In a week when the establishment is throwing everything it’s got at Reform UK, voters are sending a powerful message. Whatever they may say about us in the Westminster bubble, in the real world where voters live, Reform UK is winning.
Reform UK won another spectacular victory in a council by-election yesterday, when Hazel Edwards was elected in the Hawcoat and Newbarns seat on Westmorland and Furness Council in the North West of England.
Edwards won her seat with almost half (48%) of the vote - more than both Labour and the Conservatives combined. She received almost twice as many votes as the Labour candidate, who came in second place with just 24%.
It’s worth remembering that this was a Conservative stronghold. In 2022, the Tories won all three Hawcoat and Newbarns seats on Westmorland and Furness Council. This week, the Conservative vote share collapsed from 40% to just 19%. So much for the supposed Tory resurgence they keep promising.
This is typical of the way Reform UK is coming from nowhere to win elections. Until last night, we had no elected councillors on Westmorland and Furness Council. And Edwards’s election marks our first ever unitary authority councillor in Cumbria.
This comes at a time when Reform UK and party leader Nigel Farage are under vicious attack by the mainstream media and the political establishment. Farage was the first party leader to break the wall of silence about Henry Nowak’s murder and about the two-tier policing that allowed it to happen. For this, Farage has been savaged both in the House of Commons and in the media. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has accused Farage of “exploiting tragedy to create grievance and division”, while the BBC misquoted Farage and turned his call for “pure cold rage” into “white cold rage” - the BBC has since been forced to issue a grovelling apology.
All this amounts to a pathetic attempt to smear Reform UK as hateful or divisive. Meanwhile in the real world, voters are showing how they really feel. The Labour and Conservative vote is collapsing, while Reform UK has all the momentum. The smear campaign is failing - Britain is choosing Reform.
Reform UK won another spectacular victory in a council by-election yesterday, when Hazel Edwards was elected in the Hawcoat and Newbarns seat on Westmorland and Furness Council in the North West of England.
Edwards won her seat with almost half (48%) of the vote - more than both Labour and the Conservatives combined. She received almost twice as many votes as the Labour candidate, who came in second place with just 24%.
It’s worth remembering that this was a Conservative stronghold. In 2022, the Tories won all three Hawcoat and Newbarns seats on Westmorland and Furness Council. This week, the Conservative vote share collapsed from 40% to just 19%. So much for the supposed Tory resurgence they keep promising.
This is typical of the way Reform UK is coming from nowhere to win elections. Until last night, we had no elected councillors on Westmorland and Furness Council. And Edwards’s election marks our first ever unitary authority councillor in Cumbria.
This comes at a time when Reform UK and party leader Nigel Farage are under vicious attack by the mainstream media and the political establishment. Farage was the first party leader to break the wall of silence about Henry Nowak’s murder and about the two-tier policing that allowed it to happen. For this, Farage has been savaged both in the House of Commons and in the media. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has accused Farage of “exploiting tragedy to create grievance and division”, while the BBC misquoted Farage and turned his call for “pure cold rage” into “white cold rage” - the BBC has since been forced to issue a grovelling apology.
All this amounts to a pathetic attempt to smear Reform UK as hateful or divisive. Meanwhile in the real world, voters are showing how they really feel. The Labour and Conservative vote is collapsing, while Reform UK has all the momentum. The smear campaign is failing - Britain is choosing Reform.
