UK Local Election Partial Results Show Labour Losses and Reform UK Gains

On the morning of 8 May 2026, the political map of England looked markedly different from the one voters had drawn less than two years earlier. Partial results from 136 English councils showed Reform UK gaining 382 seats — rising from near-zero local representation to become a force in town halls across the country — while Labour shed 258 councillors and lost control of eight councils [1][2]. The Conservatives fared even worse in raw seat terms, losing 158 seats [2]. Nigel Farage declared the results "a historic change in British politics," telling reporters that "there is no more left-right" in British electoral life [1].

The question now consuming Westminster is whether Farage is right — whether these results mark a durable realignment — or whether they represent the kind of mid-term protest that fades long before a general election.

Source: Al Jazeera / BBC

Data as of May 8, 2026CSV

The Numbers: Labour's Losses and Reform's Gains

By mid-morning on 8 May, with results still coming in, Labour had lost 258 council seats and control of eight councils, retaining just 10 [2]. The party's losses were concentrated in exactly the places it can least afford to bleed support: the post-industrial towns of northern England that formed Labour's electoral bedrock for generations.

In Wigan, the constituency of Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, Labour lost all 20 seats it was defending — Reform took 24 of the 25 seats up for election [2][3]. In Tameside, Reform ended 47 years of continuous Labour control, winning all 14 seats Labour was defending [2]. In Salford, Labour held just 3 of 16 seats it defended, with Reform taking 13 [4]. Hartlepool — the town that became a symbol of Boris Johnson's 2021 "Red Wall" breakthrough — swung heavily toward Reform, which won all 12 seats on offer [1][5].

Reform UK seized control of two councils outright: Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire and, in a historic first for the party in London, the borough of Havering [2][6]. The party also made significant gains in Dudley (22 seats), Bolton, Halton, Tamworth, and Redditch, the last of which shifted from Labour control to no overall control [2][6].

The Conservatives, meanwhile, lost 158 seats overall but managed to regain control of Westminster Council [2]. The Liberal Democrats gained 35 seats and the Green Party 27 [2].

A Third-Party Breakthrough Without Precedent

Reform's 382-seat gain dwarfs every previous third-party local election breakthrough in modern British history. When UKIP — Reform's ideological predecessor, also led by Farage — shocked the political establishment in 2013, it gained 139 council seats [7]. The following year, UKIP added 128 more, but never took control of a single council [8]. The SDP-Liberal Alliance, formed in 1981, won significant vote share but struggled to convert that support into council seats under first-past-the-post.

Source: Various / Wikipedia

Data as of May 8, 2026CSV

Reform's 2026 haul is more than double its own 2025 performance of 157 gains and nearly three times UKIP's best single-year result [7][9]. The party now holds an estimated 369 or more councillors across England [1], a base of elected representation that UKIP never achieved.

Where Reform Won: Geography and Demographics

The geography of Reform's gains tells a clear story. The party performed strongest in working-class, post-industrial areas — former mining towns, manufacturing centres, and coastal communities across northern and central England [3][10]. Greater Manchester was a particular stronghold: by early morning, Reform had won 79 seats across the metropolitan area, with results still pending in Bury, Manchester, Trafford, and Rochdale [4].

In the East of England, Reform gained 11 seats in Basildon, seven each in Brentwood and Southend, and appeared on course to take control of Essex County Council [6]. In the West Midlands, YouGov's MRP model had projected Reform gains of over 20 points on multiple councils, projections that the early results bore out [11].

The pattern was consistent: Reform's strongest gains came in areas with older populations, lower levels of formal education, and strong Leave-voting records in the 2016 EU referendum [10][3]. These areas overlap substantially with the "Red Wall" seats that the Conservatives broke through in 2019 and that Labour recaptured in its July 2024 general election victory. Reform's gains were weakest in inner urban cores and university towns — environments where, as one projection noted, "their brand has consistently struggled to travel" [10].

The Polling Picture: Five Parties in a 14-Point Spread

The local election results arrived against a backdrop of extraordinary fragmentation in national polling. April 2026 averages showed Reform UK leading at 26.4%, followed by Labour at 19.1%, the Conservatives at 18.6%, the Greens at 15.6%, and the Liberal Democrats at 12.2% [12].

Source: Electoral Reform Society

Data as of Apr 30, 2026CSV

The combined Conservative-Labour vote share of 37.7% represents a dramatic collapse from the 57.4% the two parties secured at the July 2024 general election [12]. The 14.2-point gap between the first and fifth-placed parties is the smallest ever recorded by polling organisations, according to the Electoral Reform Society [12].

Under first-past-the-post, this fragmentation produces wildly disproportionate results. Electoral Calculus projected in April 2026 that Reform would win 266 Westminster seats — 159 ahead of the Conservatives and 197 ahead of Labour — despite holding only around 26% of the vote [13]. The reason: as the front-running party, Reform gains approximately ten MPs for every percentage point of vote share, compared to fewer than six for the Conservatives and fewer than three for Labour [13].

Political scientists have traditionally estimated that a third party needs to exceed roughly 25-30% nationally, with geographically concentrated support, to win significant numbers of seats under FPTP. Reform now meets both criteria.

Historical Context: Is This Normal Mid-Term Pain?

Governing parties routinely lose council seats at mid-term. Labour sources pointed to Tony Blair's loss of 1,100 councillors in 1999, after which he won re-election in a landslide in 2001 [14]. Projections suggested Labour could ultimately lose between 1,800 and 2,000 seats across the full 2026 results — a figure comparable to John Major's loss of over 2,000 seats in 1995, when his Conservative government was consumed by sleaze scandals [14][15].

But the comparison is misleading in key respects. Historically, governing parties lose between a fifth and a third of their seats in mid-term local elections [15]. Britain Elects forecast that Labour could lose two-thirds of its councillors in 2026 — a rate of attrition "virtually without precedent" [15]. Blair's 1999 losses occurred against a backdrop of 40%+ national polling; Starmer's Labour sits at 19% [12]. Major's 1995 losses preceded a historic defeat in 1997. The trajectory most analogous to Starmer's current position is not Blair's comfortable mid-term dip but Major's terminal decline.

Sir John Curtice, the UK's leading elections analyst, told the BBC the picture was "pretty much as bad as anyone expected for Labour, or worse" [2].

What Is Driving Voters to Reform?

Polling data identifies three clusters of grievance among Reform voters: immigration, the cost of living, and the state of the NHS [16][17].

Immigration is the dominant factor. Ipsos found that 72% of those considering voting Reform cite immigration and asylum as a top-tier issue, compared to 42% of the general population [17]. Among Reform-leaning voters surveyed about local priorities, 46% named immigration as their top local concern [16]. This aligns with Reform's policy platform, which centres on hardline immigration controls including a freeze on non-essential visas and accelerated deportations [18].

Cost-of-living pressures and NHS waiting lists rank as secondary but significant drivers [16]. Reform's platform proposes large tax cuts funded partly by abandoning net-zero climate commitments, and has pledged temporary zero basic-rate income tax for NHS staff [18].

The critical question is how directly these grievances map onto decisions the Starmer government has made. Labour took office in July 2024 inheriting 14 years of Conservative policy on immigration, NHS funding, and economic management. Many of the structural problems Reform voters cite — high net migration, long waiting lists, strained local services — predate Starmer's premiership. But the perception that Labour has failed to deliver change has been politically devastating. A New Statesman analysis found that just 1% of Reform voters would consider supporting Labour, suggesting these voters view Starmer's party as fundamentally unresponsive to their concerns [19].

The Conservatives: Squeezed From the Right

The Conservatives' loss of 158 seats tells only part of their story. The party entered these elections already weakened by a series of defections to Reform: Robert Jenrick, Suella Braverman, and Andrew Rosindell all crossed the floor in January 2026, bringing Reform's Commons representation to eight MPs [20].

In Leave-voting areas, the Conservatives are losing voters to Reform. In Remain-leaning southern seats, they face pressure from the Liberal Democrats. The three-way vote split — with Reform, Labour, and the Conservatives all clustered between 18% and 27% nationally — creates a volatile electoral map where small swings can produce dramatic seat changes [12][13].

Electoral Calculus projected the Conservatives winning just 107 Westminster seats on current polling — worse even than their historic 2024 result, which was already their worst showing ever [13]. The party managed to regain Westminster Council, suggesting pockets of resilience in affluent urban areas, but the overall trajectory remains sharply downward [2].

The Case Against Permanent Realignment

There are reasons to treat Reform's results with caution. Local election turnout typically runs between 30% and 40%, compared to 60%+ at general elections. Low turnout tends to amplify protest votes and penalise governing parties. Reform's gains may partly reflect the enthusiasm gap between a motivated insurgent party and a demoralised governing one.

Reform also faces structural questions about its capacity to sustain this momentum. The party claims 270,000 members, which would make it the largest party in Britain by membership [20]. But membership alone does not guarantee the candidate pipeline, local branch infrastructure, and campaign machinery needed to fight 650 constituency battles at a general election. UKIP's experience is instructive: the party surged to 27.5% in the 2014 European elections and won nearly 4 million votes in the 2015 general election, but secured just one parliamentary seat [7][8].

Reform's organisational depth has also been tested by internal tensions. A number of Reform councillors defected to a new splinter party, Restore Britain, following its creation in February 2026 [20]. The party's regional leadership structures in Scotland and Wales were only filled in early 2026 after prolonged vacancies [20].

Furthermore, Reform's national vote share has actually declined from its September 2025 peak of 31.8% to 26.4% in April 2026 — a drop of over five points even as the party gained hundreds of council seats [12]. This suggests the party's support may have a ceiling, particularly if economic conditions improve or if Labour and the Conservatives sharpen their messaging.

Curtice himself noted that "none of the parties are very big. Even Reform are probably not quite at 30% of the vote, so the fracturing of British politics is underlined by these results" [21] — a description that emphasises system-wide fragmentation rather than a simple Reform takeover.

The Case for Realignment

Against that caution, several factors distinguish Reform's 2026 breakthrough from previous third-party surges. First, unlike UKIP, Reform now has sitting MPs, having gained parliamentary representation through defections. Second, the party has taken control of actual councils — something UKIP never achieved [2][6]. Third, the geographic concentration of Reform's support in northern and midlands seats makes it far more efficient under FPTP than UKIP's more dispersed 2015 vote [13].

The voter loyalty data is also striking. The finding that just 1% of Reform voters would consider switching to Labour suggests this is not a soft, borrowable protest vote but a hardening tribal identity [19]. If Reform's voters are not "coming home" to either major party, the three-way split could persist through a general election.

The betting markets have moved accordingly, increasingly pricing in a scenario where Reform enters the next general election as the largest single party in terms of both vote share and projected seats [22].

What Happens Next

Keir Starmer responded to the results by vowing to remain as Prime Minister and insisting Labour would refocus on delivery [23]. Labour MPs, however, indicated that resignation pressure would mount if the party also loses ground in concurrent Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd elections [2]. Labour has never successfully removed an incumbent PM in its 125-year history, but these results test the boundaries of internal tolerance [2].

For Reform, the challenge shifts from winning protest votes to governing. Running two council administrations in Newcastle-under-Lyme and Havering will test whether the party can deliver on bin collections, planning decisions, and social care — the unglamorous work of local government that has humbled many insurgent movements.

For the Conservatives, the strategic dilemma is existential: tack right to compete with Reform and lose the centre, or hold the centre and watch their right flank collapse entirely. The party's new leader faces a narrowing path in an electoral landscape that no longer rewards second place.

Britain's two-party system, which has structured its politics for a century, is fracturing under the weight of five-party competition and a voting system designed for two. Whether these local elections mark a temporary convulsion or the beginning of a permanent reordering depends on questions that cannot yet be answered: whether Reform can build a governing infrastructure, whether Labour can recover its connection to working-class voters, and whether the economy improves enough to take the edge off the anger that is reshaping British politics from the ground up.