Peter Scott on Sheffield’s local election results...

Reform’s result in the May council elections was extraordinary.

Huge numbers of people voted for a party promising their lives will magically get better if only they back Nigel Farage – the very same Nigel Farage who promised Brexit would make us all better off.

How’s that worked out?

For most ordinary people, incomes have stagnated or fallen, bills have soared, growth has flatlined and public services are crumbling. Brexit brought more bureaucracy, less trade and less money in the national pot. The only people doing brilliantly are the already wealthy.

Yet people still say Farage ‘tells it like it is’. Really?

Reform openly says it wants to roll back workers’ rights, weaken renters’ protections and scrap parts of human rights law. That means more zero-hours contracts, more ‘fire and rehire’, fewer protections from bad landlords and fewer legal safeguards for ordinary people against the rich and powerful.

I spoke recently to an elderly woman I like very much who said she’s voting Reform. I explained all this to her. Her answer? “Bring it on. Reform is the future.”

But better for who exactly?

Certainly not pensioners, workers, renters or anyone without serious money behind them. What’s happening feels frighteningly similar to MAGA politics in America.

Millions of people there were sold fantasies by Trump, watched their lives fail to improve, yet still cheer him on while billionaires benefit.

Many Reform voters seem so angry with the current Government that they are willing to vote against their own interests without thinking through the consequences. Protest voting is one thing. Handing power to people who will dismantle protections ordinary families rely on is another entirely.

If Reform wins power in 2029, people may discover far too late that anger is easy to exploit – and hard to live with afterwards.