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'POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE'
‘We’re parking our tanks on lawns!’ – Reform gloat after seismic by-election victory leaving Keir ‘disappointed’
The seat had been overwhelmingly won by Labour at the last election
SIR Keir Starmer has admitted he is “disappointed” after Labour lost one of its safest seats to Reform UK in an extroardinary by-election shocker.
The Runcorn and Helsby seat was dramatically taken by Reform’s Sarah Pochin by just six votes after a nail-biting recount.
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The result has sent panic through the party, with MPs from across Labour’s ranks now demanding a reset of Sir Keir Starmer's premiership.
Speaking to broadcasters at a defence facility this morning, the PM said the result was “disappointing”.
He added: “What I want to say is, my response is we get it. We were elected in last year to bring about change.”
Saying his party had “started that work” by bringing down NHS waiting lists, Sir Keir added: “I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see.”
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A jubilant Mr Farage this morning hailed the by-election triumph and wider positive local election results flooding in across England.
He said: "For the movement, for the party, it's a very, very big moment indeed, absolutely, no question, and it's happening right across England."
Sarah Pochin - who has become Reform's fifth MP - added : "We have made history here tonight."
She won 12,645, scraping past her Labour rival's 12,639 in the closest by-election result in history.
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In key developments:
- Reform are making the most gains in council elections at the expense of both Labour and the Tories
- Reform's Dame Andrea Jenkyns stormed to an emphatic victory in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty
- In another historic breakthrough, Reform won control of Staffordshire Council, Lincolnshire Council and Durham County Council.
- Labour clung on to the Doncaster mayoralty by just 700 votes over Reform
- Doncaster's Labour mayor attacked Sir Keir after her majority was drastically cut
- The PM's party also held the West of England and North Tyneside mayoralties
- Labour MPs are urging Sir Keir Starmer to "change course"
A night of high-drama saw Reform initially claim victory by just four votes, sparking Labour to demand a full recount.
It forced election officials to tally the ballots all over again, before a beaming Mr Farage swept into the counting hall just before 6am.
After Reform's victory, he put a large part of his party's success down to government failures on illegal immigration.
He highlighted anger at the 750 small boat migrants currently housed in Runcorn.
The Brexiteer added: "We are not a protest party, even though there is much to protest about."
The Runcorn by-election was triggered after then Labour MP Mike Amesbury punched a constituent to the ground in a fit of rage.
He quit the Commons following a suspended prison sentence, triggering the contest deep in Red Wall territory.
Reform UK's Deputy Leader Richard Tice said his party had delivered a "political earthquake".
He told Times Radio: Mr Tice told Times Radio: “It’s certainly a political earthquake because up and down the country in some 650 elections, give or take, voters have voted and the votes are coming in against the main two parties, against the failures at every level....
"We’re parking our tanks on the Tory lawns of Lincolnshire and we are taking Labour seats in the Labour heartlands, the Hartlepools, the Tynesides of this world. And it’s pretty remarkable.”
Licking their wounds, a Labour spokesman said: "By-elections are always difficult for the party in government and the events which led to this one being called made it even harder.
"Voters are still rightly furious with the state of the country after 14 years of failure and clearly expect the Government to move faster with the plan for change."
But furious Labour MPs have already started calling for the Prime Minister to "change course".
Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, said Sir Keir Starmer’s first 10 months in power “haven’t been good enough or what the people want”.
He has previously criticised the Government for the welfare cuts and presiding over the closure of the Grangemouth oil refinery.
Mr Leishman wrote on X: “Runcorn shows Labour must change course. People voted for real change last July and an end to austerity.
“The first 10 months haven’t been good enough or what the people want and if we don’t improve people’s living standards then the next government will be an extreme Right-wing one.”
And leftie backbancher Richard Burgon, who served in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, said: “Labour’s defeat in Runcorn was entirely avoidable and is the direct result of the party leadership’s political choices."
In the wider local elections taking place across England, Reform have been hoovering up Labour and Tory council seats.
By 3pm, the right-wing insurgents had gained 175 seats, with Labour down 72 and the Tories down 124.
They bagged seats from Kent to Northumberland and, for the first time ever, won control of swathes of county councils.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the “renewal of our party has only just begun” as she acknowledged a “very difficult set of elections” for the Conservatives.
In a post on X, she said: “These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021, and our historic defeat last year – and so it’s proving.
“The renewal of our party has only just begun and I’m determined to win back the trust of the public and the seats we’ve lost, in the years to come.”
Elections guru Professor Sir John Curtice hailed the "remarkable results" gained by Reform.
He told the BBC: "Reform are in business. They are a major challenge."
Pollsters Ipsos added: "Reform UK look like the real deal this morning. That doesn’t mean that Nigel Farage can start measuring the curtains to Number 10, but their increase in support across the country and narrow victory in Runcorn lends credibility to his claim that Reform are now the main opposition to Labour."
Sir Keir would have hoped to cling on to the North West constituency despite it becoming an early Reform target.
Mr Farage’s party threw the kitchen sink at the constituency, which is fertile territory for the insurgents looking to make inroads into working class, Brexit-leaning areas.
Four years ago when these council seats were last up for grabs, Sir Keir suffered a humiliating defeat in the Hartlepool by-election which led him to the brink of resigning.
More than 1,600 council seats are in play across 23 local authorities in England, making it the biggest first electoral test since last July’s general election.
Votes are currently being counted and results will pour in throughout Friday.
The Tories went into the elections defending the most seats and are therefore equally expected to lose the most.
Kemi Badenoch is forecast to lose as many as 475-525 from 2021 when these seats were last contested.
What does Reform's rise mean for Labour and the Tories?
By MARTINA BET, Political Correspondent
REFORM UK’s surge is a political earthquake for both the Conservatives and Labour.
For the Tories, it raises the brutal question: do they strike a pact with Nigel Farage or risk being wiped out by vote-splitting?
One thing is certain, the pressure on unpopular Tory chief Kemi Badenoch to act will only grow in the months ahead, with senior Conservatives already actively briefing newspapers and warning that time is running out.
For Labour, the threat is different - do they move further right to win back Reform-curious voters, or risk losing progressives to the Greens and Lib Dems?
Either choice carries danger.
These local elections show the old two-party system is crumbling, with Britain’s political map beginning to look more like mainland Europe - fractured, volatile, and multi-party.
Reform is now a serious force, not a protest movement, and Farage has momentum, visibility, and growing local infrastructure.
Both the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition are now under pressure to rethink their strategies — or risk being overtaken from the flanks.
WATCH LIVE Local Elections 2025: Polls close as Labour braces for pummelling
Bracing for a bruising night, she has played down impending losses as a mere “correction” to the heights reached four years ago under Boris Johnson.
Riding high in the polls following a Covid vaccine bounce, it was an emphatic victory last time that led Mr Johnson daring to dream he could have a decade in power.
The main beneficiary of the Tory slump is set to be Mr Farage, who is forecast to snaffle between 400 to 450 council seats largely in the Midlands and the North.
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Reform has all the momentum
By Ryan Sabey, Deputy Political Editor
NIGEL Farage knew the importance of this week - winning the by-election and making ground in local polls up and down the country.
Politics - just like football - is a results based business and Reform will take that win in Runcorn even by six votes.
I was out on the road with Mr Farage this week and he told me this week was going to be a "big hurdle".
If they didn't win, many would speculate that the bubble may have burst for the Westminster insurgents.
They needed this win for momentum as it's the 'Big mo' that means so much.
They are on the march picking up the Lincolnshire mayoralty and missing out narrowly in other places.
Labour have known that Farage is eating into their vote but the way they are attacking their heartlands will seriously worry party bosses this morning.
When he was drumming up votes in Runcorn yesterday, Nigel Farage said he wanted to smash the old two party system.
He didn't say it lightly - and it looks like it could be on the cards. Who needs a pact with the Tories?
Labour strategists have been managing expectations by insisting the council seats up for grabs are not their naturally fertile terrain.
On Thursday evening after polls closed, party chairman Ellie Reeves said the elections were always going to be tricky."
She said: "These elections were always going to be a challenge, being held largely in areas dominated by the Conservatives, often for decades."
She added: "We know people aren’t yet fully feeling the benefit and we are just as impatient for change as the rest of the country.
"However the results turn out this evening, this Labour government will go further and faster in turning our country around and giving Britain the future it deserves.”
Labour's Ros Jones was re-elected as Mayor of Doncaster but with a heavily reduced majority following a Reform surge.
After scraping in by just 700 votes, she publicly attacked Sir Keir's record.
Speaking to broadcasters minutes after winning, she hit out at the PM's decision to axe universal winter fuel payments, and raise taxes.
She told the BBC: “I think the results here tonight will demonstrate that they need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street, and actually deliver for the people, with the people.”
A Tory spokesman said: "Ros Jones has barely been re-elected as Labour Mayor of Doncaster - and her first move? Publicly tearing into Keir Starmer’s failing government."
She added: "The people of Doncaster know how hard life can be.
"I think they [the government] need to look again as putting up the cost of national insurance is hitting some of the smaller businesses and of course the PIP which many people are worried about now."
But they are facing a major offensive from Reform who smell an upset in this working class stronghold.
Mr Farage has set his sights on the ultimate prize of becoming Prime Minister.
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Despite leading a start-up party with a mere rump of MPs in the Commons, he has stormed up the opinion polls to even top some recent surveys.
Public frustration with immigration, wokeism and a struggling Tory party has presented an opening for Reform to cut through.
Runcorn tightest by-election in history
REFORM UK’s jaw-dropping six-vote win in Runcorn and Helsby has smashed the record for the narrowest post-war by-election victory. Until now, no party had taken a Westminster seat with a majority in single digits.
Here’s how it compares to the closest contests of the past:
Runcorn and Helsby (2025) – Reform UK majority: 6
Berwick-upon-Tweed (1973) – Liberal majority: 57
Walthamstow West (1967) – Labour majority: 62
West Derbyshire (1986) – Conservative majority: 100
Leyton (1965) – Labour majority: 205
Torrington (1958) – Liberal majority: 219
Central Norfolk (1962) – Conservative majority: 220
Ashfield (1977) – Labour majority: 264
Birmingham Northfield (1982) – Labour majority: 289
Dunbartonshire West (1950) – Labour majority: 293
But while Runcorn and Helsby is the closest-fought by-election in post-war history, a handful of general election results have been even tighter - including North East Fife in 2017, where the SNP clung on by just two votes.
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