Hard-right upstarts eye big gains in local UK polls

File photo: Nigel Farage, Leader of Reform UK

RUNCORN: Britain’s hard-right anti-immigrant Reform UK party is seeking to prove it is a credible political force in local elections this week that will test the popularity of Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Nigel Farage‘s upstart party is pushing to pick up scores of council and mayoral seats, as well as a parliamentary one. It is aiming to organise a serious grassroots-up challenge at the next general election, which is likely in 2029.
Its rise comes as polls show Britons are increasingly disenchanted with the country’s two establishment parties — the traditionally centre-left Labour and the right-wing Conservative Party.
At a UK parliamentary by-election on Thursday in Runcorn, an industrial town in northwest England, Reform is tipped to add to its small cohort of MPs, who achieved an unprecedented breakthrough in last year’s national polls.
“Labour’s rubbish. They tell lies. They’re the same as the Tories. We need someone different,” Reform voter, 70-year-old retiree Ann Murray, told AFP.
Euroscepticism:
Reform secured 14 per cent of the vote at the general election in July last year, winning five seats in the 650-seat parliament — an unprecedented haul for a hard-right party in the UK.
It tapped into opposition to immigration and concerns over a lack of jobs, performing well in areas that have suffered post-industrial decline and where there have been high levels of Euroscepticism.
Brexit champion Farage’s insurgents have since led several opinion polls, despite suspending one of its lawmakers, while Labour has endured a stuttering return to power after 14 years of Conservative government.
On Tuesday, Reform topped the latest YouGov poll of voting intentions in Britain with 26 per cent, three points ahead of Labour and six up on the Conservatives.
Starmer has failed to fire up the economy or reduce the number of irregular migrants arriving in England on boats from France, with almost 10,000 having reached the UK so far this year.
In 2024, that number was reached on May 24, according to interior ministry figures. Labour has also been criticised for welfare cuts, including scrapping a winter heating payment for millions of pensioners at a time when energy prices are high.
The Runcorn and Helsby by-election was sparked by Labour MP Mike Amesbury quitting after he received a suspended jail sentence for punching a man in a brawl.
Labour won the Runcorn constituency with a 53-percent vote share in July, while Reform finished a distant second with just 18 percent. But Starmer acknowledged on Monday the Runcorn by-election was “going to be tough”. “We are fighting for every vote,” he said.
‘Symbolic’:
Inside Shopping City mall, the campaign offices of Reform candidate Sarah Pochin sit alongside bargain stores and second-hand shops, evidence of a town down on its luck and fertile territory for populists.
“Something has to be done. You cannot sustain a society like this,” said 54-year-old retiree Eddie Sweeney, complaining about the cost-of-living.
He fist-bumped a Reform volunteer, behind whom lay a desk piled with leaflets claiming Pochin would “stop the boats” of migrants arriving 300 miles (480 kilometres) away on England’s southeast coast.
Labour candidate Karen Shore insisted to AFP that Reform has “no answers” to improve the National Health Service or regenerate town centres.
Taxi driver Paul Rowland said he would back Labour again. “They’ve still got time to turn things around,” the 61-year-old said. Turnout for by-elections is notoriously low.
Nevertheless, a Reform win would give the party “momentum”, said David Jeffery, a British politics lecturer at the University of Liverpool. “A Labour loss would be symbolic and it would give Labour MPs a reason to pressure the leadership to go more to the right,” he told AFP.
Starmer test:
Some 1,640 council seats across 23 local authorities are up for grabs on Thursday, as are six mayoral posts, in what is Starmer’s first test at the ballot box since becoming prime minister.
The Conservatives are also bracing for a hammering as they defend some two-thirds of the council seats, while the traditional third party the Liberal Democrats are hoping for big gains in the south.
Winning mayoralties like Greater Lincolnshire and putting hundreds of councillors in place would help Reform spread its grassroots activism.
“The flip side is that they can sometimes cause party leaders embarrassment,” said Tim Bale, politics protessor at Queen Mary University of London.
Reform has had to drop candidates for making offensive comments. The local election results will also be a verdict on Kemi Badenoch’s six-month stint as Conservative leader, as rumours persist the party could be contemplating a coalition with Reform.
Her party is expecting a difficult night since the seats were last contested in May 2021 at the height of ex-Tory PM Boris Johnson’s popularity.