Reform storms to double by-election win as Labour crashes to catastrophic defeat | Politics | News | EUROtoday

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has triumphed in one other pair of council by-elections, as Labour crashed to a devastating defeat by the Greens. The rebel celebration stormed to victory within the Tottingham ward on Bury Council, coming from nothing to win 39.5% of the vote and wrest the seat from the Conservatives, whose vote share slumped by 19.1%.

And to show it isn’t simply profitable votes from the Tories, Reform additionally gained the Wigmore ward in Luton from the Liberal Democrats with 32.9% of the vote. The Lib Dems’ 30.4% was a 24.2% drop from the final time an election was contested within the seat. The Greens, in the meantime, gave Labour a bloody nostril by profitable Rossendale’s Hareholme and Waterfoot ward, with Reform knocking Sir Keir Starmer’s celebration into third.

Labour’s vote share collapsed by 27.9%, whereas the Tories misplaced 17.6%.

It signifies that within the 228 council by-elections fought since May 2025, Reform has received 80, with the Lib Dems taking 64 and Labour simply 17.

Labour has been warned it might lose as many as 2,000 councillors in a brutal night time, with the Tories additionally set to lose 1,000.

Zack Polanski’s Green Party is more likely to be an enormous beneficiary, boosting its numbers on councils throughout the nation by about 450, in accordance with main psephologist Steve Fisher.

In that 12 months, Labour received 1,661 seats, paving the way in which for a landslide General Election victory two years later.

By distinction, the backlash in opposition to Sir Keir after a sequence of scandals might make 2026 Labour’s worst defeat on document.

His premiership is claimed to be on the road after the Mandelson scandal, with questions raised over the PM’s judgement after he appointed the Labour peer as ambassador to the US regardless of his hyperlinks to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.

A nasty set of native election leads to May might heap additional stress on Sir Keir to stop, critics have warned.