Reform UK hails ‘meteoric’ results as voters ‘switch’ from Labour | UK | News
Reform UK is on track to win a key seat in the 2026 local elections, with party chairman David Bull telling the BBC the party’s rise has been “very rapid”.
He told the BBC that 800 to 900 British seats would be “a great night”, while 1,000 would represent the “measure of success”.
He insisted that the vote, which was local in name only, should be read as “a referendum on Labour”.
At the time of writing, Sky News reported that Reform had won 11 seats to Labour’s 11 losses, including in old bastions such as Chorley, Runcorn and Helsby, suggesting that the Red Wall north had indeed fallen to Nigel Farage’s party.
Losses are already mounting; A Labor insider admitted to the BBC that Tameside, a council the party has controlled uninterruptedly since 1979, had fallen.
A Reform source told the Sun on Sunday: “The Red Wall is falling apart tonight and turning into Reform.”
How are the Conservatives doing in the 2026 local elections?
Tory shadow transport minister Richard Holden conceded “significant losses” were inevitable, without relying on specific figures.
He struck a more optimistic note on Badenoch’s personal ratings, saying she was registering “positive” feedback from voters.
What do the Greens and Liberal Democrats say about the results?
Green Party deputy leader Rachel Millward said the Greens represented a “hope-based alternative” for voters feeling “dissatisfaction and anger with the status quo”, adding that the party wanted to “make a difference to the lives of ordinary people”.
Liberal Democrat MP Sarah Olney predicted “really good results” for her party, arguing that voters were “really fed up with the traditional two parties”; but described both Reform and the Greens as “populist” and “quite extremist”.
