Reform Arrives As Tories Collapse
Reform Arrives As Tories Collapse
These are the early indications from yesterday's local elections.
Good morning! Election results will continue to come in in dribs and drabs but I thought I’d give you a breakdown of what we’ve seen so far as a trend is starting to emerge.
First of all it is clear that Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party is sinking.
A dramatic YouGov poll released yesterday showed the Tories falling to a lower level of support than under Liz Truss, now on just 18%.
Labour had another big poll lead on 44% but the gap between Reform UK and the Conservatives was the lowest ever, just 3 points.
In England the gap is now only 2 points, 18-16 Tories to Reform.
When it comes to Leave voters, YouGov had Reform leading on 32% and the Tories now third. More Brexiteers now back Reform or Labour than Sunak’s party.
But beyond opinion polls, we have already seen this start to play out in election results already confirmed overnight.
The Blackpool South by-election saw Reform almost beat the Tories to second place, with Reform on 16.9% and the Tories 17.5%. Labour gained the seat with close to 60% of the vote.
That points to the significant impact Reform will have on the next General Election where, unlike this set of elections, it intends to stand a candidate in every seat.
But crucially elsewhere in these local elections, Reform have beaten the Conservatives and emerged as the main challenger to Labour.
One of the very first results to be confirmed last night was in Sunderland, where Reform did stand a significant number of candidates.
And you saw in Redhill for instance Reform receive over 30% of the vote in second place, with Labour winning and the Tories below 10%.
This was a fairly consistent trend in Sunderland, with Reform Leader Richard Tice noting that:
“We beat Tories in 16/25 Sunderland seats; we are now becoming the real opposition to Labour in Red Wall areas and this will grow.”
Even at this early stage we’ve also seen Reform secure nearly 20% of the vote in an area of Plymouth, with the Conservative vote crashing and the party finishing third there too.
Whilst Labour are making big gains for instance in Thurrock where they gained 8 seats and the Conservatives lost 10, there is a mixed picture elsewhere.
In South Tyneside for example Labour are actually down 10 seats, with Independents and the Greens making gains.
But the emergence of Reform as close to overtaking the Conservatives in national polls has now been backed-up by their record by-election vote share in Blackpool and having made a significant impact at local council elections where they’ve stood.