{"id":948859,"date":"2026-05-09T18:48:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:48:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/948859\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T18:48:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T18:48:25","slug":"reforms-big-wins-in-englands-local-elections-as-spectre-of-brexit-lives-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/948859\/","title":{"rendered":"Reform’s big wins in England’s local elections as spectre of Brexit lives on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Words by ITV News Election Analyst Colin Rallings <\/strong><\/p>\n

The English local election results so far bear out most of the predictions made before polling day.<\/p>\n

The detail of the competition between the parties varies across the country, but the overall pattern is clear.<\/p>\n

Reform UK<\/a> is doing very well, if perhaps falling short of sweeping all before it. <\/p>\n

There are also signs of solid progress by the Greens, with the Liberal Democrats advancing in the limited areas of the country it has begun to make its own.<\/p>\n

By contrast, and for the second year in succession, a majority of the electorate has turned against the two traditional parties which together have been in power since the Second World War.<\/p>\n

Subscribe free to<\/strong> our weekly newsletter <\/strong><\/a>for exclusive and original coverage from ITV News. Direct to your inbox every Friday morning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reform is taking seats from Labour in many urban areas from Plymouth in the south, to Salford and Wigan in the north.<\/p>\n

That pattern is certain to be reinforced as the day progresses. <\/p>\n

It has the Conservatives in its sights in the county elections, where results mirror those last year, when the Tories lost control of every county they were defending. <\/p>\n

Essex looks certain to fall direct to Farage\u2019s party as Kent did last year; in Hampshire, on the other hand, the Conservatives have suffered losses to both Reform and the Liberal Democrats.<\/p>\n

Gains for such seemingly opposed parties are indicative of the fragmentation of the party system which it itself often reflects local demography and no longer involves a straight exchange of votes between Labour <\/a>and the Conservatives as happened in the past.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives do retain support in some more affluent and rural areas where the Liberal Democrats pose the greatest challenge. <\/p>\n

Labour is losing seats to Reform, but many of those losses have been magnified by the party also shedding votes to its left, in particular to the Greens<\/a>.<\/p>\n

London, where there have been wholesale borough elections, reflects the new politics. <\/p>\n

In Havering, for example, bordering Essex and where one of the local Conservative MPs recently defected to Reform, Reform has gained almost 40 seats and now sits on a large majority.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the capital in Ealing and in Hammersmith and Fulham, Labour has lost seats but retained control of the councils with Reform nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives have won back the totemic council of Westminster and deprived Labour of its majority in Wandsworth.<\/p>\n

The figures suggest, however, that the Labour vote has fallen back and fragmented rather than the Conservatives picking up support.<\/p>\n

Conservative Party supporters celebrate after the party took Westminster City Council from Labour Credit: PA<\/p>\n

The Lib Dems have also made progress in boroughs they already controlled like Richmond upon Thames and Sutton. <\/p>\n

In Richmond, where the Greens benefited from a pact with the Liberal Democrats four years ago, they were wiped out in a council which now only has only Liberal Democrat councillors.<\/p>\n

What still underpins a lot of this, ten years after the event, is the spectre of Brexit.<\/p>\n

Leave supporting areas are those most prone to register gains for Reform and also show signs of a rise in usual turnout levels as occurred in 2016; in places which voted to remain in the EU, the party still struggles.<\/p>\n

The new multi-party system can also magnify the benefit for those who get out in front.<\/p>\n

Keir Starmer won his stonking 172 seat majority at the 2024 general election with just 34% of the national vote.<\/p>\n

Reform will be the clear winner at these elections but its overall share of the vote is likely to be about 30% as it was last year with a whole of cluster of other parties gathering behind it waiting for any slip up.<\/p>\n

From Westminster to Washington DC – our political experts are across all the latest key talking points. Listen to the latest episode below…<\/strong><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Words by ITV News Election Analyst Colin Rallings The English local election results so far bear out most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":948860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-948859","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116546116470372774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=948859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/948859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/948860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=948859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=948859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=948859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}