Labour fears eviction after just one term as Farage eyes No 10 ...Middle East

On Friday, at around 4am, Nigel Farage was being driven in circles around a rugby league stadium, still unsure whether or not Reform UK would come out of the local elections on top – or on the ropes.

He was keen to attend the announcement of the result in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election – but only if his candidate, Sarah Pochin, was going to win. She did – by a wafer-thin margin of just six votes. By that point, Reform had already fallen short in mayoral races in North Tyneside, Doncaster and the West of England. Farage said it was a “huge night for Reform”, but at that point, there was still a feeling that the party could have done more.

When county council results started to roll in, however, things changed. The party took control of multiple counties across England, including Kent, Staffordshire, Lancashire and Durham. It picked up mayoralties in Lincolnshire, and in Hull and East Yorkshire.

The Conservatives, by contrast, lost well over half the seats they were defending and were squeezed from the left by the Liberal Democrats, as well as from the right. Labour also fell backwards, utterly failing to build on the success of last year’s general election.

Ministers had tried to lay the ground for a bad Labour result, pointing out that governing parties often suffer in by-elections and local contests. But privately, they were confident of a win in Runcorn and hopeful of making ground in county council elections. In the event, victory in the West of England – where the Greens had been pushing hard – was the only real bright spot.

Helen Godwin’s win in the contest to become the Mayor of the West of England was Labour’s only real bright spot (Ben Birchall/PA Wire)

One Labour MP who is deeply concerned about the threat that Reform poses, particularly in the North and Midlands, told The i Paper: “It is a wake-up call to the ‘Reform is just Ukip in new clothes’ brigade – no, it’s not.”

‘People can see how bad they are at running things’

Before the elections, one Labour frontbencher said they were privately hoping Reform took control of some councils. “I hope they win, then people can see how bad they are at running things,” they said. The insurgent party will now have plenty of opportunity to show whether or not a fresh approach is effective in local government.

Another Labour insider suggested that Farage – not known for his ability to share the limelight – would struggle to work with figures such as Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the ex-Tory MP who is the new Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire after defecting to Reform. She used her victory speech to accuse her opponents of smearing her with lies about her sex life and mocked one of them for being South African.

The run-up to polling day on Thursday was not exactly perfect for the Government, with front pages dominated by Sir Tony Blair’s attack on the policy of trying to reach net zero carbon emissions by phasing out the use of fossil fuels, which he described as “doomed to fail”.

Although Blair’s think-tank rushed out a “clarification” to limit the fallout, the damage was done. A Downing Street source admitted that “the timing wasn’t perfect” but insisted the row was “not the end of world”.

But for many in Labour, the errors dogging the Government were committed not this week but months in the past. Some pinpoint the axeing of the winter fuel payment for most pensioners, others the looming cuts to benefits, while some worry more generally that Labour is not sticking up for the voters who form its core support base.

Another Labour backbencher complained that many of the Government’s priorities – including immigration, defence and security policy – remain unclear. They are waiting for the results of reviews that will not be published until around the time of the spending review in June, when Whitehall budgets will be set for the next three years. The MP said there was a “sense that there’s a lot of announcements stuck”, adding: “My view is that you would have wanted to do the spending review before your local elections.”

A Labour MP representing a constituency in one of the areas where Reform has been making gains told The i Paper: “It is completely unsurprising for anyone who represents a Northern or Midlands seat, it is what we have been hearing not just since the election but before the election. People want change, and if we fail to deliver that change voters will vote for someone who will.”

The result in Runcorn was decided by “a household of votes almost”, a different Labour MP said, hailing the ability of their party to cling on in mayoral contests. They added: “I don’t share the view that it warrants panic but I hope it’s clear we need some good times to roll in the country.”

Sarah Pochin delivering her acceptance speech after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election for Reform (Photo: Oli Scarff/AFP)

If the result for Labour was concerning, the Tories’ showing was utterly dire. Across the Midlands there appeared to be a wholesale replacement of Conservative councillors by Reform, while the Lib Dems followed up their strong showing in the general election with big gains in the South-West and the home counties.

Many expect the Tories to replace Badenoch

Many both inside and outside the party predict that Kemi Badenoch will be replaced as leader before too long after failing to improve the party’s position in opinion polls since she took over six months ago. Even if she does go, however, the Tories will not have answered the question of how to handle the rise of Reform.

One shadow Cabinet minister said that the danger to the Conservatives would come from overreacting to Reform’s poll surge and trying to imitate the party. The frontbencher said: “The key thing that we have to remember is that the election is four and a half years away, and for us not to get distracted or overexcited by polls so far out – and to be true to ourselves. It is essentially a KBO strategy – keep buggering on. We can’t ignore them, and we are not going to ignore them, but we can’t get obsessed with them.”

Another member of Badenoch’s team suggested that views of any future tie-up with Reform would be subject to change, saying: “I still think we can outcompete and eat Reform in the way that we’ve done with other parties, but we won’t know what the actual solution systems are until probably two years, 18 months out.”

Labour risks losing voters to Greens and Lib Dems

Chris Hopkins of polling firm Savanta said that both the traditional major parties faced a challenge in dealing with the insurgents. He told The i Paper: “Labour have a really difficult job knowing what to do about Reform. They could adopt a more populist right-leaning strategy, but they risk alienating core voters to the Lib Dems and Greens, and this really highlights how fragile Labour’s electoral coalition is.

“For the Tories, it’s probably a bit more straightforward: they need to rebuild credibility and go after Reform’s voters. They too may risk alienating some of their more wealthy, liberal voters, but given their current malaise it’s probably worth more overtly going after Reform’s voters and trying to rebuild trust that way.”

Some Labour insiders see a silver lining in the rise of Reform: that it may help unite the left despite grumblings from voters about Starmer. An MP said they were confident they would “be able to squeeze more of the Green vote” at the next election “because of Farage”. If Reform remained at their current polling level, the MP said that every time they met a Green-inclined voter on the doorstep, they would say: “It’s fine if you want to vote Green, but you’ll have Nigel Farage in Downing Street.”

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