The 2026 local elections will be remembered as an historic turning point for Reform UK and Britain. The numbers speak for themselves.
Reform UK:
Labour experienced one of the most crushing defeats felt by any incumbent party in our lifetimes. They suffered heavy losses across the board:
If Labour’s Northern MPs had been on the ballot, they would have been wiped out. Angela Rayner, a leading contender in the Labour civil war to replace Keir Starmer, would have lost her Greater Manchester constituency to Reform UK by a walloping 20% based on Thursday’s results.
Labour is now a party of the London professional, not the ordinary working family. Whilst Labour took 25% of votes cast in the capital, beyond the M25 it was only 17%. Whether in Sunderland or Barnsley, traditional Labour areas have turned their backs on Starmer and elected Reform UK councillors all over the North.
Results were no better for the Conservatives. Despite Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s delusional insistence that she is “seeing green shoots” for her party, and the legacy media’s attempts to fabricate a “Kemi bounce,” the reality is Tory decimation.
Twenty-seven areas had local elections both in 2025 and this year - and in 24 of those areas, the Conservative vote share declined year-on-year. In last year’s local elections, the Conservatives lost 68% of the seats they were defending. This year, they lost 38%. Those two sets of results together make Badenoch the most unsuccessful opposition leader in history, in terms of council seats lost. The few places where the Conservatives managed to hold on tend to be in wealthy enclaves like Westminster or Kensington & Chelsea.
Essex is a prime example of Conservative defeat:
The era of the two-party system is over, and no constituency in the country can now be considered a truly ‘safe seat’ for either Labour or Conservative.
Reform UK:
- Won 1,454 council seats - we were defending just two of these seats.
- Took control of 14 councils across the country - including nine from Labour and four from the Conservatives.
- Earned 3.6 million votes - an astonishing 1 million more than our closest rival.
- In total there were 136 councils with seats up for election; we won the most seats in 64 of these elections.
Labour experienced one of the most crushing defeats felt by any incumbent party in our lifetimes. They suffered heavy losses across the board:
- Of the 2,196 seats they were defending, Labour lost 1,496 - or over half.
- Of the 1,068 seats Labour won, just 372 - or 35% - were outside of London.
- They lost councils like Barnsley and Walsall, which have both been under Labour control since their founding in 1974, to Reform UK.
- Every seat in Hartlepool, once the safe seat of Peter Mandelson, voted overwhelmingly for Reform UK.
If Labour’s Northern MPs had been on the ballot, they would have been wiped out. Angela Rayner, a leading contender in the Labour civil war to replace Keir Starmer, would have lost her Greater Manchester constituency to Reform UK by a walloping 20% based on Thursday’s results.
Labour is now a party of the London professional, not the ordinary working family. Whilst Labour took 25% of votes cast in the capital, beyond the M25 it was only 17%. Whether in Sunderland or Barnsley, traditional Labour areas have turned their backs on Starmer and elected Reform UK councillors all over the North.
Results were no better for the Conservatives. Despite Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch’s delusional insistence that she is “seeing green shoots” for her party, and the legacy media’s attempts to fabricate a “Kemi bounce,” the reality is Tory decimation.
Twenty-seven areas had local elections both in 2025 and this year - and in 24 of those areas, the Conservative vote share declined year-on-year. In last year’s local elections, the Conservatives lost 68% of the seats they were defending. This year, they lost 38%. Those two sets of results together make Badenoch the most unsuccessful opposition leader in history, in terms of council seats lost. The few places where the Conservatives managed to hold on tend to be in wealthy enclaves like Westminster or Kensington & Chelsea.
Essex is a prime example of Conservative defeat:
- Essex County Council, the stronghold of Conservative support in the east of England, fell to Reform UK.
- We reduced the Tories to a small rump of just 14 councillors, compared to our 53.
- This is the first time in its history that Essex has been run by any party other than the Conservatives.
The era of the two-party system is over, and no constituency in the country can now be considered a truly ‘safe seat’ for either Labour or Conservative.
Many of the councils we have taken control of have been criminally mismanaged for decades. Sunderland City Council, for example, has been under Labour control since its inception in 1974. It is currently half a billion pounds in debt, or £2,000 per resident. The council is paying the equivalent of £56,000 per day in debt interest. It should come as no surprise, then, that in Sunderland - where all 75 council seats were up for election last week - Reform UK won 58. Meanwhile, Labour’s share of seats went from 49 before the election to just five.
It’s thanks to Reform UK (and our campaign slogan that reminded people to vote Reform to get Starmer out) that these local elections became such a powerful vehicle for popular outrage. In Sunderland, voter turnout jumped from 30% last year to 40.5% this year. The picture is similar across England. In Essex, voters were mobilised and turnout went from 33% in 2021 to 43% last Thursday. Reform UK has almost singlehandedly revived local democracy.
Reform UK was the only party committed to protecting that democratic right. Labour and the Conservatives conspired together to cancel many of these local elections last year, and tried to do it again this year until Reform UK took the government to court and stopped their plot. Of the 30 councils where elections were due to be postponed this year, Reform UK topped the vote in 25. No wonder Labour and the Conservatives were running scared from voters.
Our success did not stop at England’s borders, either. Reform UK is now the party of the Union, having secured enough seats to sit as the official opposition in both the Welsh Senedd and Scotland’s Holyrood parliament.
We are already seeing the establishment close ranks as they seek to exclude and sideline Reform UK and the voice of voters who have put their trust in us. They will fail.
It’s thanks to Reform UK (and our campaign slogan that reminded people to vote Reform to get Starmer out) that these local elections became such a powerful vehicle for popular outrage. In Sunderland, voter turnout jumped from 30% last year to 40.5% this year. The picture is similar across England. In Essex, voters were mobilised and turnout went from 33% in 2021 to 43% last Thursday. Reform UK has almost singlehandedly revived local democracy.
Reform UK was the only party committed to protecting that democratic right. Labour and the Conservatives conspired together to cancel many of these local elections last year, and tried to do it again this year until Reform UK took the government to court and stopped their plot. Of the 30 councils where elections were due to be postponed this year, Reform UK topped the vote in 25. No wonder Labour and the Conservatives were running scared from voters.
Our success did not stop at England’s borders, either. Reform UK is now the party of the Union, having secured enough seats to sit as the official opposition in both the Welsh Senedd and Scotland’s Holyrood parliament.
- In 2021, Reform UK won 1% of the vote in Wales. Last week, we won 29%.
- In Scotland, we won less than 1% of the vote in Holyrood’s 2021 elections. Last week we won 17%.
We are already seeing the establishment close ranks as they seek to exclude and sideline Reform UK and the voice of voters who have put their trust in us. They will fail.
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