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BBC News
03-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Devon and Cornwall councils in no overall control after elections
As the dust settles on local elections in Devon and Cornwall, Martyn Oates considers what the results mean for the political picture in the South councils slipping into 'no overall control' doesn't sound like the most arresting election that apparently modest development masks 24 hours of enormous upheaval and political the vote counters stated their work on Friday morning both Cornwall Council and Devon County Council were Conservative-controlled. By the evening the party had just seven councillors left on either side of the Tamar – down from 47 in Cornwall and 39 in Devon.A party which had started out with no elected councillors at all in the region ended up the largest group on Cornwall Council and the second largest in shot from zero to 18 in Devon and to 28 in Tories' traditional rivals in the rural Westcountry, the Liberal Democrats, also made gains - adding 13 seats in Cornwall and 18 in lost one of their previous five seats in Cornwall but saw all seven of their Devon seats wiped out – with four of them going to Reform. Conservative and Labour losses Exactly where the Lib Dems and Reform made gains is almost as interesting as their total number of former will be very pleased to see a very similar footprint to their parliamentary wins last July – in seats like St Ives, North Cornwall, South Devon and Honiton and Labour and the Conservatives the opposite is often the seats Labour won for the first time last July - Camborne and Redruth, St Austell and Newquay and South East Cornwall – proved happy hunting grounds for even the great Labour citadel of Exeter – home to a Labour MP through thick and thin since 1997 – has seen all seven of its county councillors turfed Conservatives, meanwhile, will view with dismay the carpet of light blue – Reform blue – now covering the constituency of Torridge and not saying much but, as of last July, Torridge and Tavistock was the Tories' safest remaining seat in the two counties. LIVE: Follow the latest election updatesPOSTCODE LOOKUP: Check the results in your areaSIMPLE GUIDE: When will we know the rest of the results?FULL COVERAGE: Catch up on all our election storiesLocal elections 2025 in maps and charts
Telegraph
02-05-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Victorious Farage threatens Westminster's two-party system
What a morning this is turning into for Reform UK and for British politics. Nigel Farage's party has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes in one of the tightest results in electoral history. More importantly, in years to come, it might just be that today will be remembered as the beginning of the end of Westminster's two party system. After Sarah Pochin became Reform's first female MP, Mr Farage declared: 'This is phenomenal. There has been a massive swing to us – for the movement, for the Party, it's a very, very big moment indeed. What it means is that we are now the opposition.' Election nights do not get much more exciting: Reform was ahead of Labour by just four votes after the first count and added just two more votes after a full recount. This is a seat won by Labour with a 14,696 majority last year and was Labour's 49th-safest seat of the 411 they won last year. The swing from Labour to Reform was a massive 17 per cent. No wonder Richard Tice, Reform UK's deputy leader, is talking about a 'seismic shift' in British politics. Sir Keir Starmer's decision not to campaign in person in Runcorn – where Mr Farage was everywhere – is now looking decisive. The result – the closest in by-election history – means it is not just the Tories but also the Government that will now feel threatened. Their hopes that Reform would be damaged by the internal row with Rupert Lowe MP and by Mr Farage's closeness to Donald Trump appear to have been forlorn. Elsewhere, Reform won a significant victory in Greater Lincolnshire, where Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory MP, became the area's inaugural mayor. Reform has also gained scores of council seats in the local election counts going on in 23 council areas, with the Tories losing dozens of seats and Labour also down. It is looking like a terrible day for the Tories, who are defending 960 council seats and are predicted to lose all 16 of the Conservative-controlled councils that are in play. In Staffordshire, Reform was beating the Tories by four votes to one in the early rounds of counting. The Conservative leader of the council is among those who have lost their seats. In the west of England, where Labour held off a strong challenge from Reform's Arron Banks, the Tories came fourth, thousands of votes behind the third-placed Greens. The picture was almost as grim in Doncaster, where Labour's sitting mayor clung on by 700 votes from Reform and the Tories trailed in third, and in North Tyneside, where Labour held the mayoralty by a whisker from Reform, who were well ahead of the Tories. For all the talk of giving Kemi Badenoch more time to turn the Tories' fortunes around, there will inevitably be some Tory MPs who will get twitchy if the results continue to go badly. 'There's a mood of protest in the air,' conceded one senior Tory staffer when I called them this morning. In truth, the Tories never expected to hold on to council seats won in 2021 at the height of Boris Johnson's vaccine bounce. In some ways the council election results – most of which are not expected until later today or tomorrow – are more important to Reform than the Westminster by-election. At the start of the night Reform had just 128 councillors across the whole country; if they can add hundreds more to that number, they will begin to build the local networks of councillors and activists that they currently lack and which are so vital to gathering intelligence and getting out the vote ward by ward when it comes to a general election. Remember, Reform UK polled 4.1 million votes in last year's general election but only won five seats in Parliament, whereas the LibDems converted fewer votes – 3.5 million – into 72 seats, thanks to their superior ability to target resources in the right areas. If Mr Farage emerges from these and subsequent local elections with a turbocharged network of ground troops, he believes that he will be able to turn around that votes-per-seat figure. One Reform figure I spoke to early this morning pointed out that in the areas where Reform had come second, 'people can see that if you vote Tory, you get Labour', which will probably be a message that Reform keeps repeating all the way to the 2029 general election. The smaller parties are now talking about the rise of multi-party politics in Britain and they might be right. The alternative for the Tories is even worse – a straight swap from Labour v Conservative to Labour v Reform.
Daily Mail
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Tory councillors CAN form pacts with Reform at local elections, says Kemi Badenoch
The Tories expect to lose hundreds of seats to Reform this week but remaining councillors will be allowed to work with their rivals. Predictions circulating in Conservative Campaign HQ suggest that as much as 80 per cent of the 960 council seats the party gained four years ago will be wiped out in Thursday's local elections, it can be revealed. The Tories believe they will suffer the 'loss of control in all currently Conservative-controlled local authorities', according to documents seen by the Mail. And the 'majority of anticipated losses' will be to surging Reform UK, which is projected to pick up 500 seats. A gloomy assessment states the upcoming elections are in a 'markedly different electoral landscape' compared with the 'exceptionally high water-mark' of 2021 when the council seats were last fought, as the party and government enjoyed a Covid vaccine bounce. 'Given the challenging nature of the national political landscape, we should be prepared for our on-the-night performance to be in line with current national polling, if not worse,' the internal Tory memo warns. Yesterday party leader Kemi Badenoch repeated her insistence that the Tories would not enter into an official pact with Reform on a national level, despite calls among some in the party to defeat Labour by 'uniting the Right'. But she agreed Tory councillors may end up working with their opponents in town halls where they lose overall control. She told Sky News: 'I'm not going into any coalition whatsoever with Nigel Farage or Reform at national level. At local level, it's different . . . there might be no overall control. 'We are in coalition with Liberal Democrats, with Independents, we've been in coalition with Labour before at local government level. They have to look at going into coalition with and see how they can deliver for local people. 'What I don't want to hear is talks of stitch-ups or people planning things before the result is out. They have to do what's right for their communities.' It comes despite Tory Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen telling the BBC: 'If at the next election, there is a number of MPs from the Tory Party and Reform that would create a significant majority, obviously there will be a conversation to create a coalition or a pact.' Maurice Glasman, the founder of the influential Blue Labour group, said Labour 'will get its head kicked in' by Reform in the local elections. In an interview with The Observer, he said: 'Labour must be a pro-worker, patriotic party, not talking gibberish about diversity.' Reform is the favourite to win mayoral votes in two Red Wall Labour heartlands in East Yorkshire and Hull, and Greater Lincolnshire, as well as council seats across the country.
Sky News
27-04-2025
- Politics
- Sky News
Kemi Badenoch does not rule out local coalitions with Reform after Thursday's council elections
Kemi Badenoch has not ruled out forming coalitions at a local level with Reform after the council elections on Thursday. Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the Conservative leader did however categorically rule out a pact with Nigel Farage's party on a national level. "I am not going into any coalition with Nigel Farage... read my lips," she said. However, she did not deny that deals could be struck with Reform at a local level, arguing some councils might be under no overall control and in that case, "you have to do what is right for your local area". "You look at the moment, we are in coalition with Liberal Democrats, with independents," she said. "We've been in coalition with Labour before at local government level. "They [councillors] have to look at who the people are that they're going into coalition with and see how they can deliver for local people." She added: "What I don't want to hear is talks of stitch-ups or people planning things before the results are out. They have to do what is right for their communities." In response, Nigel Farage said: "The Tories broke Britain nationally for 14 years, and their councils continue to break local communities with the highest taxes ever and worst services. "Reform have no intention in forming coalitions with the Tories at any level." A total of 23 councils are up for grabs when voters go to the polls on Thursday 1 May - mostly in places that were once deemed Tory shires, until last year's general election. It includes 14 county councils, all but two of which have been Conservative-controlled, as well as eight unitary authorities, all but one of which are Tory. In addition, there is one Labour-controlled borough being contested. Ms Badenoch has set expectations low for the Tories, suggesting they could lose all the councils they are contesting. The last time this set of councils were up for election was in 2021, when the Conservative Party was led by Boris Johnson who was riding high from the COVID vaccine bounce. Despite not ruling out agreements between the Tories and Reform once the local elections have finished, Ms Badenoch has been at pains to stress she is against any kind of deal with Mr Farage at a national level. On Friday she criticised talk of "stitch-ups" ahead of next week's local elections and said she was instead focused on ensuring that voters have a "credible Conservative offer". Speculation that the Tories and Reform could join forces heightened after two senior Tories appeared to advocate for some sort of agreement between the two rival parties. Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, was captured in a video recording leaked to Sky News vowing to "bring this coalition together" to ensure that Conservatives and Reform UK are no longer competing for votes by the time of the next general election. 1:56 According to the excusive audio Mr Jenrick - who lost the Tory leadership campaign to Ms Badenoch - said he would try "one way or another" to make sure the two right-wing parties do not end up handing a second term to Sir Keir Starmer. Mr Jenrick has denied his words amounted to calling for a pact with Reform. Meanwhile, in an interview with Politico, Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen also suggested the two parties should join forces in some way. "I don't know what it looks like. I don't know whether it's a pact. I don't know whether it's a merger… [or] a pact of trust and confidence or whatever," he said. "But if we want to make sure that there is a sensible centre-right party leading this country, then there is going to have to be a coming together of Reform and the Conservative Party in some way." All of the other national parties have launched their campaigns for the local elections ahead of the poll next week. Labour Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden told Trevor Phillips that he was "not predicting huge Labour gains on Thursday". He also ruled out Labour striking deals with any other party. "The deals on offer after Thursday won't be between Labour and the Tories and Labour and Reform," he said.
ITV News
24-04-2025
- Politics
- ITV News
Rival parties predict 'excellent' and 'difficult' local elections in the South of England
Labour, Lib Dem, Conservative and Reform representatives from the region make their local election predictions on ITV Meridian's The Last Word Political parties in the South of England are assessing their chances of success on polling day, with a week to go until the local council elections. All county council seats in Kent and Oxfordshire are up for election on Thursday, 1 May. Council seats are also being contested on the unitary authorities of Buckinghamshire and Wiltshire. Liberal Democrat MP, Calum Miller, said the party was "optimistic about these elections" and hopeful of 'excellent results'. Mr Miller, who represents Bicester and Woodstock in Oxfordshire, told ITV Meridian's The Last Word: 'I hope people will see in their Liberal Democrat candidates local champions who can take forward their interests. 'We're optimistic about these elections. We hope that people will see the difference a Liberal Democrat councillor can make and that we can see some excellent results.' Oxfordshire County Council has been run by a minority Lib Dem administration since 2021. Kent County Council (KCC) has been Conservative-controlled since 1997. Reform UK are targeting the county, with party sources talking up their chances of taking control of KCC. Reform's Gary Markwell told ITV's The Last Word: 'This will be the first time that we have an opportunity to take control of a local council. That would provide an opportunity for Reform to make a mark on local government.' Labour MP Polly Billington told the monthly political programme that voting for Reform in Kent could present a "real risk" that the Conservatives retain control. Ms Billington, who represents East Thanet, said: 'It's very clear and important for people to understand that if they vote for Reform, quite often they're going to end up with either a Tory-run county council or one that's supported by Reform.' Local elections have been postponed by the government for county councils in Essex, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex and Hampshire. Elections have also been delayed for the Isle of Wight Council. Conservative MP Dame Caroline Dinenage predicted a 'difficult set of elections' for her party. Pollster Lord Hayward has predicted the Conservatives could lose hundreds of council seats across England. Polls are open from 7am till 10am on Thursday, 1st May, for council elections in Kent, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Buckinghamshire. ITV Meridian's monthly political programme, The Last Word, is on ITV1 at 10.45pm on Thursday, 24 April 2025. It is also available on ITVX.
