In this year’s local elections, we had a great showing. The Liberal Democrats gained 163 councillors, majority control of three county councils and now lead in five hung councils. The Conservatives and Labour were both clearly rebuked for their track records. Is it any wonder that a running theme of the election coverage has been the ‘death of two-party politics’?
However, we cannot deny that was a great night for Reform UK. They have won the concurrent Runcorn and Helsby by-election, and gained 677 new councillors, control of ten councils, and the newly created mayoralties of Hull and East Yorkshire, and Greater Lincolnshire. And they are now the leading party in three hung councils.
The grossly distortive First Past the Post system and low turnout did help Reform. Sarah Pochin won in Runcorn and Helsby by only four votes, the narrowest margin of victory in a postwar by-election, and Andrea Jenkyns and Luke Campbell won their mayoralty elections with less than half of votes cast and on turnouts of less than thirty per cent. The system which Labour and the Conservatives have benefitted from, for the past century, hobbled them at these elections, and yet they are still tacitly defending it, believing that aping Reform to sway their voters is the best course of action.
(For the sake of transparency, prior to joining the Liberal Democrats in 2017, I had helped deliver leaflets for Andrea Jenkyns for her 2015 general election campaign as the Conservative candidate for Morley and Outwood.)
Reform have capitalised on their status as an anti-establishment opposition party. However, they are now in power in many parts of the country, responsible for providing services that have the most immediate impact on people’s lives. They lack substantive policies on matters other than on red meat issues, namely immigration. Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice admitted that their councils would be unable to end the accommodation of asylum seekers in hotels, and London Assembly member Alex Wilson has been extremely cagey about whether Reform-run councils would enact austerity.
It is possible that Reform will use their victories as carte blanche to do whatever they wish in the authorities they currently control. There have been reports that they will replicate DOGE at the local level, an institution which has made harmful cuts to disease research and international aid, ordered the firing of thousands of experienced civil servants which the Trump administration is trying to rehire, and has demonstrated little accountability or transparency. If DOGE is replicated at the local level, residents will be harmed, even those who voted Reform out of a desire for change.
Talking head Alex Phillips has admitted that councillors will be on a ‘learning curve’. Whether praising Jimmy Savile after the revelations of his crimes or stating that it was a mistake to fight Hitler, some Reform candidates have demonstrated that they are unsuitable prospective officeholders. If and when Reform fail in local government, are they likely to own up to their mistakes? With Andrea Jenkyns having stormed out of a Sky News interview following her victory, they may try to insulate themselves from scrutiny by engaging only with friendly outlets. Having no responsibility over the issues they wish to tackle, Reform may try and spin their failures as the fault of the Labour government at Westminster, claiming that they can really get down to business if they to win the next general election (or more likely if Nigel Farage were to be made the next Prime Minister).
Reform UK has been said to be more of a pressure group leaning on the Conservatives than a political party. Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested that in local authorities where there is no overall control but where the Conservatives and Reform are the two largest parties, the former could help the latter to govern. While this may be an attempt to force his own party to be as extreme as Reform, enabling Reform to govern effectively is likely to do more harm than good. The rationale that voters will inevitably support one of two major parties, namely the Conservatives and Labour, has been thrown out of the window with these elections.
When politicians fail, it is the people who suffer. While Reform may end up crashing and burning, we must do everything that we can to present ourselves as a viable party of change. We must effectively govern wherever we have control and wield our influence wherever we have it. We must challenge Reform on their record and their agendas and help to protect their constituents from harm.
* Samuel James Jackson is the Chair of the Policy Committee of the Yorkshire and the Humber Liberal Democrats and had served as the Liberal Democratic candidate in Halifax during the 2024 general election.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1360
Free clinics for families affected by dementia
The Women of Mumbles Head
Simon R
David Le Grice
Andy Daer
John Grout
Peter Martin
7 Comments
Reform may try and spin their failures as the fault of the Labour government at Westminster, claiming that they can really get down to business if they to win the next general election (or more likely if Nigel Farage were to be made the next Prime Minister)
Let’s be honest Sam , most local politicians use that mantra to some degree – and with justification looking at the funding shortfalls.
Wether voters take much notice of local politics I’m not so sure. Poor turnouts , apathy etc can give a distorted picture. The Welsh Senedd elections next year will give a far better indication of support for all the main party’s.
We can be certain that they won’t take responsibility for their inevitable failures. They will simply blame the Labour Government, “woke” council officers, lefty lawyers, the ECHR etc for all failures to deliver.
They use grievance as a campaigning tool, and they’ll use it as a governing tool too.
Good article Samuel. We really do need to research the nature of Reform voters. Although local election turnouts are usually fairly low I think they do usually reflect overall statistical data. However in the case of motivated Reform supporters is this turnout more or less the totality of it’s support or can it be extended to the population that didn’t vote in these recent local elections ?
@Nick, they may do a little of what they want on local councils but will be constrained by national rules and policies (as have all councils recently), campaign hard against these and say how they therefore need to be the national government to put it all right.
The consequence of the game that Reform will continue to play is that we Lib-Dems must set an understandable, clear positive vision of an alternative to them, Labour and Conservative and strongly send out simple messages explaining why their approach will not work to improve most people’s lives.
I agree with Christopher on the need to research what motivates Reform voters as we cannot be sure if this is a long term shift or just a big protest vote (as with UKIP in 2014 and Brexit Party in 2019).
What we do know is that the Reform vote is disproportionately stronger with those with only Secondary education, those who are ethnically white English, and men (echos of MAGA there). It is also noteworthy that a lot of their surge of support is in areas like the East Midlands where Conservatives have been strong and Liberal Democrats have largely failed to make an impact.
There has been a longer term disillusionment about the failure of the post war social democratic consensus underpinned by social liberalism to work for everybody.
For decades we had increasing prosperity and social mobility, full employment, and more enlightened social policy and attitudes, but Thatcherism, the financial crisis of 2008, and Cameron/Osborne’s austerity after 2010 destroyed that social compact.
The gap between rich and poor has widened as a billionaire class demands more and more money pays ordinary workers minimum wage and increases the ‘precariat’ on short term and zero hours contracts. That same billionaire class can now buy political power unless donations are restricted.
@Steve the issue of donations to parties is important and we have a government that is not interested in dealing with issues of that kind. They are focussed only on economic growth with Conservative trickle-down theory and the NHS (crucially without sorting Social Care).