Britain’s populist, anti-immigration party Reform UK has beaten Labour by a tiny margin in a by-election, dealing the government a mid-term setback and ruffling the country’s historically resilient two-party hegemony.
Reform, led by the United Kingdom’s disruptor-in-chief Nigel Farage, claimed its fifth Member of Parliament (MP) by winning the industrial northwestern town of Runcorn by just six votes, following a recount.
It marked a stunning reversal in fortunes for center-left Labour, which comfortably claimed the seat on its way to a landslide victory in a general election just 10 months ago.
“It’s been a huge night for Reform,” Farage told reporters on Friday. “This is heartland Labour Party, their vote has collapsed and much of it has come to us.”
Thursday’s vote was triggered when the Labour lawmaker Mike Amesbury resigned earlier this year after he was convicted for punching a man in the street.
Reform also won a mayoral election in Greater Lincolnshire, central England, but Labour held on to retain three other mayoralties.
Prime Minister and Labour leader Keir Starmer conceded to journalists that the results were “disappointing” for his party, but pledged to “go further and faster on the change that people want to see.”
Further results from Thursday’s local elections, which were only held in some regions of England, are expected to be declared on Friday.
The results from Britain’s revolving local electoral calendar are notoriously difficult to extrapolate to the sentiment of the nation as a whole.
But this offers some real evidence behind Reform’s months-long rise in momentum and opinion polling. The party is now regularly graded as the most popular in the country, less than a year on from a national poll in which it placed third.
Sitting governments typically perform worse when facing the electorate during their terms of office, and a general election isn’t due in Britain until 2029.
But these results represent a lukewarm verdict from voters toward Starmer’s government.
While Starmer has proven an adept statesman on the global stage – building a constructive relationship with both US President Donald Trump and European leaders and emerging as a key player in talks over the future of the war in Ukraine – his domestic agenda has failed to energize the public.
Starmer has pledged to revive fiscal growth, infrastructure and house-building projects in a country bogged down by nearly a decade of post-Brexit economic inertia, but his short-term offerings have been more modest and he has been reluctant to throw money toward Britain’s beleaguered public services.
The prime minister has also struggled to significantly reduce the rates of illegal migration to the UK, the issue on which Reform’s surge hinges.
Reform’s rise also came at the expense of the Conservative Party, which was dumped from government last year and has floundered in the months since. The Tories suffered more losses on Thursday, including in regions where they have historically won favor.
Labour and the Conservatives’ domination of British politics has only been challenged on a handful of occasions over the past century, but if Reform were to maintain their momentum over the coming years, that two-party command would be seriously threatened.
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