Farage unveils his DOGE squad: four Reform politicians and a 28-year-old

Reform have announced the make-up of its first-ever DOGE team being sent into one of the councils it newly controls – and what an elite unit it is!

Upon winning control of 10 local authorities in May Nigel Farage’s party said it would send teams based on Elon Musk’s US Department of Government Efficiency into each one to seize and examine documents, reports and records and see what was being spent on consultants, climate change initiatives and “areas that county councils shouldn’t be getting involved in”.

The first unit, to go into Kent Council, has now been unveiled. And while Farage said it would consist of “software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors” it is actually comprised of four Reform politicians and a 28-year-old who has said he may be wanted for war crimes in the Philippines.

The team is made up of Zia Yusuf (chair of Reform), Arron Banks (the Brexiteer businessman who funded Leave.EU and unsuccessfully contested the West of England mayoralty for Reform in May), Linden Kemkaran (Reform’s leader of Kent Council), Brian Collins (Reform’s deputy leader of Kent Council) and Nathaniel Fried.

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Who’s the latter? Described as an “entrepreneur and tech tycoon”, the 28-year-old has curiously little presence online beyond his X account, where in the past he has awkwardly asked his 2,629 followers why his YouTube Shorts feed was “just full of Nigel Farage’s Cameo rubbish” (the Reform leader has a sideline selling personal messages on the video platform).

Fried has also used X to publicly contact a business podcast to ask whether they’d be interested in having him on to discuss “how data means I am probably going to be indicted for war crimes in the Philippines”.

Where Farage’s “software engineers, data analysts and forensic auditors” are is unclear. As is what authority the likes of Fried and Banks will have to demand relevant finance procurement, audit and contract data and correspondence on significant procurements, as Reform has claimed they will. Another question is quite what the entire point of this folly is, given that Kent already has an audit and scrutiny committee, detailed documentation of its finances is available online and any deep DOGE probe is most likely to yield that Kent’s financial issues are the same as every other council’s – the cost of social care and SEN education.

But one thing has been cleared up, at least. When LBC journalist Henry Riley pointed out Fried was 28, the “tech tycoon” was quick to take to X to point out he was “29 next month”, with a little party horn emoji.