Reform upstages Tories and Labour in historic elections

Populist party counts Runcorn by-election among victories

- DAVID MADDOX ALICJA HAGOPIAN KATE DEVLIN

Nigel Farage's Reform UK has made massive gains in the local elections across England in a series of stunning victories that have redrawn the political map.

The populist right-wing party won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection in dramatic circumstances with a majority of just six votes following a recount, overturning a Labour majority of 14,000. This preceded a set of local election results that saw their candidate Dame Andrea Jenkyns win as mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, where Reform won a majority of county council seats too. The party also seized majorities in Staffordshire and Durham, inflicting severe pain on both Labour and the Tories.

The row over ousting Great Yarmouth MP Rupert Lowe appeared to be a distant memory for Mr Farage and Reform as the party swept hundreds of seats across England, emerging as the biggest winner in this round of elections. Polling guru Professor Sir John Curtice declared that the result showed British politics is “no longer a two-party system” – this having been replaced by a five-party set-up, with the Liberal Democrats and Greens also making gains.

The Tories and Labour both look set to sustain significant losses.

The results could raise serious questions over Kemi Badenoch’s leadership if the Conservative Party is left with no real heartlands in the UK, with senior Tories already plotting to oust her. A rare bright spot for the party came as Paul Bristow was declared the narrow winner of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty, taking 28 per cent of the vote and beating the Reform candidate Ryan Coogan, who took 23 per cent, into second place.

The results also unleashed almost 10 months’ worth of pent-up frustration among senior Labour figures with prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, who has been blamed for the party’s disastrous showing in Thursday’s elections.