Reform scored another election triumph last night in a major warning shot to the mainstream parties.
Nigel Farage’s party cruised to victory in the Blackbrook (St Helens) council by-election, with Reform candidate Vic Floyd attracting 41.1 per cent of the vote, beating Labour into second.
Labour’s vote share crashed 18.4 per cent, while the Greens and Conservatives could do little more to stem the Reform tide.
The result is consistent with council by-elections since the General Election. Despite winning a thumping majority just five months ago, Keir Starmer’s party has suffered a net loss of 25 council seats since July.
Most of these seats have been lost to the Conservatives who despite suffering their worst electoral result in history five months ago, have recorded a net gain of 23 seats since.
Reform has also been making gains. In a worrying development for the mainstream parties, Farage’s ‘people’s army’ has shown it is able to win seats from Labour and the Conservatives, defying traditional left/right politics and capitalising on its ‘newcomer’ status.
They have won six seats since the General Election, with numerous defections from other parties taking their haul into double figures.
This momentous win comes as a national poll put Reform within one point of a national lead.
Find Out Now pollsters put Reform on 25 per cent nationwide, narrowly behind Labour and two points ahead of Kemi Badenoch’s party on 23 per cent.
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Reform go within one point of leading a national poll, two points ahead of the Tories
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This was based on asking 4,694 respondents- representative of gender, age and region– ‘If a general election was called tomorrow, who would you vote for?’
Looking more closely at the data, Reform polled as the biggest party in Wales (tied on 25 per cent with Labour), Yorkshire and the Humber (tied on 28 per cent with Labour), South East England (27 per cent) and the West Midlands (33 per cent).
Responding, a Reform UK spokesman said: “This polling confirms what we all know, Reform UK has all the momentum in British politics.
“We have now surpassed 100,000 members and our polling continues to rise. Voters recognise that the Tories and Labour have failed them and that Britain needs Reform.
“We will harness this momentum as we head into next May and offer voters real change.”
This comes after a series of unpopular decisions implemented by Starmer and his government.
They include raising taxes by £40billion, removing the winter fuel payment for millions of pensioners, slapping farmers with death duties and the scale of donations Starmer and his colleagues received.
It is worth remembering this poll is something of an outlier and that polls often reflect the mood of the nation on a particular day and do not predict the future.
The next major batch of elections are due in May 2025 with 21 county councils, nine unitary councils, one metropolitan borough council and Isle of Scilly and City of London councils up for grabs.
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