Farage’s Reform Party Election Surge Signals Sea Change in British Politics

The results might be the ‘beginning of a much bigger political earthquake,’ said pollster Matthew Goodwin.

Leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage addresses supporters and the media at Staffordshire County Showground after Reform UK won control of Staffordshire County Council by winning 49 out of 62 seats available with 41 percent of the overall votes on May 2, 2025 in Stafford, United Kingdom. Leon Neal/Getty Images

The Reform UK party under Nigel Farage has just seized its first by-election victory in a former Labour stronghold and has made huge gains in local elections, foreshadowing seismic shifts in English politics.

On May 2, in a by-election triggered by Labour MP Mike Amesbury’s March resignation following his assault conviction, Sarah Pochin captured the Runcorn and Helsby seat for Reform UK, defeating Labour by just six votes.

Runcorn is a typical Northern England constituency, a once-thriving bastion of working-class loyalty now in decline, where long-standing support for the incumbent Labour Party has diminished.

Voters are tilting toward Farage’s upstart movement, which is now steaming ahead of the two establishment parties, Labour and the Conservatives.

They have dominated two-party British politics for more than a century.

Voters across England also headed to the booths to vote for four regional mayors and 1,750 councilors on May 1.

As of the afternoon of May 2, Reform had also won an avalanche of council seats, including control of Staffordshire County Council and Durham County Council.

The BBC reported that as of midday on May 2, Reform had won 584 seats, with many results still to come from all corners of England.

In the United Kingdom, councilors are elected local government representatives with a range of powers and duties, who play a key role in policy development while scrutinizing council actions.

Regional mayors are more powerful, acting as directly elected executive political leaders.

Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative minister who defected to Reform after losing her seat last year, became mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, which covers about a million people.

Reform was founded in 2021 as the successor to the Brexit Party, itself formed as a spin-off of the UKIP party after Farage resigned from that organization in 2018.

After a break from front-line politics, Farage—a longtime supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump and a GB News presenter—joined Reform as its leader only in 2024, ahead of the general election in July.

“It’s been a huge night for Reform,” Farage told reporters. “This is heartland Labour Party, their vote has collapsed and much of it has come to us.”

He said that the Conservatives, historically one of the most successful parties of any modern democracy, were now “toast.”

“You’re witnessing the end of a party that’s been around since 1832,” he said.

Reform still holds five seats in the 650-member House of Commons, having won more than 4 million votes at the last general election.

In the British first-past-the-post system, the candidate with the most votes in a constituency wins the seat, even if that candidate does not secure an absolute majority.

Under the proportional representation used in countries such as Israel, Reform’s share of the national vote would have theoretically converted into a larger number of seats.

Popular former Reform UK MP Rupert Lowe lost the party whip in March amid bullying allegations, which he denies.

However, the total number of seats in Parliament held by Reform UK remains at five after the Pochin win.

Academic, writer, and pollster Matthew Goodwin told The Epoch Times, “This is a huge, huge result for Reform, which signals the beginning of a much bigger political earthquake.”

He added that winning Runcorn and Helsby, which he characterized as the “155th most Reform-friendly seat in the country,” meant that they can win much more.

Goodwin has spoken at Reform UK conferences before and has said that Britain needs a “political revolution.”

“They can win dozens and dozens of mainly Labour-held seats” across England and into Wales, he said.

“It also marks a continuation of the post-Brexit realignment, which the Conservatives squandered after 2019 by imposing mass uncontrolled immigration.”

Pollsters previously suggested that the rise in popularity of Reform UK can be attributed to frustration over the Conservative government’s handling of immigration and energy policy.

Anand Menon, professor of European politics and foreign affairs and director of the think tank UK in a Changing Europe, told The Epoch Times by email that he believed the results are “an indication of something.”

“Most obviously, the declining popularity of the two big parties (a common phenomenon across western Europe) and the fragmentation of the party system,” he said.

However, he was more skeptical about the results at this time.

“It’s a by-election, only some seats were contested, and we’re a long way from a [general election],” he said.