The electorate knows the difference between a party that wants change and one that has to be pressured to deliver it.
Keir Starmer is scrambling for Labour votes (Image: PA)
As the counting from tomorrow’s local elections begins in earnest on the evening of May 1, it’s highly likely Britain’s political map will be undergoing a serious redraw. Because with more than 1,600 wards, several mayoralties, and even a parliamentary seat, up for grabs, the winners aren’t looking like the usual suspects. Labour, nine months into government, is already suffering a freefall in popularity. The Tories, meanwhile, are discovering that irrelevance isn’t a cliff you fall off – it’s a slow, painful slide into oblivion. Instead, all eyes are on Reform and, to a lesser extent, the Lib Dems.
The big story of the day is that Reform UK has gone from fringe irritant to political threat. A year ago, they were barely on the radar. Today, they’re storming the cockpit. At the heart of this shift is voter frustration. In Reform’s Midlands and East of England strongholds, the message is clear: people feel abandoned. In Kent, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, the Tories are watching their once-reliable wards flirt with Reform – not out of disloyalty, but sheer exasperation.
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Immigration, sovereignty, and crime dominate concerns, especially in places like East Kent, Boston, and Runcorn, where voters feel Westminster hasn’t listened for decades.
With small boat arrivals and concern about asylum hotels symbolising political inaction, Reform’s tough stance on immigration resonates. Their leaflets are blunt, and voters say they’re tired of being labelled racist for raising valid concerns.
Labour’s Runcorn candidate, Karen Shore, found out the hard way when her asylum hotel pledge was slammed as “callous” – though locals barely blinked. The irony? Labour is trying to be tough on immigration, while Reform actually sounds like it means it.
Up north, Labour is losing its grip in Red Wall seats. Doncaster and Durham are thorns in Starmer’s side. Reform is eyeing Doncaster’s mayoralty and council control. And Durham, a Labour heartland for a century until 2021, may stay in limbo.
Starmer’s choice? Lean right and alienate the urban base, or stay left and keep haemorrhaging working-class votes. The middle ground? Not much of a strategy when you’re being squeezed from both ends.
The Tories aren’t faring any better. Their 2021 electoral high under Boris Johnson has turned toxic. Councils like Shropshire, Derbyshire, and Gloucestershire are watching their blue walls crumble.
Reform isn’t just nipping at their heels – in places like Lincolnshire, they’re taking big bites. The Tories might scrape through in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough thanks to Paul Bristow, but when your grassroots are vanishing, it’s cold comfort.
Andrea Jenkyns’ likely win for Reform in Greater Lincolnshire sums it up. A former Tory minister turned Faragist firebrand, she represents the shift from Conservative pragmatism to Reform populism. With polling showing her at 40% to the Tories’ 25%, it’s a brutal indictment.
Meanwhile, in the southeast’s leafy suburbs, the Lib Dems are hoovering up Remainers and tactical voters. But let’s be honest: many of their gains are less about love for Davey and more about Tory collapse.
Take Kent again where Mike Martin, Lib Dem MP for Tunbridge Wells, says the west of the county (in other words, the posh bits) is going yellow, while the east is turning Reform red. Nationally, it’s the same pattern: Lib Dems wooing the squeezed middle, while Reform is galvanising the furious fringe.
Still, Reform’s Achilles’ heel is organisation. They’ve nailed the message but lack the machinery. This election proves they can win – but also where they must build. A chaotic HQ and patchy local structure could limit what might otherwise be a real political moment.
Even calls for a Tory-Reform merger aren’t gaining much traction given the mutual suspicion and personality clashes of both party leaders. Nonetheless, Labour is certainly feeling the pinch from the right. Just look no further than its sudden hardline turn on asylum seekers.
The Government wants to deny asylum to anyone convicted of a sexual offence – a change which begs the question: why were they allowed to claim it in the first place? And if Labour is willing to breach ECHR rules now, why not earlier? Obviously they could have acted but chose not to. This reeks of panic, not principle. because they know what’s coming.
Today’s results certainly aren’t just about bins and bus routes. They’re a public reckoning – a referendum on a political class that stopped listening. Labour is flailing, the Tories are collapsing, the Lib Dems are opportunistic as ever – and Reform, for all its faults, is channelling something real.
If politics is about capturing the public mood, Reform is winning. The challenge is to turn that anger into structure and that protest into permanence. Because tonight might not just be a good night – it might be the beginning of something much bigger.
After all, when voters are this fed up, they don’t just want change. They want revenge.
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