"Reform-quake" in UK elections as populist right Reform Party soars in election results UPDATE | Eastern North Carolina Now
Farage's party racks up local seats and captures Labour safe seat in parliament
UPDATE - FINAL RESULTS
Parliament seat for Runcorn and Helsby - flipped from Labour to Reform.
Control of local councils (24 up for election) Reform 9; Liberal Democrats 3, No Overall Control 12. (Prior to election: Conservatives 14, Labour 1, No Overall Control 9)
Of those councils with No Overall Control, a combination of Reform and Conservatives would have a clear majority in 7, and could form a coalition by adding Independents in 3 others)
Change in number of local councilors by party Reform gained 648 seats more than it previously held, while LIberal Democrats gained 146, and Greens 41.
Conservatives lost 635 seats, Labour 198, and Independents 97. (Conservatives started with 936 seats and Labour with 291 seats)
Mayors (6 up for election) Labour 3, Reform 2, Conservatives 1
Neither Reform nor the Conservatives held any of these mayor's seats prior to the election. Of the three Labour incumbents reelected, two of them only beat the Reform candidate by one percentage point, and the other one by only three points.
Election background The UK currently has a very unpopular Labour prime minister. When this group of local government seats was last contested in 2021, a very popular Conservative prime minister, Boris Johnson was in office and the Conservative Party ran very strong that year.
The right was handicapped by a divided opposition between Reform and Conservatives. If the two parties had fielded joint candidates, for example, Labour would have lost all of its mayors. This divided opposition is largely responsible for Labour's losses not being much more severe. There are voices in both parties calling for a combined effort in future campaigns.
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The British media are already calling the 2025 elections a "Reform-quake" after the populist nationalist anti-immigration Reform Party led by Brexit hero Nigel Farage. Although many local votes will not be counted until today, Reform has already racked up key wins in races that have been counted.
The single most important election of the night, was the by-election (special election) for the Parliament seat of Runcorn and Helsby, vacated when a Labour MP resigned after he was convicted of assaulting a constituent. This former Labour safe seat was captured by the Reform Party, with the Conservatives a distant third place. Reform flipped the seat despite a massive effort by Labour to hold it, pouring in everything they had.
Reform flipping Runcorn and Helsby from Labour is already having major implications. There are even rumors of Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigning. Analysts have noted that if the swing to Reform at Runcorn was repeated on a national level, it would give the Reform Party a 200 seat majority in the House of Commons over all other paries combined.
Another early victory was in the newly created mayorship of Greater Linconshire, where Reform's Dame Andrea Jenkyns won in a landslide. Jenkyns, once a Conservative Party star, was 16 points ahead of the Conservative candidate, who ran second. On local councils where counting was completed, Reform was winning seats away in large numbers from both Labour and Conservatives, and also from smaller parties like the Liberal Democrats._
UPDATE: Completed counts now show that the Reform Party has won control of Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Durham, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Kent, and Lancashire. In Northumberland, Reform and Conservatives together will have a solid majority and are expected to form a coalition.
UP{DATE: There were also a couple of bright spots for the Conservative Party, which ousted Labour from the mayorship of its former stronghold of Peterborough, and also ousted Labour and took control of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough council. In both of those former Labour strongholds, Labour ran third, and it was the Reform Party in a strong second place
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2048931/local-elections-2025-live-blog-reform-labour
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ORIGINAL POST:
Voters in parts of the UK will go to the polls May 1 in local elections that will be closely watched for trends in British politics. The electorate is widely expected to move right. There is also a by-election (special election) for a vacant seat in Parliament where a Labour incumbent resigned after being convicted of assaulting a constituent.
British local elections are staggered in different years. The 2025 set of local elections will include 14 county councils, 8 unitary authorities, 1 metropolitan district, and 6 mayoralties.
This will be the first election in which the populist nationalist anti-immigration Reform Party, led by Brexit hero Nigel Farage will be a factor. Reform in now the leading party in the country on voting intentions for the next parliament, but there are always local quicks in local government elections. Reform has been doing quite well in a string of by-elections for vacant local government seats, picking off seats from the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats, and independents. There have also been several dozen local elected officials who have resigned from other parties, mostly the Conservatives, to join Reform.
Public approval of the national Labour government is at historic lows. What may partially save them, however, is the right of center vote being split between the Conservatives and Reform. Labour pulled a number of maneuvers to delay this set of elections as long as they could for fear of it becoming a bloodbath for their party.
The Parliament seat up for grabs is Runcorn and Helsby, which has been considered a Labour safe seat. Polls have shown this election, however, to be a real horse race between Labour and Reform. The Conservatives also have a candidate who is not in real contention and their only impact might be as a spoiler for Reform by splitting the vote.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2048931/local-elections-2025-live-blog-reform-labour
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WOW, that is a massive majority that this by-election projection would give the Reform Party in the next Parliamentary election. The way that is calculated in the UK to is apply the percentage changes for each party from the last election to the by-election in this constituency or district to the percentages attained by each party in the last election in every constituency in the country. So it assumes for every seat the percentage change for each party will be the same as in this district. Then you crunch the numbers and look at the result. While this mehodology is not perfect, it gives a pretty good idea of the trends.
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Polling showed illegal immigration a top issue in the UK. This is another case where the traditional conservatives have not been strong enough on illegal immigration and the voters are turning to the populist right instead. We saw it in Italy, France, and the Netherlands. It is now being felt in Germany and has come in a very large way to the UK.
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The pollsters thought the Green Party was in real contention with Labour for a mayorship in a left-leaning area, but it turned out that it was the Reform Party, not the Green Party, that turned out to be the real competition to Labour in that seat.
Reading the British newspapers online, unlike American newspapers, gives a real sense of what is happening across the pond. Indeed the British newspapers usually do a more accurate and thoroughr job of reporting what is really happening here in the states as well.