It was a historic night (and day) for Reform UK’s frontman, Nigel Farage, as his party claimed victory in the local elections. This was a resounding win for the party, solidifying their support and proving that they are not just a flash in the pan.
After years of being on the fringes of politics and fronting various parties, Farage has finally found success with Reform UK. The party gained control of seven councils across England, including Staffordshire, Nottinghamshire, Durham, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Kent, and Derbyshire. They also secured hundreds of previously held Tory and Labour seats.
But the victories did not stop there. Reform UK also won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, overturning a 14,696 Labour majority. And in a historic moment, they secured their first mayoral seat in Greater Lincolnshire.
While Labour managed to hold onto three mayoral seats in North Tyneside, the West of England, and Doncaster, they suffered a major defeat in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty, losing to the Tories.
According to the BBC projected national share, if this had been a general election, Reform UK would have taken 30% of the vote – a result that confirms a recent poll showing they are on course to be the largest party at Westminster.
The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, could not contain his jubilation as he declared, “Keir Starmer’s party has moved far away. We are now the party of the working man and woman.” This victory marks the end of two-party politics as we know it, and Farage is confident that Reform UK will continue to gain momentum.
He continued, “If you vote Reform, we get Reform.” And he boldly claimed, “We will win the next election.”
The odds of Farage becoming the next prime minister and succeeding Starmer were also slashed this afternoon by Betfair, from 3/1 before the local elections to 5/2.
By 5pm, Reform UK had gained nearly 550 seats, while the Tories had lost almost as many. Labour, from a much smaller base, was down around 150 seats. Polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice told the BBC, “If this continues, [Reform] could end up with some 800 or so seats across these [local] elections as a whole.”
It is clear that Reform UK is coming after Labour’s lunch. Keir Starmer acknowledged this, telling broadcasters, “I get it” when discussing Labour’s lacklustre performance. While he appeared downcast, the prime minister stood by his tough decisions in government, such as the unpopular cuts to winter fuel payments and welfare.
He added, “We need to go further and we need to go faster on the change people want to see. And that’s what I’m determined to do.” But that might not be enough.
Former Labour adviser and now Labour peer Ayesha Hazarika said on her Times Radio show that the party needs to deliver and “tell a convincing, confident story” about their vision for Britain. She continued, “Reform is clearly coming after Labour’s lunch.”
Hazarika noted that even voters in the mayoral seats that Labour held onto were expressing skepticism about the party on the doorstep. She said, “Labour prides itself on having a really good ground operation, and I think it did in those other mayoral seats, but something went wrong in Runcorn, and questions will be asked. Should the prime minister have visited Runcorn? Could that have made a difference?”
The local elections were also a tough night for the Conservative Party. After nine of the 23 councils had been declared, the Tories had only 176 seats, losing 422 compared to 2021. They were in third place behind the Lib Dems and Reform.
Farage boasted that Reform’s success signaled “the beginning of the end of the Conservative Party.” While it is too early to say if that is true, the Tories still hold 121 seats in Parliament, compared to Reform’s five. However, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch was noticeably absent for most of the day, only posting on social media once, hours after the results started to come in.
She wrote, “These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections, coming off the high of 2021 and our historic defeat last year – and so it’s proving
