Reform UK leader Nigel Farage with his party’s candidates onstage during a campaign event at Stafford Showground, Stafford, 30 April 2025 (PA Images / Alamy Stock Photo)
6 min read
Reform UK sent shockwaves through British politics after making significant gains at the local and mayoral elections, turning two-party politics on its head.
Voter anger over the cuts to winter fuel allowance and concern over immigration appear to have played into Reform UK’s hands. “The winter allowance was huge. We did full leaflets and letters on that alone,” said a Reform source.
Reform insiders point to their ability to cut through so decisively in Labour heartlands as a clear indicator of the party’s potential to sweep through the Red Wall at the next election.
Winning control of Doncaster council (in Ed Miliband’s backyard) was “the cherry on the cake”, said Gawain Towler, the party’s former director of communications, adding: “It’s not a protest vote – it’s a voice.”
While senior Reform figures were saving themselves for celebrations in Kent later on Friday evening, Towler was soaking in Reform’s victory with a pint at one of Westminster’s favourite pubs, the Two Chairmen, in the afternoon. “I think I’ve earned it,” he joked.
Reflecting on the party’s results, Towler said it was “incredible” Reform came as close as it did in the North Tyneside and West of England mayoralties. “We spent no money in North Tyneside at all, and did no campaigning whatsoever.”
A bruised Keir Starmer promised to “go further and faster” to deliver his agenda – but dissenters within his party were soon out in full force. One Labour MP on the party’s left told PoliticsHome that the time had come “to actually stop the boats”.
“We’ve absolutely killed Labour,” a senior Reform source told PoliticsHome, adding: “The more they sing our tune, the more we win.”
Meanwhile, the Conservative party lost control of every council it was defending. “It’s terminal for them,” the source says.
Nigel Farage’s Reform party took votes off both Labour and the Conservatives across England to secure 677 council seats – far more than the 300-400 the party claimed to have been aiming for. Senior Reform figures said they could never have predicted such a triumphant set of results. “Nobody saw this coming,” one said.
The party won control of 10 councils for the first time in Derbyshire, Kent, Lancashire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, Doncaster, North Norhamptonshire, Durham and West Northamptonshire. The party also won two mayoralties – Greater Lincolnshire, and Hull and East Yorkshire – and came in close second behind Labour in North Tyneside and Doncaster.
Party chairman Zia Yusuf told PoliticsHome: “We have broken the century old stranglehold on power of the two old parties, and we’re only just getting started.”
Reform’s most dramatic triumph was the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, formerly Labour’s 49th safest seat, clinching it by just six votes. At the general election Labour won it with 53 per cent of the vote – a vote share now slashed to 38 per cent.
This result was the first sign that Labour’s vote in the Red Wall heartlands had collapsed. “We are smashing into the Labour vote in many parts of the North,” said a jubilant Farage in Runcorn following Sarah Pochin’s victory.
Winning County Durham council, Tony Blair’s old stomping ground, was considered a particularly noteworthy moment, with the Reform leader saying the result was “beyond my wildest dreams”.
One Reform strategist on the ground in County Durham told PoliticsHome that over 50 per cent of the party’s vote share here came from postal votes. “We did a really big postal vote push as a party as they landed on the doors. We produced new leaflets, we put it out, which we think increased our postal votes, particularly,” they said.
The ground campaign was a crucial factor, Reform insiders said, and the party had worked hard at it. The noticeable absence of Starmer and Kemi Badenoch meant that Farage was “the only show in town”, a source said, hitting every county at least once.
Yusuf’s efforts to professionalise the party have been vindicated, say insiders, as the scale of Reform’s triumph is thought to have been impossible without the party’s strengthened local infrastructure.
Reform has focused on building a formidable election-winning machine since July, rapidly expanding its local ground campaign, with more than 400 new branches, and an overhaul of candidate selection processes.
“It’s not something that you can just pull off with a ragtag operation,” said another Reform source.
One criticism levelled by Reform’s political opponents was over the party’s lack of national policy. “People didn’t know the detail of our policy, which is a fair comment, but they do know what we’re for,” said Towler.
Reform figures told PoliticsHome they were happy to be shot of Rupert Lowe, who had hung like a dark cloud over the party for several weeks and point to Reform’s first female MP, Sarah Pochin, and female mayor, Andrea Jenkyns, as helping further detoxify the party’s brand.
Pochin is thought to represent the direction Farage and Yusuf want to take the party in. “Rupert forgets that he got his job because Nigel stood. Sarah is absolutely acutely aware that she got her job because of the top of the party, not because of her,” said Towler.
Reform is already setting its sights on the 2026 elections in Wales and Scotland. “If they think this year is bad, wait until they see us next year in Wales,” a senior Reform source warned, adding: “Labour are in for a rude awakening.”
The BBC predicts Reform would win a general election with 30 per cent of the vote, ahead of Labour on 20, the Liberal Democrats on 17 and the Conservatives on 15. Another source added: “We have more than proved we can win and I’m quietly confident that we could form a government in 2029.”
But the question of whether Reform councils can deliver the change promised to voters remains. As Farage admitted earlier this week: “The biggest risk is succeeding… and then not delivering”.
A party strategist told PoliticsHome they have already offered their services to some of Reform’s new councillors. “Part of my business is making sure people stay elected and teaching them how to act as an elected official. So, a lot of them I’m going to take on, to build the party’s image and make sure we do actually have professional people working in the party,” they explained.
Farage has promised to deliver a DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) in every Reform-controlled local authority, crack down on “woke” working from home, and block the use of asylum hotels where possible.
With voter apathy widely considered to have played a significant role in Reform’s success, party figures are keenly aware that its newly elected representatives must deliver – or risk the same fate as Labour and the Conservatives.
