There are many results still to declare from Thursday’s elections across England. But already, Nigel Farage’s populist Reform Party is the big winner of the day.
Indeed, after the party won the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-election by six votes, new Reform MP Sarah Pochin declared Farage as “the next prime minister of this great country.”
Thank you Runcorn & Helsby.
— Sarah Pochin (@SarahForRuncorn) May 2, 2025
Enough Tory failures, enough Labour lies.
Reform UK is the party of change.
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The result is close but momentous, not least given the fact that this was one of Labour’s safest seats in England. Waking up this morning, Prime Minister Keir Starmer might well have questioned whether there is such a thing as a safe seat anymore. Reform’s rapid rise certainly means there are far fewer of them.
Party chairman Zia Yusuf said this was “a historic day for Britain”—one which sets great expectations for wider victories at the next general election.
The Conservatives, Britain’s ‘official’ opposition party, finished more than 10,000 votes behind Reform, only beating the largely irrelevant Green Party by 27 votes, prompting Farage to say there was “no doubt” that
In most of the country we are now the main opposition party to this government.
The result certainly helps to embed in the minds of voters that the way to beat Labour is to vote Reform—in other words, “if you vote Conservative, you will get Labour.”
As of 10:00 a.m. (BST), Reform has also won 79 council seats, which is more than any other party. It is currently winning close to 40% of the vote, more than 10 points ahead of the Tories.
This is already a major blow to the establishment parties. And it’s only the beginning.