Nigel
Farage’s Reform snatches Labour safe seat after knife-edge vote
“We are now
the opposition party in the U.K. to Labour, and the Tories are a waste of
space,” Farage told reporters in Runcorn.
May 2, 2025
7:53 am CET
By Matt
Honeycombe-Foster
Nigel
Farage’s insurgent Reform UK bagged what should be one of Labour’s safest House
of Commons seats after a dramatic by-election recount saw the result come down
to just six votes.
Reform
candidate Sarah Pochin beat Labour’s hopeful in the Runcorn and Helsby
by-election — overturning a 14,696 majority secured at the general election
last July and granting a fresh boost to Farage’s right-wing populists.
After an
early-morning recount at the DCBL stadium, Farage was jubilant, hailing a “huge
night for Reform,” while Labour insisted by-elections are “always difficult for
the party in government” and tried to shift attention to Conservative woes.
Reform won by 12,645 votes to Labour’s 12,639.
“We are now
the opposition party in the U.K. to Labour, and the Tories are a waste of
space,” Farage told reporters in Runcorn.
Reform takes
Greater Lincolnshire
The results
of the by-election vote — held after the previous Labour MP was convicted of
assaulting a constituent — came as the counts from a slate of local elections
in England began to trickle in.
There were
some limited scraps of relief for nervous Labour strategists panicked by the
rise of Reform UK in the polls. Labour won key mayoral races in North Tyneside,
the West of England and Doncaster — though Reform came second in all three.
But the
closely-watched Greater Lincolnshire mayoral race saw Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns —
a former Conservative MP who jumped ship — comfortably see off her Conservative
and Labour opponents.
Jenkyns won
the newly-created authority with 104,133 votes, with the Conservatives trailing
on 64,585 votes and Labour a distant third.
In a
highly-charged victory speech, Jenkyns took aim at the “negativity and
soul-destroying” campaigning tactics of her opponents — and blasted asylum
policies in what she called Labour’s “soft touch Britain.”
“Now that
Reform is in a place of power, we can help start rebuilding Britain. Inch by
inch, Reform will reset Britain to its glorious past,” she vowed.
“We will
tackle illegal migration. We’ve been working on policies.
“I say no to
putting people in hotels. Tents are good enough for France, they should be good
enough for here in Britain.”
Tories brace
The
Conservatives, in national government just last year before a kicking in the
general election, are braced for a torrid day.
There are 22
local councils to be declared Friday afternoon, with the vast majority of the
1,641 council seats in contention still to be announced. These seats were last
fought in 2021, at the height of the then-Tory government’s bounce in
popularity over a successful Covid vaccine program.
A Labour
spokesperson said of the Runcorn result Friday morning: “By-elections are
always difficult for the party in government and the events which led to this
one being called made it even harder.
“Voters are
still rightly furious with the state of the country after 14 years of failure
and clearly expect the government to move faster.”
The
Conservatives shot back in their own statement: “This result is a damning
verdict on Keir Starmer’s leadership which has led to Labour losing a safe
seat.”
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