Nigel Farage will be delighted at Reform UK’s by-election wins (Image: Getty)
Reform UK has stormed to another pair of emphatic by-election victories as the insurgent party’s popularity continues to soar – but was left shocked by a surprising Labour success. Nigel Farage’s party has annihilated opponents in many recent contests for council wards and divisions, winning 63 new seats since the July 2024 General Election.
Many of those have come at the expense of the embattled Labour Party, which has lost 51 councillors as Sir Keir Starmer’s Government lurches from crisis to crisis. The Tories have also lost 23 seats. Reform’s march continued this week as it scooped the Coggeshall ward on Braintree council with 30.7% of the vote, which it hailed as a “big win in Priti Patel’s constituency”. It added: “The Tories finished fourth in one of their safest seats in the country,” with Reform’s Nathan Robbins taking victory.
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Wayne Luca won the Spital ward in Tamworth from Labour on the same day with 44.6% of the vote.
But there was a shock result in the March 5 elections as Labour gained a Reform-held seat in Murton, Durham, with a 17.6% swing.
Reform dropped 4.5% with candidate Theo Bell as Labour’s Julie Griffiths scored 200 votes more to win the seat that had been vacated by David Cumming, who stepped down due to work commitments.
Andrew Husband, Reform’s leader of Durham County Council, credited Labour’s “strong well well-known candidate who ran a good campaign”.
He added: “Give credit where credit is due, she deserved it. Not Labour. They voted for the person, not the party. 40% would normally win a by-election.”
The turnout was 24.9%.
It was also not all bad news for the Tories – Kemi Badenoch’s party won Hextable in Sevenoaks with 38.9% of the vote, comfortably ahead of second-placed Reform with 26.3%.
Reform continues to lead in national polls with 27%, according to the latest survey by Find Out Now from March 4-6. It put it 6% ahead of the Greens in second, with Labour in fourth.
Reform Storms to Double By-Election Victory as It Bounces Back from Gorton Defeat
Reform UK has secured a double victory in council by-elections, providing Nigel Farage’s party with a fresh burst of momentum after its disappointing performance in the high-profile Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election.
The two council contests saw Reform win seats in Tottingham on Bury Council and Wigmore on Luton Council. In Tottingham, Reform took 39.5 per cent of the vote, while in Wigmore it secured 32.9 per cent. The results were particularly notable because Reform had not previously held either seat.
The victories came only weeks after Reform finished second in Gorton and Denton, where the Green Party achieved a historic win and Labour fell to third place.
That result had created questions about whether Reform’s rapid rise could be sustained when faced with a strong Green challenge in an urban constituency. The latest council results provide a different picture, demonstrating that Reform remains capable of winning local contests and taking seats from established parties.
A Double Victory
The first of the two victories came in the Tottingham ward on Bury Council.
Reform secured 39.5 per cent of the vote, moving from having no previous position in the ward to taking the seat. The Conservatives, who had previously held the ward, suffered a 19.1 percentage-point decline in their vote share.
The second victory came in Wigmore on Luton Council.
There, Reform received 32.9 per cent, narrowly ahead of the Liberal Democrats on 30.4 per cent. The Liberal Democrat vote share fell by 24.2 percentage points compared with the previous contest.
The two results were therefore different in character.
In Bury, Reform took a seat previously associated with the Conservatives.
In Luton, it gained a seat from the Liberal Democrats.
Together, the results show Reform competing successfully against more than one established party.
That is particularly relevant to a party whose electoral expansion has often been discussed in terms of competition with the Conservatives. The Luton result demonstrates that Reform’s local contests can also involve direct competition with the Liberal Democrats.
The Gorton Setback
The victories also need to be understood in the context of the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election.
The February 26 contest attracted considerable national attention because Gorton had historically been a very safe Labour constituency.
Instead, the Green Party won the seat with 14,980 votes, equivalent to 40.69 per cent. Reform’s Matt Goodwin finished second with 10,578 votes, or 28.73 per cent, while Labour’s candidate received 9,364 votes, representing 25.44 per cent.
The Green victory therefore produced an unusual three-way result.
Reform did not win, but it substantially increased its vote compared with the 2024 general election. Its share rose from 14.06 per cent in 2024 to 28.73 per cent in the by-election.
That distinction matters.
A second-place finish was a defeat in terms of the immediate objective of winning the parliamentary seat, but the vote-share increase indicated that Reform had expanded its support substantially in the constituency.
The double council victory therefore gives Farage’s party an opportunity to shift the political conversation away from the Gorton result and towards its performance in local contests.
Why the Results Matter
Council by-elections are smaller contests than parliamentary elections, but they can reveal important changes in local voting behaviour.
They are also useful tests of party organisation.
A party needs candidates, campaigners, local activists and an ability to communicate with voters. Winning a council seat demonstrates that a party can translate national political recognition into a successful local campaign.
For Reform, that process is particularly important.
The party has expanded rapidly in recent years, but its long-term political strength depends partly on whether it can build a durable organisation beyond Nigel Farage’s personal profile.
The latest victories offer evidence that Reform’s local operation is continuing to develop.
At the same time, individual by-elections should not be treated as direct predictions of future general-election results. Turnout can be lower, local issues can dominate and voters may behave differently when choosing a councillor than when choosing an MP.
The results are therefore best understood as individual pieces of evidence rather than a definitive measure of national opinion.
Conservatives Under Pressure
The Tottingham result will attract particular attention from Conservatives because Reform’s victory came at their expense.
The party had previously held the ward, but its vote share fell sharply.
For Conservatives, the development illustrates one of the major changes in Britain’s political landscape since the 2024 general election.
The traditional contest between Labour and the Conservatives is increasingly being challenged by smaller parties.
Reform has sought to establish itself as a major alternative on the right of British politics, while the Liberal Democrats and Greens have also expanded their electoral presence in different parts of the country.
This fragmentation makes local elections increasingly unpredictable.
A Conservative candidate can no longer assume that dissatisfied voters will automatically return to the party if they do not support Labour.
Some may instead move to Reform, while others may choose the Liberal Democrats, Greens or another candidate.
Liberal Democrats Also Lose Ground
The Wigmore result highlights another dimension of Reform’s expansion.
The Liberal Democrats had previously held the seat, but their support fell substantially in the latest contest.
Reform’s 32.9 per cent was enough to put the party ahead, with the Liberal Democrats on 30.4 per cent.
This is significant because the Liberal Democrats have historically built strong local organisations in particular parts of England.
Winning against them therefore requires more than simply benefiting from Conservative losses.
It suggests that Reform can compete in areas where the political dynamics are different from traditional Conservative-Labour battlegrounds.
However, the margin was relatively narrow, meaning the result should not be interpreted as evidence that Reform has displaced the Liberal Democrats generally.
Local political geography remains highly varied.
Reform’s Wider Local Performance
The double victory was not an isolated example of Reform’s local electoral activity.
According to reporting on the latest council by-election results, Reform had won 80 of the 228 council by-elections contested since May 2025. The Liberal Democrats had won 64, while Labour had won 17.
Those figures illustrate the scale of Reform’s participation in local contests.
The party has increasingly sought to establish councillors across different regions rather than concentrating exclusively on areas where its support was already strong.
That strategy matters because local government provides an opportunity to develop political networks.
Councillors become familiar figures in their communities. They attend council meetings, deal with local services and communicate with residents about issues ranging from planning and housing to roads and public spending.
For a party attempting to establish itself as a permanent force, that local presence can be strategically important.
Farage’s Political Challenge
For Nigel Farage, the results provide useful political ammunition.
His leadership has been closely associated with Reform’s national campaign, but the party cannot rely indefinitely on national publicity.
To become an established political organisation, it needs to demonstrate that its candidates can win without Farage appearing on every ballot paper.
Council victories offer one way of demonstrating that.
At the same time, the party faces the challenge of maintaining discipline as its number of elected representatives grows.
Local councillors have responsibilities that extend beyond campaigning. They must make decisions about budgets, services and administration, and those decisions can be controversial.
As Reform expands, voters will increasingly be able to judge the party on its record in local government rather than solely on its national promises.
That creates both an opportunity and a responsibility.
What the Gorton Result Really Shows
The Gorton and Denton result should also be viewed carefully.
The Greens won decisively, but Reform still finished ahead of Labour.
The official result shows Reform on 10,578 votes compared with Labour’s 9,364. The Greens won 14,980.
This means that the election cannot simply be described as a straightforward rejection of Reform.
Instead, it produced a fragmented result in which three parties received substantial support.
The Greens increased their vote share dramatically, Reform also increased its vote share, and Labour experienced a major decline.
That makes Gorton an interesting example of how Britain’s political system is changing.
The old assumption that Labour and Conservative candidates would dominate major elections is being challenged by multiple parties with significant support.
Reform’s second-place finish therefore remains important even though the party did not win the seat.
Why Council By-Elections Are Different
It is tempting to interpret every by-election as a referendum on national politics.
But local contests are more complicated.
Turnout is often lower than in general elections, and residents may vote based on highly specific local concerns.
The identity of the candidate can also make a substantial difference.
A councillor contest may focus on planning decisions, local services, council tax or community issues that have little connection to Westminster.
The Tottingham and Wigmore results should therefore be read in that context.
They demonstrate that Reform can win local seats.
They do not, by themselves, establish how the same voters would behave in a future parliamentary election.
That distinction is important when assessing the significance of any by-election.
A Battle for Disaffected Voters
One clear feature of the latest results is the movement of voters away from established parties.
In Tottingham, the Conservatives suffered a major decline while Reform emerged as the winner.
In Wigmore, the Liberal Democrats lost substantial support while Reform narrowly took the seat.
In Gorton and Denton, Labour suffered a dramatic fall while both the Greens and Reform increased their shares.
The precise reasons individual voters made these choices cannot be established from the results alone.
However, the voting patterns demonstrate that support is increasingly distributed across several parties.
That creates a much more complicated political environment than the traditional two-party system.
What Comes Next?
The key question for Reform will be whether it can sustain this performance across a much larger number of contests.
A handful of victories can demonstrate potential, but long-term electoral strength requires repeated success.
The party will also need to show that its local representatives can manage the responsibilities of office.
For the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, the results provide reminders that established local voting patterns can change quickly.
For Labour, the Gorton result remains particularly significant because the party was pushed into third place in a seat it had historically dominated.
For the Greens, meanwhile, Gorton represents evidence of their ability to convert strong local campaigning into a parliamentary breakthrough.
The result is therefore not simply a story about Reform.
It is part of a wider transformation in British electoral politics.
Conclusion
Reform UK’s double council by-election victory has provided Nigel Farage’s party with a significant set of local results following the disappointment of Gorton and Denton.
In Tottingham, Reform won 39.5 per cent and took a seat previously held by the Conservatives. In Wigmore, it secured 32.9 per cent and narrowly defeated the Liberal Democrats.
Those victories came shortly after Reform finished second in Gorton and Denton, where the Greens won with 40.69 per cent, Reform received 28.73 per cent and Labour finished third on 25.44 per cent.
The contrasting results illustrate the complexity of Britain’s changing political landscape.
Gorton demonstrated that Reform can face a powerful challenge from the Greens and that Labour’s traditional support can collapse dramatically. The latest council contests, meanwhile, demonstrate that Reform remains capable of winning seats from established parties in different parts of England.
Whether these victories represent a sustained national trend cannot be determined from two council by-elections.
What they do establish is more specific: Reform UK is continuing to expand its presence in local government, competing successfully against Conservatives and Liberal Democrats as well as Labour and the Greens.
For Farage, the immediate political message is clear from the results themselves. The party has suffered defeats, but it has also demonstrated an ability to recover quickly in other contests.
The next test will be whether Reform can turn individual council victories into a durable local organisation capable of competing consistently across Britain’s increasingly fragmented electoral landscape.