Four key areas on Nigel Farage’s Reform UK hitlist ...Middle East

Reform UK has made electoral gains across England, outperforming expectations in county elections and posing a serious threat to Labour and the Tories.

Nigel Farage’s right-wing party won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes, as well as an emblematic mayoral election in Greater Lincolnshire.

The party appears to be gathering momentum, with big gains in council seats across England, including coastal areas and the Red Wall.

And with the next Senedd and Holyrood elections due in 2026, Farage and his party are poised for further electoral victory.

Pollsters have said the local elections show that Reform is a rising political power that both Labour and the Conservatives need to watch out for.

Anouschka Rajah, research and analysis manager at polling group More in Common, said Thursday’s results will give the party “the confidence to expand their horizons for where they might be able to make gains at the next general election”.

“The rulebook has been ripped up,” she said. “It doesn’t seem like Reform has to live within the box that we like to put them in.”

“The results are clear evidence that Reform is not just a ‘protest vote’ that fails to live up to its polling, and is a serious challenge to the traditional two-party system,” said Robert Struthers, research director of BMG Research.

Here are the four key areas on Reform’s hit list – and why it poses a threat to all political sides, not just the Tories.

Reform is expected to make serious gains in Wales at the Senedd elections in May 2026, potentially becoming the biggest party in the devolved nation.

Britain’s most eminent pollster, Professor Sir John Curtice, previously told The i Paper that “if Reform are going to pull off anything spectacular in the next couple of years” the Senedd election is “their best prospect”.

“Reform might just manage to come first,” he said. “Certainly at the moment they potentially could be quite significant players inside the next Senedd.”

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Anouschka Rajah said More in Common’s latest polling also shows Reform could become the largest party in Wales, taking seats from the Liberal Democrats and Labour.

“Currently, they have no seats in Wales in terms of Westminster parliamentary constituencies, and we predict them to be the largest party there,” she said. “That tells you what you need to know about how they might perform in the Welsh elections as well.”

“It means that there would be a leader of the Welsh Parliament who could be a Reform UK member, and that has consequences for their power and their perceived influence,” she said.

This would be the party’s first test in a leadership position and a chance to demonstrate what Reform UK in power would look like before the 2029 general election.

Rajah said Reform is likely to make gains across Labour and Lib Dem areas in South Wales, Brecon and Montgomeryshire, while Plaid Cymru is likely to continue to dominate western parts of Wales.

Scotland 

Reform’s next battle is expected to be Scotland, where some pollsters predict the party could have a tougher time gaining traction.

Struthers, of BMG Research, said the party must look north to the Holyrood elections, describing it as a “tougher challenge” because previous Farage-led efforts have struggled to connect with Scottish voters.

But there are “strong signs they could make a breakthrough”, he said, with recent polls showing Reform just a few points behind the Conservatives in Scotland, close to supplanting them and taking third place in terms of share of the vote.

“This is despite having no well-known Scottish political figures and no official Scottish leader,” Struthers said. “The party’s support so far rests entirely on Nigel Farage’s national profile. So, if they can turn those numbers into actual seats under Scotland’s proportional system, it would mark a major step toward becoming a truly UK-wide political force.”

“Scotland and Wales use proportional voting systems for devolved elections, which offer challenger parties a much better shot at gaining representation,” he added.

Rajah said that the Reform presence in Scotland often gets “overlooked” and there is “no reason why we might not see Reform gains” in Holyrood if the party continues to build momentum.

Experts have said that Reform is expected to make “significant gains” in the Red Wall after a clear show of support in traditional Labour heartlands.

Struthers said the Runcorn and Helsby by-election win offers “proof of concept for Farage’s claim that Reform can lead the right in challenging Labour”.

“Stronger-than-expected results in parts of the West of England help reinforce that message,” he added.

Rajah said it would be a “misreading” to expect the Red Wall to stick with Labour after winning it back from Boris Johnson’s Conservatives in the 2024 election.

She said: “The Red Wall term hides exactly how volatile these voters are. It would be a misreading to think that they’ve lent their vote to the Tories and have come home to Labour to stay.

“I think it was a protest vote in 2019 and a protest vote again in 2024 against the Conservatives.”

She said yesterday’s election has shown that “the protest hasn’t been answered and people aren’t content with the change they have been delivered so far”.

“I would be shocked if we didn’t see Reform make significant gains in these county elections in Durham. Then continuing into Westminster elections, if they were tomorrow, but looking at by-elections and looking ahead to 2029.

“I think the North East is an area where Reform is outperforming.”

Coastal towns 

Reform is also likely to gain further traction along southern and eastern coastal areas as well as traditional Tory strongholds, experts have said.

“We see a real Reform presence across the East of England,” she said, adding that the party is likely “build out” its support from current constituencies of Clacton, Thurrock and Boston in Essex and Lincolnshire.

“Surprisingly, along the coast in the South as well,” she continued. “Reform performs really well in our model in Portsmouth, Bognor Regis, Bournemouth and the Isle of Wight. Areas where you might not particularly expect Reform to do as well.”

Struthers said that the Tories need to be the most worried since Reform is positioning itself as the “main party on the right capable of taking on Labour” – with voters tending to agree.

He said: “Reform fielded mostly paper candidates at the last General Election, but things are changing. With a more professional approach and new local wins, they’re starting to build a real support base.

“That gives them people on the ground – campaigners who can knock on doors, speak to voters, and help establish a lasting presence in communities.

“The caveat is that it’s important to remember these elections provide only limited evidence. Many of the contests took place in areas that naturally suit Reform, particularly where the Conservatives have traditionally been strong.

“National polling shows much of Reform’s support comes from former Conservative voters. The Lincolnshire mayoral race is a clear example, held in one of the most pro-Brexit areas of the country.”

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