Nigel Farage’s Reform UK landed its biggest blow yet against Britain’s political establishment in Thursday’s local votes, winning a string of victories that highlight how the populist right-wing party is shifting Britain’s electoral landscape.
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Reform overturned a huge Labour majority to win the parliamentary seat of Runcorn and Helsby, secured its first mayoralties in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull & East Yorkshire and won control of 10 councils.
The party, formed under its current branding just four years ago, won hundreds of council seats as the Conservatives haemorrhaged support, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour also suffering heavy losses.
The electoral earthquake underscores the progress made by Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, as he seeks to take Reform from winning five Parliamentary seats in last year’s general election to challenge for power in the next national vote due by mid-2029.
The drubbing suffered by the Conservatives will inevitably raise questions about party leader Kemi Badenoch’s future, while Labour, starting from a lower base, lost almost two thirds of the seats it was defending, a similar proportion to the Tories.
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That will be uncomfortable for Starmer, after a series of unpopular decisions on tax and spending undermined support for his party.