Much of the discussion that has followed last week’s local elections has centred on Reform’s staggering success. The party’s increased support saw them win 1453 councillors and take control of councils from Labour, including Barnsley, Wakefield, Sunderland and Gateshead.
For many of Reforms critics, these results are discouraging. To them, it indicates that the UK is moving towards a dangerous path of far-right politics characterised by exclusion and intolerance. Several of the elected Reform candidates are already under fire due to racist, Islamophobic, and anti-Semitic comments and social media posts.
While the results were an enormous feat for the party, a closer look at these results paints a picture that not enough people are talking about.
Within hours of the polling stations closing, multiple media outlets were declaring victory for Reform. They were suggesting even more potential success at the next general election. In an interview about Reform’s electoral success, Sky News’s Beth Rigby even asked Farage if he sees himself as a Prime Minister in waiting.
These results are favourable for the Reforms’ hopes of forming a government. However, leaving it at this conclusion is somewhat of an oversimplification of the results. To properly understand these results and what they mean, we first need to understand what local elections are and how they work.
How do the local elections work?
Local councils provide the facilities and services in your area. The type of council you have, and the responsibilities they have, vary depending on where you live. Local councillors oversee the council’s work, setting the strategies and priorities. Things such as council tax, local services, planning, local climate change commitments, and policing commitments are all overseen by the local council. Within this are issues such as roads, potholes, maintaining public spaces, affordable housing, bin collection, etc., and these tend to be the most concerning issues for voters at these elections.
Boroughs across the country are divided into areas called wards, and in each ward, residents can vote for as many council seats as are contested. The candidate you vote for does not have to be attached to a political party, and you can vote for a mix of candidates. In most London boroughs, the council leader is chosen by the political group with the most councillors. In the five boroughs—Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham and Tower Hamlets— residents can also vote for a mayor as well as their ward councillors.
If a party dominates the seats in one borough, it takes control of the council; if there is no outright majority, then the borough has no overall control, and coalitions are formed.
Turnout at local elections tends to be lower than in general elections because voters’ priorities differ. A vote for a particular candidate in a local election does not guarantee a vote for the party they represent in national elections.
‘Get Starmer Out’
This particular local election revealed misconceptions surrounding local elections and how they work. This is something that Nigel Farage and his party took advantage of. The central messaging of Reforms campaign was to oust Prime Minister Keir Starmer and to take control of illegal immigration.
According to YouGov, Reform voters were the exception when it came to the typical local issues that tend to be most important to voters, with immigration being their number one local issue. Immigration, however, is typically a national issue, and so major changes can only be made through the national government. There were even some Reform voters left confused when they did not see Farage on their ballots. Reform UK were therefore able to successfully campaign on national issues to mobilise voters at the local level. Perhaps this is because they aren’t delivering on their promises for the local councils already in their control, and so stoking fear over national issues was a more beneficial tactic.
How are Councils Already Under Reforms Control Faring?
Despite promising to cut council tax, the Reform-led council in Kent voted through a 3.99% council tax increase, one percentage point under the limit before a referendum is required.
In Derbyshire, the Reform-led council planned to shut eight care homes, but it was eventually abandoned following backlash. In West Northamptonshire, there has been a sharp increase in complaints about potholes since Reform took power.
In the past year, the party has lost more than 70 of its elected local councillors, according to research by Liberal Democrat peer Mark Pack, with some being sacked or forced to resign.
It appears that cracks are already forming, and there is a chance that the party will self-implode. Their local success puts pressure on them because they are now expected to deliver, and if they don’t, the blame may shift towards them. Their present success may have long-term consequences. As of now, there are still 3 years until the next general election, and so failure at the local level could cause resentment nationally.
Farage’s ‘Cause for Concern’
Furthermore, the local election results show that a large majority of the population did not actually vote for Reform. In the overall vote share, Reform received around 26%.
Pollster Peter Kellner said that, despite the significant gains, there is cause for Nigel Farage to be “privately worried”.
In an article on Substack, Kellner wrote that: “In last year’s local elections, Reform won 41% of all seats contested across England.
“On the basis of the overnight figures, this year’s tally is around 33%.
“If there were no polls, and there had been no elections last year, this year’s figure would be astonishing.
“But we do have the record on recent polls and elections, and it seems clear that Reform has peaked.”
He added, “Under first-past-the-post, this matters. Our voting system helped Reform last year, when it won a much higher proportion of seats than votes.
“Its support is now at the point where that bonus has started to shrink. If more voters desert the party, it could suffer badly – falling short in many councils and parliamentary seats that it would have won last year.”
Additionally while Reform dominated the number of seats won, Labour still had the most overall control of the councils with 28. In contrast, Reform had 14, more than the Conservatives with 9 but less than the Liberal Democrats with 15.
Therefore, as it stands, if there were a general election, Reform would fail to win a majority, resulting in a hung parliament. In this outcome, they would have to enter a coalition.
Historic Strides for Greens not Just Reform
The downward trend in support for Reform indicates a potential ceiling, whereas the Green Party’s gains suggest a burgeoning political force.
The Greens didn’t see the numbers that Reform did. Some experts have even said they didn’t do as well as expected. However, they have taken great strides and can continue to build upon their success. Unlike Reform’s politics of exclusion and division, the Green Party is offering hope to voters, a genuine alternative to Labour, and this can be seen through their results.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice said the Greens had recorded their “best-ever performance”, with their projected national vote share being 18% as he revealed the projected national share of the vote for Britain, behind Reform but ahead of Labour and the Tories, who were both on 17% and the Liberal Democrats on 16%.
Winning 587 seats, they took control of Norwich, Hastings and the London borough of Waltham Forest, as well as winning the mayoral contests in Hackney and Lewisham—former Labour strongholds— for the first time.
Speaking after the Hackney mayoralty victory, Green Party Leader Zack Polanski said: “Two-party politics is not just dying, it is dead, and it is buried.
“And actually, whether it’s here that Labour have been rejected, or whether we’re seeing around the country, it’s very clear that the new politics is the Green Party versus Reform.”
Another incredible statistic for the Greens from this election is that they received 1.95 million votes (excluding mayoral votes). This is approximately 1 million more than their best record in 2023. It also means that more people voted for them at this year’s local elections than at the 2024 general election, which is a remarkable outcome.
It is clear to see that the picture hasn’t been fully completed yet; there is still a long way to go until the next election, and so much can happen in that time. Starmer may very well be ousted, but that would result in a Labour Party leadership contest rather than a general election. There are positives that Reform can take from this election, but the pressure is now on them to deliver for their residents. Looking at the results at face value can feel somewhat demoralising for those fearing Reform’s rise. However, a closer look reveals that their future national electoral victory is nowhere near guaranteed, and there is still room for hope to prevail.
