Labour suffers losses as Reform UK surges in England

theguardian ^ | May 8 | theguardian

[RandFan]

The scale of the electoral challenge facing Labour has been laid bare as the party haemorrhages councillors at the local elections and Reform makes significant gains.

Keir Starmer’s party went into Thursday’s local elections expected to lose up to 1,850 councillors, with senior figures describing the contest as “tough”.

Initial results overnight painted a bleak picture for the prime minister, with Labour losing councillors in its traditional northern heartlands.

Reform took control of its first council at around 6am, gaining overall control of Newcastle-under-Lyme from Labour. The party’s leader, Nigel Farage, described the early results as a “historic change in British politics” and said his party was “scoring stunning percentages in traditional old Labour areas”.

The political scientist Prof Sir John Curtice told the BBC that while Reform was clearly winning the most votes in early counts, it had “probably not” reached 30% of the vote, an indication of the fracturing of British politics.

Curtice said: “It may well be now that Labour lose rather less than the 1,500 seats that perhaps some people said was potentially the tipping point for attempts to unseat Keir Starmer.”

He said:

“[Reform] are basically being trailed by four parties that are all of them just a little bit below 20% or so, somewhere between 15 and 20%, but are actually at the moment quite difficult to disentangle.”

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: elections; europe; euroweenies; grauniad; jamiegrierson; markbrown; reformuk

[ArcadeQuarters]

When does this actually affect the government? I keep hearing about all these victories across Europe and a shift to the right yet the leaders are still committed to societal suicide.

[Zhang Fei]

Reform is winning pluralities, but 30% is a little low to be saying mandate. Much of it is from the Tories. Add up the right’s seats, and it’s looking like a Reform romp, but a slight minority relative to the red-green alliance. Red meaning Labour and green meaning environmentalists and Islamists.

[Jim Noble]

When does this actually affect the government?

It doesn't.

The government is in power until the Summer of 2029, and any replacement of Keir Starmer will be a lot worse.

[RandFan]

Interestingly , Reform are taking local seats/councils/wards from both Labour in their traditional areas and the Tories’ as well

Farage just said this is quite significant. It suggests they will be the real opposition

[AZJeep]

I would say, this is the next step of Reform evolution.
Last election, Reform was basically a spoiler, taking votes from Tories and gaining just few seats.

Now Reform has overtaken the Tories and it is the party of choice for right wing British.
Tories are gone, basically they became the spoiler party, and left is split.
If the trajectory holds, Reform is going to sweep 2029.

[Kozak]

Reform is just another wing of the uniparty.
The real party of change is Restore Britain. Thats the one we should be rooting g for.

[RandFan]

Yes, you’re right. They’re winning in Labour strongholds and in Tory areas. I dont see how they wont sweep a national election at this point.

RE: Restore, they’re are well behind Reform on the political map. They’re not a factor and unlikely to be unless something seismic happens

[joshua c]

the guardian frantically polishing the labour turd

[dfwgator]

Reform is useful for the first step. Destroying the two traditional parties. Now it’s on to the next phase.

[RandFan]

That’s correct

Do you know how hard that is? It’s like a third party replacing the GOP or Dems.

And the Dems losing in places like Chicago to Libertarians

That’s a comparable example I think of what is going on.