Reform UK has emerged as the unambiguous victor of Thursday’s English local elections, securing more than 1,350 council seats and taking outright control of 13 councils, in what the party’s leader Nigel Farage described on Saturday as Labour “being wiped out” across many of its most traditional areas. As the final declarations rolled in through the weekend, Labour had lost control of 35 councils and more than 1,300 seats — the worst local election performance for a governing party in more than a generation, and a result that has left Sir Keir Starmer’s authority visibly cracking just ten months into his premiership.
The numbers: more than 5,000 seats up for grabs
An excess of 5,000 English council seats were on the ballot on Thursday 7 May 2026, with declarations continuing through Friday and into Saturday afternoon. Reform UK’s vote share, modelled by political scientists at BBC News and Sky News on Saturday, projects to around 30 per cent of the national vote, ahead of Labour on roughly 20 per cent and the Conservatives on 18 per cent. The Liberal Democrats made gains in the southern shires, while the Greens — under their new leader Zack Polanski, the Jewish pro-Palestinian London Assembly Member appointed in 2025 — picked up modest but symbolically valuable additional seats including in Newcastle, Bristol and inner London.
Farage: ‘Leader of the pack’
Nigel Farage, speaking to supporters on Friday in Romford, declared his party the “leader of the pack” and signalled that Reform would now mount what he called a “serious and credible challenge to Labour at the next general election”, expected by 2029. The MP for Clacton-on-Sea told reporters: “Labour is being wiped out by us in many of their most traditional areas. Working people are sending Westminster a message it cannot pretend not to hear.” Reform’s gains were concentrated in the post-industrial Midlands and northern England, with breakthrough wins in Doncaster, Hull, Barnsley, Mansfield, Boston and across the so-called Red Wall constituencies that Labour had reclaimed from the Conservatives in 2024.
Starmer’s authority: a ‘humiliating defeat’
For Sir Keir Starmer, the verdict is grim. Tim Bale, professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London, told Al Jazeera over the weekend: “The results certainly look as if the message we’ve been getting from opinion polls for months now is spot-on. Keir Starmer’s authority had been damaged before these elections, and there must come a point when the self-interest of Labour MPs make a challenge to his premiership happen. Recovery becomes ever less likely for the prime minister with each defeat and setback.” Internal Labour Party briefings reported by The Times, The Guardian and The Telegraph over the weekend suggest that backbench discontent is hardening, with senior figures including soft-left and Blue Labour MPs reportedly weighing whether to demand a substantive policy reset before the autumn conference.
Capital and county: the regional pattern
In London, the picture was distinct from the national pattern. The capital’s borough elections, declared on Friday and Saturday, saw Labour retain most of inner London but lose ground in the outer boroughs, with the Conservatives becoming the largest party in Wandsworth (no overall control), Aspire’s Lutfur Rahman re-elected as Mayor of Tower Hamlets with 38.8 per cent on 35,679 votes, and the Greens making striking advances in Hackney and Islington. Reform UK won fewer London seats than nationally — single-figure gains across boroughs including Havering, Bexley and Bromley — but the party’s sub-10 per cent national vote share in London (vs ~30 per cent nationally) confirms what political scientists call “the great London-versus-England divergence” first identified after the 2024 general election.
The Greens and Liberal Democrats: the quiet third forces
While Reform UK dominated the national headlines, the Liberal Democrats consolidated control of councils across the south-west and Home Counties, and the Greens added councillors in Bristol, Brighton, Newcastle, Stroud and inner London boroughs. Nick Hartley, a Newcastle-based Green councillor, told Al Jazeera: “Green politics is grassroots, community politics. Voters who cannot stomach Reform but feel let down by Labour’s caution on climate, on Gaza, on inequality, are looking for a credible left-of-Labour alternative — and increasingly finding us.” Polanski’s Greens are running explicitly as the party of “democratic socialism, climate emergency response and ethical foreign policy”, and the leadership change appears to be paying modest electoral dividends.
What this means for the next election
For the next UK general election — expected to be held by 2029 but increasingly speculated about for sooner — Thursday’s results redraw the political map. Reform UK is no longer a protest insurgency confined to opinion polls and Westminster by-elections; it is now a substantive force of local-government incumbency, with the staff, the campaign infrastructure and the experience of running councils to deploy nationally. Labour faces a strategic choice between leftward consolidation (chasing Green and softer Reform-curious voters back) and centrist defence (holding the suburbs and the South). The Conservative Party — relegated to third place in vote share for the first time in living memory — must decide whether to attempt to absorb Reform’s voters or position itself as the steady alternative for those frightened by both Reform’s populism and Labour’s leadership vacuum. Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, has the most uncomfortable summer of his political career ahead of him.
