Nigel Farage has failed to cast a single vote in Parliament for almost 11 weeks, meaning he has now been absent for a staggering 77 votes.
The Reform leader did not attend any votes in April and May.
As reported by the Metro, the Clacton MP’s last vote was on 18 March, when he voted ‘no’ to a motion to increase higher education fee limits.
According to mpdata, which tracks the activity of MPs, Farage’s voting participation and debate contributions are among the lowest out of all 650 MPs.
Asked by the Metro newspaper to explain his absence, Farage said he had been running the campaign for the local elections on 7 May.
It was pointed out to Farage that other party leaders including Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch managed to attend votes as well as campaigning in the local elections.
In response, Farage claimed that “Other party leaders don’t travel the country.”
Since the Reform leader last voted on 18 March, Starmer has voted six times, and Badenoch has voted nine times.
Lib Dem leader Ed Davey has voted 34 times, and his party still managed to win 155 seats in the English local elections.
Farage also hasn’t spoken in Parliament for nearly 10 weeks. He last spoke in the Chamber on 25 March at Prime Minister’s Questions.
The Reform leader also appears to have kept a low profile in recent weeks, and turned down media requests, after a Guardian investigation revealed last month that he had failed to declare a £5 million gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne in 2024.
“We’ve absolutely walked it,” declared a jubilant Nigel Farage after last week’s local elections, hailing the results as a “historic shift.” Commentators rushed to agree. Reform UK is “in pole position to form the next government,” the Spectator announced.
Yet since those jubilant remarks, a by-election in Makerfield is now looming, which may become the clearest test yet of Reform’s electoral limits. Reform swept every council ward in the constituency during this month’s local elections, but the possible candidacy of Andy Burnham could derail Reform’s momentum in the Wigan borough.
Polling expert Sir John Curtice has suggested Labour would have “less than a 5 per cent chance” of holding the seat without Burnham, highlighting both Reform’s momentum and the Greater Manchester mayor’s popularity in the North West. The contest could reveal whether Reform’s support is deep enough to overcome tactical anti-Reform voting behind a high-profile and popular Labour figure.
Whatever the outcome in Makerfield, the race reflects a broader shift in British politics. With the change Labour promised two years ago still undelivered in the eyes of many voters, the country is fragmenting into an increasingly volatile seven-party contest, and Reform appears to be the chief beneficiary.
The far-right party won roughly a third of the council seats contested in England, surged in parts of Wales, and inflicted heavy losses on Labour in areas once considered secure. The headlines wrote themselves: Britain’s political landscape is changing.
But beneath the drama lies a more complicated reality. Reform’s national vote share is actually slipping, and whether the party’s support is enough to carry Farage to Downing Street is far less certain than the headlines suggest. Tactical voting against Reform is already emerging. The Conservatives, though battered, are not dead and Britain’s increasingly fragmented political system may ultimately prevent Reform from converting media momentum into parliamentary power.
Far from proving Reform is destined for government, these elections may instead reveal the limits of Farage’s project.
The numbers behind the hype
The most noteworthy metric deployed to understand the elections is the National Equivalent Vote (NEV), an estimate used by academics to model how Britain would vote if local elections were held nationwide.
Analysis of more than three million votes put Reform first on 27%, ahead of the Conservatives on 20%, Labour on 15%, and the Liberal Democrats and Greens on 14% each. Translated into Westminster seats, the figures point not to a Reform majority but to a hung parliament.
More importantly, Reform’s 27% represents a decline from last year’s equivalent of 32%.
That matters. The narrative surrounding Reform suggests unstoppable growth, yet the underlying data points in the opposite direction. While Reform dominated headlines and picked up council seats, its national support actually softened.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives recovered modestly from 18% to 20%, despite months of predictions of electoral extinction.
The Greens were, by this measure, the election’s real success story, doubling their equivalent vote share from 7% to 14%.
What emerges is not a simple story of Reform ascendency, but one of political fragmentation. Reform is benefiting from concentrated local gains, anti-incumbent anger, and relentless media attention more than from a sustained nationwide surge.
As pollster Peter Kellner observed, the trends on the left and right are diverging, Reform’s vote share is slipping while the Conservatives stabilise, Labour is weakening while the Greens grow stronger.
That is not the profile of a party marching inexorably towards power.
The Conservatives are wounded, not finished
Predictions of Conservative collapse also appear premature.
Despite Reform’s advances, the Conservatives remain dominant in large parts of southern England. They retained control of Hampshire and regained boroughs in London, including Westminster, which Labour captured in 2022.
This matters because Reform’s coalition remains geographically uneven. It performs strongly in post-industrial towns, coastal areas, and places suffering economic decline. But it struggles more in affluent southern constituencies where older Conservative voters remain wary of Farage-style populism.
That weakness creates an opening for tactical anti-Reform voting, something already visible in these local elections, where Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters backed Conservative candidates in some areas to block Reform victories.
Polling from More in Common in March showed more people than ever are choosing Reform as the party they would actively vote against. The research found 38% of voters would vote against Reform, more than against any other party.
If we think back to marginal contests, like Gorton and Denton earlier this year, and Caerphilly in 2025, voters moved towards whichever candidate was best placed to defeat Reform.
There’s no hiding from the fact that the elections were bad for Labour in that where the electorate saw it as a straight Labour versus Reform, then the latter often emerged as victors. However, the evidence also shows that in those seats where other parties could be in a position to keep Reform out, that’s where voters chose to vote tactically.
The great Labour election victories of 1945, 1966 and 1997, (2024 was an odd one in that the Starmer ‘landslide’ was never built on great popular support), were all based on an alliance between traditional working-class and progressive middle-class voters. There is no sign that Farage is anywhere close to building such an equivalent reactionary alliance on the right. Which means that in 2029, Reform could face the same electoral squeeze that has historically punished insurgent parties under Britain’s voting system.
Once predictable first-past-the-post is becoming less predictable
For decades, Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system insulated Labour and the Conservatives from serious challengers. Smaller parties could win millions of votes and still secure very few seats.
That logic is beginning to shift.
The local elections showed how fragmented British politics has become. Reform won control of councils despite securing well below 50% of the vote in many places. Voters are increasingly willing to abandon the traditional two-party system, and the old warning that voting for smaller parties is “wasted” is no longer viable.
“Once upon a time, Conservative and Labour politicians would cry, ‘A Liberal vote is a wasted vote’. That kind of argument has seemingly lost its force,” he said.
Yet fragmentation cuts both ways. Reform benefits from it locally, but Westminster elections are far more brutal. In 2024, Labour and the Tories still won 533 Commons seats between them, while Reform and the Greens, despite collectively receiving more than a fifth of the national vote, secured only nine seats.
This creates a paradox for Reform. Britain’s electoral system may no longer suppress smaller parties as effectively as before, but it still punishes parties whose support is broad rather than efficiently concentrated.
And tactical voting can extend that problem.
Tactical voting could become Reform’s biggest obstacle
Much of the next general election may come down to one question: can anti-Reform tactical voting be organised effectively?
Historically, centre-left voters have been more disciplined at tactical coordination than the right. In 2024, tactical voting played a decisive role in removing the Conservatives from power, as Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters coalesced around whichever candidate was best placed to defeat the Conservatives locally.
A similar dynamic could emerge against Reform.
Even at roughly 30% support, which incidentally has dipped to 26% this year, seven in ten voters still prefer another party.
The local elections may therefore represent not the beginning of limitless growth, but the upper limit of Reform’s appeal.
More importantly, many voters actively dislike Nigel Farage. His pint-swilling, blokey-banter form of populism, appears to repel as many voters as it attracts. His finances are facing growing scrutiny, while his past bromances with Trump and Putin remain politically toxic with large sections of the British public. Farage’s approval ratings stand at minus 38, having declined consistently since the middle of last year.
As journalist Sam Bright argues: “Judging by his current leadership of Reform – the dodgy donations, the racist candidates, and the punitive populism – Farage is incapable of breaking this mould. He’s instinctively divisive – preferring to build loyalty among an engaged, enraged sub-section of voters rather than unify a coalition capable of winning a majority.”
That creates fertile conditions for tactical alliances.
Electoral Calculus recently warned that Reform may face “the same tactical voting push” that gave the Tories their worse-ever general election defeat. If anti-Reform coordination intensifies, Farage’s party could find itself trapped, strong enough to frighten opponents, but not broad enough to overcome a united anti-Reform vote.
Reform could also splinter from within
Reform faces pressure not only from opponents, but from being outflanked by even more extreme parties.
One of the most interesting stories from the local elections came from Great Yarmouth, where Rupert Lowe, former Reform MP and founder of the breakaway movement Restore Britain, claimed great local success through its offshoot party, Great Yarmouth First.
The group contested ten seats and won all of them. Norfolk County Council, once safely Conservative, was thrown into no overall control after both Reform and Lowe-backed candidates surged.
That success reflects a wider mood within sections of populist right that Reform itself is becoming too cautious, too managerial, too centred around Farage.
In a pub conversation after the elections, one man summed up the confusion and volatility of this political space perfectly.
“Everything will be okay if Restore get in,” he told me, before adding: “We need Tommy Robinson as PM,” seemingly confusing Restore Britain with Advance UK, the far-right party launched by former Reform deputy leader Ben Habib and openly backed by Robinson supporters.
The exchange was chaotic, but it showed how fluid and unstable this political constituency still is. Many voters drifting towards Reform are not driven by ideological coherence so much as anger, alienation, distrust of mainstream politics, and a desire to punish the establishment. Their loyalties are shallow and can shift quickly between competing anti-system movements.
For now, Restore Britain remains small and highly localised. But its emergence hints at a familiar problem in populist politics, fragmentation. Protest movements built around personality, grievance and anti-establishment energy often struggle to maintain unity once success arrives.
Reform’s rise depends heavily on presenting itself as the singular vehicle for right-wing anger. If competing nationalist movements begin splintering that vote, Farage’s path becomes far harder.
Reform has momentum, but momentum isn’t power
None of this means Reform UK should be dismissed, far from it. The party has terrified both Labour and the Conservatives, but the local elections do not prove Reform is on the verge of government. They show a party with undeniable momentum, but also clear structural weaknesses, including a slipping vote share, geographical limits, tactical opposition, and vulnerability to fragmentation.
British politics is entering an era of instability in which no party commands broad national loyalty. Reform is thriving in that environment, but so are the Greens and smaller insurgent movements.
And that is why the looming Makerfield by-election matters far beyond a single seat. If Andy Burnham were able to halt Reform’s advance there, it would suggest that a sufficiently popular, locally rooted candidate can still assemble a broad anti-Reform coalition under Britain’s fragmented electoral system. If not, it would strengthen the argument that Reform’s appeal is beginning to cut through even against high-profile opposition figures.
Farage may have succeeded in breaking the old two-party order. Turning that disruption into actual power, however, is a far more difficult task.
Gabrielle Pickard-Whitehead is author of Right-Wing Watch
The run-up to the local elections delivered a depressingly familiar spectacle of the right-wing press firing on all cylinders against its chosen political enemies.
Unsurprisingly, Zack Polanski was at the centre of the storm.
The row stemmed from Polanski reposting criticism of police conduct during the arrest of a man accused of stabbing two Jewish men in Golders Green. Polanski later apologised, admitting he had shared the post in haste.
That should have arguably been the end of it. But instead, the row escalated when the Times faced accusations of fuelling antisemitic sentiment after publishing a cartoon of Zack Polanski by political cartoonist Peter Brookes.
Critics argued that the cartoon did not merely attack Polanski politically but relied on exaggerated visual features long associated with antisemitic caricatures of Jewish people.
In a statement, the Green Party described the cartoon as “deeply irresponsible.”
Many social media users agreed, with comparisons made to the visual propaganda techniques deployed in 1930s Germany under Joseph Goebbels.
What quickly followed were gloating reports about Polanski’s poll ratings being in “free fall” as the Telegraph put it.
Yet while newspapers eagerly amplified every angle of the Polanski controversy, there was notably less interest in stories involving Nigel Farage.
The relative silence around Farage’s reported £5 million backing from British cryptocurrency investor Christopher Harborne, who is based in Thailand and has donated millions to Reform UK, was striking. So too was the muted coverage of Farage posing alongside far-right activists, including a man previously convicted of assault after storming a Stand Up to Racism meeting at a church.
That double standard is the real story. Some politicians, typically on the left, are subjected to days of outrage, saturation coverage and moral grandstanding for every misstep, while others receive remarkably light scrutiny for serious associations and controversies.
As the country is bombarded with images of a triumphant Nigel Farage and headlines declaring Reform UK the future of British politics, including the Telegraph’s dramatic May 9 splash, “In a once Tory heartland, only hope is Reform,” the reality beneath the local election results may be far less straightforward.
A closer look at the data suggests that, despite the hype, Reform may actually have gone backwards.
Analysis by Sky News economics and data editor Ed Conway examined the National Equivalent Vote (NEV), an estimate projecting local election results into a nationwide vote share. Based on more than three million votes counted, Reform UK emerged ahead on 27%, followed by the Conservatives on 20%. Labour trailed on 15%, while the Liberal Democrats and Greens were level on 14%.
When those figures were translated into a projected redistribution of each party’s seats in the Commons, the result is a hung parliament, with no single party reaching the 326 seats needed for an outright majority.
But more notably still, Reform’s headline-grabbing 27% actually represents a decline compared with last year. On the same measure, the party is down five points from 32%. By contrast, the Conservatives rose from 18% to 20%, despite widespread assumptions that they were collapsing entirely.
Labour also slipped, falling four points from 19% to 15%, while the Liberal Democrats dropped from 16% to 14%.
The real story of the elections, at least on these figures, may instead be the Greens. Their support doubled from 7% last year to 14%, the largest increase of any party.
So, while Reform UK is dominating headlines and racking up council seats, the underlying vote-share data paints a more complicated picture. The party may be benefiting from media momentum, concentrated local gains, and the fragmentation of its opponents more than from any genuine surge in national support.
But as the Guardian’s Andrew Sparrow observed: “Good luck trying to persuade anyone in the party of that, given the number of seats they are winning.”
In other words, Reform UK may be winning the narrative, but not necessarily the argument that it’s unstoppable.
Labour’s losses in the local elections are set to be lower than expected, while the Greens may have a greater surge than predicted, according to Damian Lyons Lowe, a pollster.
Counting is still underway in many areas, with most councils due to declare their results over the course of today. A small number of councils, including Tower Hamlets, Bradford, Croydon and Lewisham will not declare until tomorrow.
Based on the results so far, Lowe, founder and CEO of Survation, has released his predictions on the final outcome of yesterday’s local elections suggests the following parties will make gains:
Reform: +1,419 seats
Green: +685 seats
Lib Dem: + 203 seats
Meanwhile, the Conservatives are predicted to lose 547 English council seats, while Labour is projected to lose 1,231 seats.
These are heavy losses for Labour, but they are markedly lower than last week’s prediction from Lord Robert Hayward that Keir Starmer’s party could lose 1,850 seats in councils across England.
Michael Thrasher, co-founder of the Local Elections Centre, has also said that Labour may lose 1,200 council seats, rather than the 1,800 he had previously predicted.
In a post on X, Lowe noted that the consensus was that Reform would win over 1,625 seats, suggesting they may slightly underperform compared to expectations.
He also wrote that the Conservatives’ losses are lower than the consensus that they would lose over 650 seats, meaning they are “holding up a little better than expected”.
On the Greens and Lib Dems, he wrote: “Green +685 vs consensus +588 – outperforming. LD +203 vs consensus +186 – on track.”
Keir Starmer has taken responsibility for Labour’s “really tough” results in the local elections, but has said he will stay on as prime minister.
Only around a quarter of the election results have been declared so far, but they indicate heavy losses for Labour.
The party has already lost control of eight councils and over two hundred councillors at the time of writing. Labour is predicted to lose 1,200 council seats in total.
Speaking to Sky News journalist Beth Rigby, Starmer said he “takes responsibility” for Labour’s losses in the local elections.
He acknowledged that “voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved.”
He also said that “when voters send a message like this we must reflect and we must respond”.
Starmer said he was elected to meet those challenges and that he is “not going to walk away from those challenges and plunge the country into chaos”.
Rigby also asked Starmer what he had to say to MPs who are “really upset” with him and want him to resign, after the energy secretary Ed Miliband reportedly told the prime minister to plan his resignation.
The PM said “I think it’s very important we don’t sugarcoat the results, so I’m not going to do that, they are tough results and I accept that.”
He added: ‘They reflect voters who don’t feel their lives have changed enough or quickly enough.”
He repeated that “we were elected to deal with that, and I’m not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos”.
The deputy prime minister David Lammy has backed Keir Starmer’s leadership, stating: “You don’t get rid of the pilot mid-flight because of a bit of turbulence”.
However, other party figures are calling for Starmer to resign.
A former Labour minister, Lord Dave Watts, has called for Andy Burnham to replace Starmer as prime minister.
Writing for the HuffPost, Watts said that the results indicate that Starmer does not “possess the qualities required to steer the country through these turbulent times and reconnect with a disillusioned electorate”.
“It’s clear we need a change, and many MPs and Labour voters are looking to the most successful and popular Labour politician, Andy Burnham, to provide that change,” he added.
Watts argued that Burnham should be allowed to stand in a parliamentary by-election so he can become Labour leader and prime minister.
A newly-elected Reform councillor had to be corrected on which party he now represents after mistakenly saying “UKIP’s here” in a media interview.
Reacting to Reform UK winning four seats on Peterborough City Council, councillor Peter Reeve said: “Our message is UKIP’s here, working hard, with local communities.”
The journalist questioned Reeve on his party allegiance, “UKIP?”.
Reeve, who still has himself listed as a UKIP Regional Organiser on LinkedIn and is a former UKIP councillor, laughed and corrected himself, stating: “Reform is here, working hard with local communities”.
He then said: “I’ve been doing this for the last 15 years, from the UKIP days all the way through to Reform.”
During the local elections campaign, Reform announced Reeve as an “experienced” and “serious” candidate.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Cambridgeshire is a key battleground for Reform UK. With candidates like Peter Reeve and Ryan Coogan, we are putting forward experienced, capable individuals who understand their communities and are ready to deliver. These are serious candidates for serious times.”
The gaffe generated lots of comments online, with one X user stating: “He’s right in a sense, UKIP is indeed here but with a different name & Reform councils are already going down the same path as UKIP did back in the day. You would think people would learn, but they really don’t. More fool them, they deserve what they get.”
Another wrote: “Seems totally legit, competent, and exactly the kind of person you want in charge of cleaning the streets and your children’s education.”
Another simply commented: “Er…. Not a great start”.
There have been strong indications that Labour could face huge losses today, with some polling suggesting they could lose nearly 2,000 seats. There has also been much talk of Reform making big wins and picking up over 1,000 seats. But what about the lesser-told story of where Labour and other progressive parties could do well in these local elections?
Here are some councils to look out for.
Green wins projected in London
In London, the Greens could become the largest party on multiple London councils. In the North and East of the capital, Zack Polanski’s party may take control of Hackney and Haringey, while in the South of the city, the Green Party is projected to potentially take control of Lambeth and Lewisham councils.
London is also expected to be largely insulated from Reform, with Nigel Farage’s party only projected to take outright control of Havering Council, which is currently led by Independents. However, Bromley and Bexley are expected to be no overall control, with Reform as the largest party.
London has been a Labour stronghold in recent years, with the party holding majority control in 21 councils. Keir Starmer’s party is predicted to lose 380 council seats and control of 13 councils in the city.
Bradford and Stockport
The Lib Dems are expected to take control of Stockport, from no overall control. They already have 30 seats on the council, and are just two seats short of a majority.
Elsewhere in Bradford, the Green Party is predicted to finish ahead of Reform UK and may form a minority Green-led administration.
Midlands
In the Midlands, Reform is predicted to snatch lots of seats off Labour, but the Greens are expected to make inroads on Birmingham City Council, picking up around 14 seats, as well as some seats in Solihull.
Labour is expected to maintain control of Wolverhampton and Sandwell, while Tamworth, Cannock and Redditch may go to no overall control, but with Labour as the largest party.
Lib Dem gains in the South
The Lib Dems are projected to pick up around 50 council seats across the South, and will likely take control of West Surrey, which is a new local authority. They are also expected to do well in East Surrey, where they could form a minority administration. Ed Davey’s party is likely to keep hold of South Cambridgeshire, while gaining a few more seats there.
Tom Watson was the Labour MP for West Bromwich East between 2001 and 2019, and was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party between 2015 and 2019. He now sits in the House of Lords.
Thursday’s elections will no doubt be reported as a referendum on Keir Starmer. That is partly true, as far as it goes. Governments always get the blame. Prime ministers always carry the can. That is one of the less attractive privileges of the office.
But it would be a mistake to stop there. The polls and projections suggest something larger is happening. This is not simply a judgement on Starmer, or even on Labour. It is beginning to look like a judgement on the two-party system, and on the Whitehall way of governing that has sustained it.
The figures are stark enough. Recent polling has Reform in the mid-twenties, Labour and the Conservatives in the high teens, the Greens in the mid-teens and the Liberal Democrats still very much in the field. Psephologists have pointed to heavy losses for both main parties. Some projections have Labour losing nearly 2,000 council seats, the Conservatives also going backwards, and Reform, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats making the gains.
If it happens, it will represent a fissure in our two-party system.
The sad truth is that many people will not be voting on Thursday for the party they think will run local services best. They will be voting against. Against Labour. Against the Conservatives. Against Westminster. Against a system that feels remote, slow and incapable of doing the things it promises.
Local elections have always carried national messages. That is not new. What feels different this time is the extent to which the local has been crowded out altogether. Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski have helped turn the campaign into a vote about race, migration, Israel, Iran and a whole range of questions which have little to do with who collects the bins most efficiently, fixes the roads or keeps the libraries open.
That does not mean those issues are unimportant. It does mean that the poor councillor defending a record on social care, housing, libraries or potholes may find himself judged on matters over which he has no control at all. Local democracy is often unfair. This year it may be positively brutal.
I can remember two years of terrible results for Labour during the Gordon Brown years. They were a blow. They chipped away at his authority. They added to the sense of a government losing altitude. But they did not stop the daily flow of crises being dealt with in Number 10. The phones still rang. The papers still came in. The decisions still had to be made. Government carried on.
What feels different now is the shape of the punishment. In the Brown years, the system still made a kind of sense. Labour lost. The Conservatives gained. The pendulum moved. The shock was painful, but the mechanism was familiar.
This time, the vote is scattering. Reform gains here. Greens there. Liberal Democrats somewhere else. Independents in places where local anger has found its own candidate. The two-party system is not simply under pressure. It is nose down, hurtling towards the runway, while everyone in the cockpit insists the instruments are being reviewed.
In Wales, the polling tells the same story in a sharper form. YouGov’s MRP has Reform and Plaid Cymru effectively neck and neck, with Labour a distant third. Other polls point in the same direction.
The striking point is not simply Labour’s weakness. It is the wider displacement of the old parties. Labour and the Tories are losing their place in the system. The Conservatives, already weak in much of Wales, risk becoming almost peripheral, while the main contest shifts towards Plaid and Reform.
That is the pattern across Britain. The governing party is being punished, but the official opposition is not the automatic beneficiary. In Wales, as in England, the protest is scattering. Reform takes one kind of discontent. Plaid takes another. Labour falls back. The Conservatives struggle to remain relevant.
That is why Thursday should not be read only as an anti-Starmer election. It is also an anti-Tory election, and a warning about the failure of the old alternation: Labour in, Conservatives out; Conservatives in, Labour out. Voters are not simply changing government. They are changing the terms of two-party politics.
That raises a harder question than whether Starmer has had a bad week. It asks whether the old bargain still holds. Britain’s governing model rests on the idea that a party wins power, commands the Commons, controls Whitehall, sets the direction for local authorities and delivers change. But voters increasingly look at housing, the NHS, social care, migration, energy bills, transport, planning and policing, and conclude that the machine does not work as advertised.
Whitehall still thinks in departments, consultations, reviews and efficiencies. The public thinks in broken appointments, rising bills, unanswered calls and things that never seem to get fixed. The gap between those two worlds is now a political fact.
Kemi Badenoch’s position is not easy either. I may be the only person who thought she was actually doing well as leader. She had begun to sound sharper and more settled. Then she disastrously called it wrong on the Iran conflict and overplayed her hand by calling Keir Starmer a liar. There are moments when an opposition leader must wound the Prime Minister, but the danger is that in doing so, they look less prime ministerial. I cannot help thinking Kemi is too addicted to social media moments rather than long-term strategic clarity.
Ed Davey, whom I like very much, appears to have been forced into chasing the daily media cycle, from Trump to Mandelson and whatever else happens to be passing across the screen. One assumes his team worry that the one-man media machine of Zack Polanski will steal the oxygen. They may be right. But it is not always wise to chase a populist, particularly for liberals.
And what of the potential winners, Polanski and Farage? Their success would tell us as much about the weakness of the old parties as about the strength of the new ones. Both have understood that attention now moves faster than organisation. The danger is that attention is not the same as trust, and noise is not the same as government.
Polanski is certainly a media sensation. No one can deny that. But short-term sensation is not the same as long-term strength. He has allowed his party to be drawn into the hands of people whose political style will be familiar to anyone who watched the autocratic grip placed on Labour under Corbyn. That may work well on TikTok, but he has already turned himself into the riskiest choice for PM in a generation.
And then there is Nigel Farage. He will claim victory on Thursday whatever the numbers say. It is hard to lose from a standing start, especially when you have spent years explaining that every setback proves the establishment is terrified of you. Whether this projects him towards office is another question. A reported £5 million personal gift from Christopher Harborne, now under scrutiny by the Electoral Commission and the parliamentary standards commissioner, ought to matter in the arguments ahead. These are unusual times, though. Perhaps in the new politics, £5 million is just a rounding error. Who knows, in the present climate?
Meanwhile, the people who deserve most sympathy are barely in the national story at all. There are some very fine civic leaders facing serious challenges this week. They will not all deserve the verdict they receive. Many will have worked hard, served decently and tried to hold together public services under impossible pressure.
They are in my thoughts. I have always believed local parties are nothing without their councillors. They are the lifeblood. They are the glue. They keep the organisation alive when the national leadership is popular, and they keep it breathing when it is not.
As commentators say this is going to be the worst night in human history for an incumbent government, one thing can safely be said: Labour has at least got its expectations management right!
Somewhere in Tory and Labour HQ, clever young men and women with lanyards are drafting lines saying they always knew the asteroid was coming and are pleased it has landed broadly within the expected blast radius.
But the more serious point is not the size of the defeat. It is the meaning of the fragmentation. Voters are no longer merely changing sides. They are losing faith in not just the main parties, but the whole system.
Voters across England will be going to the polls on 7 May to elect more than 5,000 councillors.
In some places, counting will take place overnight. In others, it won’t begin until the following day.
As a result, councils will be declaring results from the early hours of Friday 8 May. Other councils will take until later that day, with some even running in to Saturday.
Here’s a full breakdown of when to expect the results from every council up for election this year.
1am Friday: Halton
1:30am Friday: Harlow
1:45am Friday: Redditch
2am Friday: Chorley, Hart, Hartlepool, Hull, Lincoln, North East Lincolnshire, Rochford, Tamworth
5:30pm Friday: Haringey, Norfolk, Sefton, South Tyneside
6pm Friday: Adur, Birmingham, Camden, East Surrey, East Sussex, Hastings, Kingston Upon Thames, Kirklees, Newham, Southwark, Swindon, Tower Hamlets, Wakefield, West Surrey, Winchester, Worthing
7pm Friday: Bromley, Cherwell
8:30pm Friday: Calderdale
4pm Saturday: Bradford, Croydon, Lewisham
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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On May 7, voters in Scotland will be electing new members of the Scottish Parliament. In Wales, it’s the Senedd up for election. And across England, more than 5,000 council seats are up for grabs, alongside six mayoralties.
The Greens are going into these elections with a record poll rating and a surge in membership. But what would success look like on 7 May?
What would a good night look like for the Greens in the Scottish Parliament election?
First things first: The Scottish Greens and the Green Party of England and Wales are two separate political parties. So here we are only talking about the Scottish Greens.
At the last Scottish Parliament election, the Greens won eight seats. Success for the Greens – given the current political context – would therefore require them to win more seats than that at an absolute minimum.
How many more than eight is the crucial question. Some opinion polls are currently putting the Greens in second place behind only the SNP. Others have the Greens further behind in third, fourth or even fifth place.
Similarly, the small number of MRP polls that have been carried out which provide projections as to how many seats each party is likely to win have significant variation when it comes to the Greens.
What would make a good night then? Moving into a double-digit seat tally is the bare minimum. On a very good night, the Greens would be looking to win something around the 15-20 mark, and becoming either the second or third largest party in the parliament.
What would a good night look like for the Greens in the Senedd election?
Now onto the Green Party of England and Wales.
At the last Senedd elections, the Greens didn’t win any seats. At face value then, winning even one this year could be seen as a good night for the party.
But a lot has changed since 2021.
One of the biggest things that has changed is the voting system for the elections. Previously, Senedd elections were held under a mixture of first past the post and proportional representation. From now on, the Senedd will be elected through a wholly proportional system.
This makes a big difference for the Greens. Getting over the line in first past the post elections is a tall order for smaller parties. Getting a decent proportion of the vote over a large geographical area is much more achievable.
The other thing that has changed – of course – is the Greens’ national poll rating and levels of public support.
A year ago, the Greens would have been delighted to win one or two seats in this year’s Senedd elections. Now, the Green Party is talking internally about being the party that holds the balance of power after the election and about potentially entering government in Wales.
As a result, a good night for the Greens would mean both the party itself winning a number of seats, but also on Plaid Cymru winning a sufficient number so that a Green/Plaid alliance could stop Reform from running Wales.
What would a good night look like for the Greens in the 2026 English local elections?
The first thing to note about the Green Party’s prospects in the 2026 local elections is their starting point. Over the more than 5,000 seats up for election, the Greens are only defending a tiny proportion – just 170. That means there is plenty of space for the party to make gains.
The second thing to note is where the elections are taking place. This year, every council seat in London is up for election, along with hundreds of others in major urban areas. Clearly, this is fertile territory for the Greens.
As such, a good night for the Greens would see the party make substantial gains. The party’s current position in the polls and emergence as a mass membership party for the first time in its history suggests that is likely to be the direction of travel.
But how many gains would constitute a ‘good night’ in this context?
An MRP poll conducted by More in Common has suggested the Greens could be on track to win as many as 1,000 seats. That would be a truly astonishing result. Anything even anywhere close to that would be unprecedented.
But certainly the Greens will be wanting to make several hundred gains if they are to illustrate that the Zack Polanski bounce can lead to electoral success and that the Gorton and Denton by-election win represents a wider trend rather than a one-off.
Where those gains are concentrated will also make a big difference to the perception of the Greens’ success. The Greens will be extremely keen to make major inroads and emerge as the largest party in multiple inner London Boroughs – places like Hackney, Lewisham and Lambeth.
What would a good night look like for the Greens in the 2026 mayoral elections?
There are six directly elected mayoralties up for grabs this year, and the Greens have a good chance of doing well in several of them.
The big prize is Hackney, where a huge campaigning effort is underway to get Zoë Garbett elected for the Greens. It’ll be Garbett’s third time running for the post, and she’s come second twice before.
Winning the Hackney mayor election would be the obvious sign of a good night for the Greens.
In the other mayoral contests – Lewisham and Newham are the obvious contests where the Green Party will be hopeful of putting in a good showing and to come at least a strong second.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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In two weeks’ time, voters across London will go to the polls to elect every single councillor in the capital.
National opinion polls can give an indication as to what might happen in local elections. But they are nothing more than a rough guide. Turnout in local elections is considerably lower than general elections, and local factors often play an oversized role.
Local election polling is pretty rare. But this year, YouGov has conducted its first ever MRP poll looking at the elections in London. And the results are stark.
YouGov has described the results of its poll as projecting a ‘seismic shift for local government in the capital’.
The poll suggests that Labour’s stronghold in the city may be crumbling.
In the 2022 London local elections, Labour won the highest vote share in 21 of the 32 boroughs.
The median projection of YouGov’s poll has Labour receiving the most votes in just 15 – less than half.
Who are the big beneficiaries? The Greens and Reform.
According to the poll, the Greens are on track to receive the most votes across in Lambeth, Hackney, Lewisham and Waltham Forest. The poll has the Greens in second place in a further 14 boroughs.
Reform, meanwhile would top the poll in the outer London boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Bromley and Havering.
The poll suggests that Labour are still on track to win the most votes across London, but down considerably on their 2022 result. According to the poll, Labour are estimated to receive 26 per cent of the vote across the city, down 16 points on 2022.
The Greens are projected to come second with 22 per cent, the Tories third with 17 per cent, the Lib Dems fourth with 15 per cent and Reform in fifth with 14 per cent.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
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The former Reform leader of Worcestershire County Council, Jo Monk, has been ousted after Reform councillors voted to replace her.
As reported by the BBC, Monk lost an internal leadership vote to councillor Alan Amos, meaning he now leads the Reform group and is set to become county council leader in May.
Reform runs Worcestershire as a minority administration, after winning 25 out of 57 seats on the council last May.
In February, the Reform administration voted through a council tax increase of almost 9% due to the council’s ailing finances.
The council was also granted £59.9 million in emergency support from the government to prevent it from effectively going bankrupt.
In March, the Lib Dems put forward a no confidence motion seeking to oust Monk due to the council tax increase.
Amos was part of the previous Conservative administration on the council which Reform has consistently criticised for leaving the local authority in “a mess”.
Amos was a Tory MP in Northumberland in the late 1980s and early 90s. He was forced to resign in 1992 for alleged indecency on Hampstead Heath.
He went on to become a member of Labour and a Labour councillor in 2002, before rejoining the Conservatives in 2015. Amos joined Reform in April 2025.
As a Tory councillor in 2016, he suggested it was far too easy for women to report allegations of rape.
The Tories have accused Reform of overseeing “chaos” by replacing their leader.
Councillor Adam Kent, opposition Conservative group leader, said: “Worcestershire deserves serious, stable leadership.
“What we’re seeing here feels less like a political movement and more like a vehicle for one individual’s ambition, constantly shifting direction depending on what suits him at the time.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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Reform UK has set its sights on winning control of Norfolk County Council but has said that it will “make no promises” as to what it would deliver if it takes control of the local authority.
Reform currently only has two councillors in Norfolk, while the Conservatives have 50, the Lib Dems have 10, Labour has 9 and the Greens have 4. The remaining seats are held by Independents and two seats are vacant.
Speaking to BBC Radio Norfolk, Reform councillor David Bick said that the council has “a huge level of debt” and that Reform would need to carry out a financial review before his party could commit to policies.
Bick said: “The council has a huge level of debt – it’s paying two and a half million pounds a month in interest payments.”
He argued it would be “misleading” to make election pledges before a “very thorough review of the budget” if Reform wins control of the council. Reform has not published a local manifesto ahead of the council elections on 7 May.
He added: “I think it’s only when we’ve made that assessment can we then make common sense statements about policy.”
However, Conservative leader of the council Kay Mason Billig said that external auditors have already given the council “a clean bill of health”.
Mason Billig says the council has borrowed money to pay for “two [road] bypasses, nine new care homes, 41 special resource basis for SEND children, five new schools, 24 new fire engines and 70 electric buses”.
She told the BBC: “We don’t borrow what we can’t afford, and we have a clean bill of health from our external auditors.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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Andy Osborn, a Reform councillor who posted a defamatory remark about a Conservative candidate in the run-up to last year’s local elections has been found guilty of breaking electoral law.
As reported by the BBC, Osborn, chair of the North East Cambridgeshire Reform branch in April 2025 and a councillor since last May, wrote a defamatory statement about Conservative candidate Samantha Hoy.
In a post on Facebook last April, Osborn said of Hoy: “Samantha Hoy worked in the care industry but allegedly was sacked for fraud no wonder Wisbech is in such a state. Reform UK will fix it”.
Osborn claimed his Facebook account had been hacked.
His claim that he had been hacked was ultimately dismissed by the judge, Nina Tempia, and he was found guilty of making or publishing a defamatory statement.
The conviction means that Osborn will have to stand down from his role, and there will have to be a by-election.
Osborn was ordered to pay £1,800, consisting of a £1,000 fine, £400 costs and a £400 surcharge.
The court also heard about other allegations made about Osborn in the run-up to the local elections.
These included Osborn allegedly telling the mayor of Wisbech, Councillor Sidney Imafidon, who is a black man, to “speak English”.
Osborn, who has hearing problems, said he told Imafidon to “speak clearly”.
Since being elected last May, Osborn has come under fire for making other offensive comments.
Osborn was removed from his role on Cambridgeshire County Council’s children and young people committee after telling councillors that some children in care were “not just naughty children, they can be downright evil”.
Image credit: Youtube – Terry Galloway
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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A well-known Reform activist who volunteered in Reform’s head office and met Nigel Farage and other senior Reform figures has been found to have repeatedly made comments praising Adolf Hitler.
An investigation by anti-racism group Hope not Hate has found that Aaron Lee Taylor, a Reform activist in Essex, has shared clips of Hitler’s speeches on his X account and said Nazi Germany offered hope to young men.
In one of his posts, Taylor shared an image of the Führer captioned: “I gave it my all. Now it’s time for you to give it your all.”
In another, Taylor wrote about ‘sending Black people back’ and shooting Brown people, along with the statement ‘If it’s white it’s perfectly alright to stay (in the UK)’.
Farage first met the Reform activist in January, just weeks after he posted “Heil Hitler” on social media.
The Reform leader went to Taylor’s salon and posed for pictures. Farage was photographed with Taylor again at an official party event in March.
On 10 March, Taylor volunteered at Reform’s head office, where he posed for a photo with the party’s economics spokesman, Robert Jenrick.
Hope not Hate noted that Taylor has since cleaned up his social media presence, deleting multiple posts.
However, a repost of a video captioned “You’re blessed to be white. Be proud of it” remains on his account.
Last month, Yusuf insisted in a Telegraph interview last month that Reform has “the best vetting in the country”.
While Hope not Hate understands that Taylor is no longer a member of the party as of this month, senior Reform figures still met and were photographed with him despite his evident support for Hitler.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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A member of the public confronted Reform MP Lee Anderson over Reform’s prioritisation of “silly little racist flags” over fixing potholes while he was campaigning ahead of the local elections.
The woman, a local teacher, confronted the Ashfield MP during a Reform stunt at a petrol station in Lowdham, Nottinghamshire yesterday, where Anderson and Robert Jenrick promoted discounted fuel.
The lady said: “The flags went up before the potholes were sorted. You could not tell the truth if your life depended on it.
“So get your silly little racist flags and stick them where the sun doesn’t shine. It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.”
The Reform MP did not respond to her criticisms, but simply said: “It’s very nice to meet you”, before going to pose for a photo with a Reform supporter.
The Reform supporter told the woman to “Vote Reform at every opportunity”, to which she responded “scumbag”.
Online, the woman has been praised for confronting the Reform MP, with one X user commenting: “Give this woman a damehood”.
While Anderson had little to say during the exchange, he later posted on X, attacking the teaching profession: “Our teaching profession….
“Not all of them but far too many.”
Other Reform MPs joined in on the attack.
Richard Tice MP shared the video of the conversation on X, and wrote: “Lee Anderson educates lefty teacher ….”
Suella Braverman also weighed in, saying: “Well done @LeeAndersonMP for being professional and courteous.
“Wish the same could be said of the other person.
“Very concerning that someone like this is in the teaching profession.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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Nigel Farage got irritated in another interview where he was quizzed about why Reform UK has failed to keep to its promise of not raising council tax.
Reform raised council tax in the 12 councils it now runs, despite pledging in the run up to last year’s local elections that it would “reduce waste and cut your taxes”.
Speaking with Sky News’ Beth Rigby, Farage tried to distance himself from local Reform candidates who promised to cut taxes, arguing: “When you put up thousands of candidates, individuals or groups may say different things.”
Rigby pressed Farage, saying that if voters see a promise to reduce council tax on a leaflet in North Northamptonshire, and that is reneged on, it means the party has failed to deliver.
The Reform leader responded by claiming that he had never seen the leaflet and that if he had, he would have “decayed it”.
Rigby then asked Farage if he needed to “tighten” Reform’s message.
He responded, saying: “I couldn’t tighten it any further.”
The Sky journalist said that the fact that Reform raised council tax despite pledging to cut it will mean “your opponents will say it makes you not credible, what do you say to that?”.
Farage gave an extraordinary response to the question, saying: “We’re not North Korea. I can’t control individuals and thousands of people what they say and if they’ve gone against me as leader.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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It seems that Reform are struggling to find enough candidates to stand in the upcoming local elections. The Guardian has revealedthat they’re apparently so desperate that they’ve resorted to cold calling people and asking them to become ‘paper’ candidates for the party.
‘Paper’ candidates refer to people who stand for a political party but do not do any campaigning and are very unlikely to win.
According to the Guardian, Reform has been ringing people up who have signed up for Reform’s e-mail updates and asking them to stand. The paper reports that among the people who received a phone call were a Guardian journalist who was asked over the phone: “Will you come in to become a paper candidate today and help us to win the election?” The Guardian has also reported that even members of other political parties received these phone calls.
Nigel Farage has denied Reform have been cold-calling people, saying it would be “very, very fruitless”. He also said: “Have we called paid-up members of the party to see if they want to get engaged? Yes, but of course every party does that.”
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward doesn't have the backing of big business or billionaires. We rely on the kind and generous support of ordinary people like you.
You can support hard-hitting journalism that holds the right to account, provides a forum for debate among progressives, and covers the stories the rest of the media ignore. Donate today.
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