From the Clapham SPGB branch website.

First, reforms do not solve the problems facing the working class but can sometimes even make them worse, or have unintended consequences, or cannot be enacted or are withdrawn by another political party at a later date. This policy also lets in other political parties to offer similar reforms to gain support from and divide the working class voters; a strategy adapted by Bismarck in Germany with the introduction of pension and other social welfare reforms to check the rise and influence of the SDP, and later by the Liberal Lloyd George in Britain with the enactment of the National Insurance Act in 1911 to undercut the Labour Party.

Another objection is that a party claiming to be socialist, but with a list of reforms or “immediate demands”, attracts both reformers who are not socialists as well as a non- socialist electorate behind who are more interested in these reforms than the socialist goal. Even if such a party obtains political power and forms a government, it is useless for the purpose of furthering socialism. The reforms take up all the time and often meet unknown obstacles like an economic crisis and trade depression or a war.