English local elections live: Farage says ‘it’s the beginning of the end of the Conservative party’ after sweeping Reform triumphs
Farage claims these elections mark ‘beginning of the end of the Conservative party’
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has claimed that these elections mark “the beginning of the end of the Conservative party”.
Speaking at a rally in Consett in Country Durham, he said:
[This is] the beginning of the end of the Conservative party. They may well have been around since 1832 and the Great Reform Act, but they’ve been wiped out in the shires of England, wiped out in those West Midlands, southern, south-western areas where they’ve got their members, they’ve got their councillors, they’ve got their base, they raise the money. They all frankly cease to exist.
And they now become an obstacle. Because what is perfectly clear, given those mayoral contests in both Donny [Doncaster] and indeed North Tyneside, is that whilst we clearly are the main challenges to Labour in the Midlands and the north, if you vote Conservative you stop our chances of winning. If you vote Conservative, you get Labour.
But if you vote Reform in the Midlands and the north, from now up until the general election, you get Reform.
Sky News has the clip.
Key events
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Farage suggests Reform UK could cut DEI jobs and working from home
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Davey claims today’s results put Lib Dems on track to overtake Tories at next general election
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Tories lose control of Hertfordshire to NOC
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Badenoch insists Tories are still main opposition holding ‘Labour to account’
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Lib Dems win control of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils
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Public ‘fed up’ with Labour but ‘not yet ready to trust’ Tories, Badenoch says
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Reform UK win Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral election
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Tories lose Leicestershire county council to no overall control
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Reform UK at 30% in national vote share, BBC says – with Lab 20%, LDs 17% and Tories 4th on record low at 15%
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Tories lose Warwickshire to no overall control
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Scottish ministers drop plans to outlaw misogyny and conversion practices
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‘We’re going to win next election on our own’ – Farage says he won’t do deal with Tories because he doesn’t need to
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Farage says Reform UK-led councils will try to block attempts to force them to accept asylum seekers in hotels
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‘They are not laughing now’ – Farage says people who dismissed idea he could ever be PM must rethink
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Farage claims these elections mark ‘beginning of the end of the Conservative party’
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Reform UK wins Kent council council from Tories
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Reform UK wins Lancashire county council from Tories
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Tories lose Devon county council, with Lib Dems now biggest party
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Tories claim win in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoral contest shows party is ‘making inroads into Labour vote’
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John McDonnell says Labour should respond to election defeat by grasping ‘nettle of redistribution’
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Jacob Rees-Mogg says ‘conservatism having fantastic 24 hours’, as he urges Tories and Reform UK to work together
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Reform UK gains control of Durham county council from no overall control
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Badenoch says elections were always going to be difficult for Tories, and renewal has ‘only just begun’
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Diane Abbott says Starmer wrong to say Labour should respond to defeats with ‘more of the same’, just ‘further and faster’
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Reform UK takes control of Staffordshire county council from Tories
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Starmer defends budget that cut winter fuel payments as Labour campaigners blame it for government’s unpopularity
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Starmer says he must respond to byelection defeat by going ‘further and faster on the change’
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Runcorn result shows UK faces ‘extreme rightwing government’ if Starmer does not change, Labour MP says
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Ed Davey claims middle England ‘switching even more to the Liberal Democrats’
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Starmer needs to show he’s listening, says Labour’s mayor of Doncaster, who only narrowly beat Reform UK
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Reform UK supporters more interventionist and protectionist than average voters, poll suggests
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Green party suggests special educational needs provision could be at risk with Reform UK running councils
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Badenoch’s position as Tory leader ‘solid’, says Tory co-chair Nigel Huddleston
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Farage says Reform UK on course to take control of Lincolnshire and Staffordshire county councils from Tories
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Tories reject claim Reform UK now main opposition to Labour – but admitting winning back trust will take ‘a long time’
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Runcorn result shows why Labour needs to stop offering ‘more of the same’, leftwing groups Momentum and Compass say
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Reform UK gains 23 seats on Northumberland county council, which remains NOC as all results declared
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Prof John Curtice says Reform currently 10 pts ahead of Tories in councils results, and FPTP now helping them come first
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Andrea Jenkyns says Reform will end ‘soft-touch Britain’, and suggests migrants should be housed in tents, not hotels
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Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election: full results
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Reform UK’s Andrea Jenkyns elected mayor of Greater Lincolnshire
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How vote share changed in Runcorn and Helsby
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Nigel Farage claims victory in Runcorn means Reform UK now main opposition to Labour
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Tories claim Runcorn result suggests Starmer ‘on course to be one-term PM’
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Labour says Runcorn defeat shows government must ‘move faster’ on Plan for Change
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Runcorn and Helsby byelection: full results
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Reform UK officially win Runcorn and Helsby byelection by six votes
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Another win for Labour in Doncaster
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West of England mayoral race called for Labour
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The latest from Doncaster, with results imminent
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Full recount in Runcorn and Helsby
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Runcorn and Helsby: some ballot papers recounted
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Local elections 2025: full mayoral and council results for England
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Labour has narrowly held the mayoralty of north Tyneside, less than 500 votes ahead of Reform
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England local elections 2025: is your council up for election and what’s at stake?
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Opening summary
The Liberal Democrats believe they have won control of Shropshire county council for the first time, but there hasn’t been an official declaration yet.
The Lib Dems need 38 seats for an overall majority here. I’ll update once there is a confirmation of the results.
Nigel Farage has declared a new dawn before, but this time things could really be different, writes my colleague Kiran Stacey.
You can read his analysis here:
The government needs “a change of plan”, a long-serving Labour MP has said following the local elections.
Emma Lewell, who has represented South Shields since 2013, said in a post on X:
Trust matters. If you promise people that you will be focused on serving the public and then do not listen to them, do not expect them to vote for you.
Withdrawal of winter fuel, denial of compensation for the Waspi women, and proposed disability cuts, have all broken that trust.
And, referring to Starmer’s post-election comments (see 11.35am BST), Lewell wrote:
It is tone deaf to keep repeating we will move further and faster on our plan for change.
What is needed is a change of plan.
Farage suggests Reform UK could cut DEI jobs and working from home
Nigel Farage has told BBC Look North that Reform UK will be a “radical, a breath of fresh air in county hall” and that his party will have a “very different approach to local government”.
He also suggested that Reform UK could cut diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) jobs and working from home. Farage told the BBC:
There is too much wasteful expenditure, and trying to do too many things, we want to try and change that.
If you work from home, forget it. If you’re a DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] officer, I suggest you look for another job.
Davey claims today’s results put Lib Dems on track to overtake Tories at next general election
Voters have “chosen our community politics over the Conservative party’s neglect and disdain”, Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has said.
Davey said:
We have overtaken the Conservatives at these local elections, putting us on track to overtake them at the next general election too.
From Wiltshire to Oxfordshire, from Shropshire to Devon, the Liberal Democrats have replaced the Conservatives as the party of middle England.
Lifelong Conservative voters have put their faith in the Liberal Democrats because they are appalled by the Conservatives lurching to the extremes and cosying up to Nigel Farage.
Kemi Badenoch sneered at the Liberal Democrats for being the party that will fix your church roof. Today voters across the country have chosen our community politics over the Conservative party’s neglect and disdain.”
Tories lose control of Hertfordshire to NOC
The Conservatives lost control of Hertfordshire to no overall control (NOC) after losing 21 seats as Reform UK gained 13 and the Liberal Democrats nine, reports the PA news agency.
The new council has the Lib Dems as the largest party with 31, Conservatives on 22, Reform UK on 14, Labour and Greens five each and one independent.
After final results were in from 16 of the 23 English councils holding elections, Reform UK had almost 500 councillors, after gaining 476 seats, with the Liberal Democrats in second place with 237, up 86.
The Conservatives had 199 seats, down 411, and Labour 56, after losing 137 seats, leaving Keir Starmer’s party one behind the Greens, who were up 29, while independents had 55 councillors, down 61.
Kemi Badenoch has said that Labour, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK are all threats to the Conservatives.
Speaking to reporters, Badenoch said:
This is a very competitive political environment, all of the parties have always been competitors to us.
They are all threats, whether it’s Labour, Lib Dem or Reform, and the way we win is by making sure that people can see that this is an authentic Conservative party that stays true to its principles and its values, and that those values reflect the values of the majority of people in the country.
The Liberal Democrats have said they have replaced the Tories as the “party of middle England” after winning control of Oxfordshire county council for the first time.
A Lib Dem spokesperson shared the following statement:
We have replaced the Conservatives as the party of middle England.
Kemi Badenoch’s party have taken a pasting at these elections in a set of results that can only been described as a humiliation.
The Lib Dems also won control of Cambridgeshire county council for the first time (see 5.27pm BST).
The Lib Dems gained 16 seats in Oxfordshire to win the council from no overall control (NOC), with Greens up four, Conservatives down eight, independents down three, Labour down two and Reform UK down one. The new council is Lib Dem 36, Labour 12, Conservative 10, Green seven, independent two, resident one and Reform UK one.
The Lib Dems also gained control of Cambridgeshire from NOC after picking up eight seats, with Reform UK gaining 10 and Greens three, as the Conservatives lost 10, independents six and Labour five. The new council is Lib Dem 31, Conservative and Reform UK both 10, Labour five, Green three and independents two.
Badenoch insists Tories are still main opposition holding ‘Labour to account’
Kemi Badenoch has insisted that the Conservatives are still the main opposition, and that they are “holding Labour to account” on issues such as education and the economy.
According to the PA news agency, when asked if the Tories can still claim to be the main challenger to Labour, Badenoch told reporters:
Yes, we are. I am the leader of the opposition. We have 120 MPs in parliament. The country made the Conservative party the opposition.
She said that “one of the ways we’re going to rebuild trust is to make sure we do that job properly”.
She added:
We are the opposition, and we will continue to hold Labour’s feet to fire and make sure that Keir Starmer is the one-term prime minister.
Lib Dems win control of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils
The Liberal Democrats have won control of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils, reports the PA news agency.
The party were previously the biggest in Oxfordshire with 20 seats, and largest in Cambridgeshire with 23.
This time the Lib Dems had won the 36 seats in Oxfordshire, achieving the 35 needed for a majority, while in Cambridgeshire they had won the 31 seats needed to take control.
Here are the results from the Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral election where Luke Campbell of Reform UK won. You can see the number of votes and vote share each party received.
Public ‘fed up’ with Labour but ‘not yet ready to trust’ Tories, Badenoch says
Kemi Badenoch has told Conservative councillors who have lost their seats she is “sincerely sorry” and that while the public are “fed up” with Labour, they are not yet ready to trust the Tories.
According to the PA news agency, Badenoch said:
What I saw everywhere I campaigned was that people are fed up with the Labour government.
They were angry about winter fuel payments. They were angry about the jobs tax, but they are still not yet ready to trust us. We have a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public.
That’s the job the Conservative party has given me and I am going to make sure that we get ourselves back to the place where we are seen as the credible alternative to Labour.
In a message to Conservative councillors, she described “how sincerely sorry I am for your loss” but pledged that “we are going to win those seats back”.
Reform UK win Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral election
Former boxer and Olympic medallist Luke Campbell has won the new Hull and East
Yorkshire mayoral election for Reform UK, reports the PA news agency.
There were six mayoral elections yesterday. Labour has won three of them, Reform UK have won two and the Conservatives have won one.
Andrew Sparrow
Normally most seats that are being contested at local elections don’t change hands. But this year is different, according to this chart from Dylan Difford, a data specialist at YouGov. He posted this on Bluesky.
Anyone telling you there’s anything normal about these locals is talking out their arse. Below, gains and losses as a proportion of total contests in every set of locals in the last 50 years – provisional numbers, based on 62% of seats declared.
That is all from me for today. Amy Sedghi is taking over now.
These are from Rob Ford, a politics professor, on Bluesky on the PNS figures.
BBC PROJECTED NATIONAL SHARES:
Reform 30
Lab 20
Lib Dem 17
Cons 15
Greens 11
Oth 7
Reform’s 30 is best ever for a third party, exceeding high water mark of LDs in mid 2000s. Cons 15 (and 4th) worst ever. Lab 20 joint worst ever.
UKIP’s best ever showing was 22, so this is a long way ahead of that. Reform are getting a big FPP boost in seat terms too – their share of seats is ahead of their share of votes in all the councils with full results. FPP benefits the biggest parties, and the biggest party this week is Farage’s
Tories lose Leicestershire county council to no overall control
The Conservatives have lost Leicestershire county council to no overall control.
Reform UK at 30% in national vote share, BBC says – with Lab 20%, LDs 17% and Tories 4th on record low at 15%
The BBC has now released its projected national share (PNS) figures for these elections.
The PNS figure is not the actual share of the vote. The actual share of the vote would be relatively meaningless, because elections only too place in some parts of the country (shire counties, mostly, this year – which historically have been more Tory-leaning). Instead, it is a calculation, based on information about how various population demographics voted, projecting what the result would have been if local elections had been held in every part of Britain.
(There is more about how it is calculated in this blog by John Curtice and Steven Fisher.)
So, in one respect, this is a made-up number. But it is a number that BBC psephologists have been producing, on the same basis, every year since 1982, and so it is a reliable guide to performance.
Here are the figures.
And this is how the figures compared to the PNS figures for last year.
For the Tories, these are the lowest PNS figures they have had in local elections since the BBC started producing this figure. Their previous lowest was 25%, which they hit in 1995, in 2013 and in 2024.
And the Labour PNS figure, 20%, is its joint lowest. It only fell this low once before, in 2009.
Tories lose Warwickshire to no overall control
The Conservatives have lost Warwickshire county council to no overall control.
