{"id":20504,"date":"2026-04-23T15:25:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/20504\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T15:25:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T15:25:20","slug":"nigel-farage-issues-statement-after-huge-reform-win-in-salford-council-by-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/20504\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage issues statement after ‘huge’ Reform win in Salford council by-election"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Reform UK candidate won in Barton and Winton by 33 votes<\/p>\n

10:01, 23 Apr 2026Updated 14:48, 23 Apr 2026<\/p>\n

\"Reform<\/p>\n

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaking at an event in Barnsley yesterday (Image: Peter Byrne\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Nigel Farage has hailed the Barton and Winton by-election<\/a> as a \u201chuge win for Reform\u201d. The Reform Party leader made his comments on the social media platform X this morning after Michael Felse became the party\u2019s first councillor in Salford<\/a> last night.<\/p>\n

Six candidates were standing for a seat in the ward. The result was announced at around 12.15am on Thursday, with voters going to the polls on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Reform\u2019s Michael Felse was declared the winner with 676 votes, followed by Labour<\/a>\u2019s Catherine Goodyer just 33 votes behind on 636. Barton<\/a> and Winton had previously been considered a safe Labour seat.<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter<\/p>\n

Mr Farage posted on X: \u201cA huge win for Reform in Salford last night. The Labour vote dropped by 30 points. This is the best sign yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

Content cannot be displayed without consent<\/p>\n

Despite Reform\u2019s historic victory, Labour still has overall control of the council, holding 45 out of 60 seats. There are also seven Conservatives<\/a>, two Lib Dems<\/a>, one independent, one Democratic Socialist Party councillor and one Your Party councillor.<\/p>\n

Thanking the voters, Councillor Felse said he was \u201cdelighted\u201d with his victory. \u201cHere we are making history in Salford as the first Reform councillor,\u201d he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service last night.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Felse, the new Reform UK councillor for Barton and Winton(Image: LDRS)<\/p>\n

The controversial by-election was called to elect a new councillor following the death of England\u2019s longest serving councillor, David Lancaster. Residents will return to the polls again on May 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Reform UK candidate won in Barton and Winton by 33 votes 10:01, 23 Apr 2026Updated 14:48, 23…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3730,95,14,408,63,9370,5,6,9369],"class_list":{"0":"post-20504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-barton","9":"tag-nigel-farage","10":"tag-politics","11":"tag-reform-uk","12":"tag-salford","13":"tag-salford-council","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-winton"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116454721122648931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}