Reform picks up new MP and first ever mayoralty
Reform UK has crystallised months of strong polling data into substantial gains at the local elections, winning a knife-edge by-election and securing its first mayoralty.
Nigel Farage’s party won in Runcorn and Helsby by just six votes, with Sarah Pochin elected as its new MP – replacing former Labour MP Mike Amesbury, who was convicted of assault in March.
Runcorn and Helsby had been Labour’s sixteenth safest seat, with a majority of 14,696 at the 2024 general election.
She becomes Reform’s fifth MP, after now-independent Rupert Lowe was suspended from Reform in March.
As the first Mayor of Lincolnshire, former Conservative MP and minister Andrea Jenkyns has become the most senior elected Reform politician in the UK.
Jenkyns said in her victory pledge that these elections would be the start of a “once-in-a-generation change”, adding that she believed that Farage “will make a great prime minister”.
Reform has so far has picked up 66 councillors, with more results expected early afternoon and into Friday evening.
An earthquake ahead?
Meanwhile, Labour has won mayoral elections in North Tyneside, the West of England and Doncaster.
Millions of voters across England went to the polls on Thursday to elect 1,641 councillors across 23 local authorities.
The Conservatives are prepared for swingeing losses, as they defend the roughly 1,000 council seats from 2021 in Boris Johnson’s post-vaccine super-cycle.
These local elections are the first major electoral moment since the general election that swept Sir Keir Starmer to power last year.
Farage had predicted a “political earthquake” in a speech ahead of polling day, adding that Thursday would be “the day that two-party politics in England dies for good”.