Kruger gave assurances that Reform “don’t come with a chainsaw or a wrecking ball”. He said: “We respect the institutions of the country, the armed forces, the police, the church, the judiciary, and we respect the professionalism and expertise of the people who work in them, so long as those people respect in their turn the right of parliament and of ministers to make the rules they work by.”
Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, said: “It’s deeply embarrassing for Nigel Farage that his new policy chief’s first policy has already fallen apart. You can’t save money by closing government buildings that are already closing. Danny Kruger didn’t do the work and he’s been found out.
“It’s the same at local level. Reform made big claims about the money they could save in councils, found they were wrong and are now proposing raising council tax and cutting services.”
