The party was just 63 votes shy of pulling off a complete clean sweep in the seven by-elections.
Reform UK won a “staggering” six council by-elections overnight, and was just 63 votes shy of pulling off a complete clean sweep of all seven seats up for grabs. The party began by holding a seat on the Isle of Wight, following the resignation of its previous councillor, with 36.7% of the vote.
Then it won Hutton South ward on Brentwood council from the Tories with a 30.2 point swing, despite having not stood there previously. The Tories and Labour both collapsed by 14.5 points each. The party narrowly won the ward of Strawberry in Cheshire West, gaining 32% from a standing start and falling just 63 votes shy of Labour, despite not canvassing during the by-election. Wigan Central then fell from Labour to Reform, again with the party securing 47.2% of the vote despite not standing the last time the ward was fought.
Reform pulled off a number of stunning victories (Image: Getty)
Zia Yusuf described the results as ‘staggering’ (Image: Getty)
Perhaps most astonishing of all was in Maidstone in Kent, where the ward of Harrietsham, Lenham & North Downs held a by-election for all three of the wards councillors.
Reform UK won all three of the wards by a country mile, each of their candidates securing around 1200 votes compared to the second place Greens with 450.
Reacting to the astonishing gains, the party’s head of policy Zia Yusuf said the results were “staggering”.
“Brentwood, Wigan, Isle of Wight and 3 in Maidstone. Congratulations to the volunteers who worked so hard to make this happen and of course to our new councillors. We will change this great country.”
Reacting to Labour’s narrow win in the Strawberry by-election, Ben Walker, the pollster behind Britain Elects, warned that he had seen Reform’s vote “coming from nowhere”.
“Voters with a history of not voting… now voting.”
It’s more bad news for Kemi Badenoch ahead of her party conference (Image: Getty)
Deputy leader Richard Tice also noted that Reform’s gain in Wigan Central is in the back garden of culture secretary Lisa Nandy.
Reform now has impressive showings every Thursday, when council by-elections are held, further proving their national poll lead is a real threat to the main parties.
Mr Farage’s party swept to an astonishing victory in May’s local elections, gaining 677 councillors and 10 councils, many more than experts had predicted.
The party has led in every single national opinion poll since early April, some putting Mr Farage on more than Labour and the Tories combined.
