Britain’s New Populist Right Makes Big Gains in Local Elections

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party made big gains in Thursday’s local elections and gained another seat in Parliament as it positions itself as a new right-leaning party of opposition to the reigning Labour Party.

Reform UK gained hundreds of new local council seats, while the Conservative and Labour parties conversely lost hundreds. The results are a major blow to the two established parties.

In the July 2024 general election, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was trounced by Labour in a landslide defeat.

Since then, Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating has plummeted amid an increase in the cost of living and a strain on social services.

Farage has argued that many of the U.K.’s woes are due to unrestrained mass immigration and left-wing, environmentalist economic policies.

Capitalizing on dissatisfaction with both major political parties, Farage—one of the most prominent advocates of the 2016 Brexit vote—has emerged as one of the principal voices of opposition to Starmer.

Ahead of the Thursday elections, he advocated giving a “DOGE” to each local constituency, a reference to Elon Musk’s anti-bureaucratic Department of Government Efficiency efforts in the U.S.

In Thursday’s local elections, Reform—which held just four seats in the House of Commons coming into election day—gained another seat with Sarah Pochin’s victory in the northern England constituency of Runcorn and Helsby. 

Pochin triumphed over both Labour and the Tories, gaining more than 20 points from Reform’s 2024 result. She defeated her Labour opponent by just six votes.

“The people of Runcorn and Helsby have spoken. Enough is enough. Enough Tory failure, enough Labour lies,” she said after her victory. 

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch spoke of her party’s negative results on X, saying Friday, “These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021, and our historic defeat last year—and so, it’s proving. The renewal of our party has only just begun, and I’m determined to win back the trust of the public and the seats we’ve lost, in the years to come.”

As results came in, Labour MP Brian Leishman wrote on X, “The first 10 months [of Starmer] haven’t been good enough or what the people want & if we don’t improve people’s living standards, then the next government will be an extreme right-wing one.”