Now the results have been confirmed and the commentariat has delivered its hyperbole, we need to analyse three issues: what actually happened, why did it happen and what will happen next?
What actually happened?
Not to be smug, but the REC team correctly predicted exactly what occurred. In brief summary:
Labour were largely an irrelevance as they had few councillors and councils in play but in comparative terms they did very badly indeed. Rather under noticed by the brains trust that is our commentariat is that Labour lost seats to Reform at much the same rate as the Conservatives, a pattern that cost Labour control of the one council they were defending, Doncaster
The Tories performed at the upper end of the dire predictions, losing all their 19 majority and minority controlled councils and 674 council seats in the process, a truly awful result
The Lib Dems and Greens did well, inevitably, but their numbers are relatively modest in the big picture, albeit the Lib Dems did win three councils
But the protest vote, which all by-elections and local elections are these days, delivered an absolutely massive result for Reform, also giving them two mayoralties and another Parliamentary seat
Although talked about much less by the commentariat these days, Brexit is still an important fault line in UK politics. Reform's appeal is significantly concentrated among those who believe Brexit was right; likewise, the Lib Dems only did really well in previously Remain-voting areas
In what should be a wake up call for Labour and the Tories, usually the two main parties hoover up comfortably well north of 50% of vote share; this time they only scraped 37%. Ouch!
To put some overall perspective on the results, this was (a) the worst election outcome for any newly elected government in UK political history, (b) the worst result ever in any elections for the Tories and, for Reform, (c) the best election tally ever for any minor party. In graphical terms:
We have of course had these "breaking the mould” moments before. Whether it was the SDP in the 1980s, the Lib Dems under Paddy Ashdown in the 1990s or brief minor party moments with the BNP and Greens in recent times past, smaller parties’ electoral peaks have come and gone with regular monotony.
This time seems different. Future history will tell us whether Reform has finally broken through to the big time but it would seem that they are not a ‘here today gone tomorrow’ new force in politics. Through their various iterations – UKIP, then the Brexit Party and now Reform – they have slowly been building for more than 20 years. And they have just made history. So as things stand, we probably need to get used to the expression ‘the three main political parties’, uncomfortable though that may be for many.
Why did it happen?
Put simply, there are two underlying issues that delivered this result, both of which are national and not local:
Normally in UK politics, one of the two main parties is up and the other is down, which has kept a simple equilibrium to UK elections for many decades. We are right now at an arguably unique moment in British political history where the two historically dominant political parties are both simultaneously at their lowest ebb in popularity; the Labour government because of its incompetent performance and unpopular policies, the Tory opposition because the electorate still blame them for the chaos of the three Bs – Brexit, Boris and Bogging It (on almost every single policy area in their latter days in government)
At the same time, Reform is seen to be strong on the two zeitgeist issues of our time: immigration and the anti-woke culture wars. (Whether they actually have any practical and deliverable solutions on these two issues remains to be seen. But throwing those two stones at both main parties is working well for them)
And in truth this is a not dissimilar pattern being witnessed across the rest of the western world: the established dominant political parties being upended by insurgent newcomers from the Right, mostly on those same two issues. We have seen this in Italy, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands. It is happening right now in Germany, France and Romania, and with Trump arguably in the USA as well. The only two recent off-trend moves in the opposite direction have been the very recent elections in Canada and Australia, which can both be read very much as an anti-Trump response but for slightly different reasons.
What will happen next?
So let’s rub the REC crystal ball.
For Labour, whilst the flip flopping Starmerbot has said he “gets it” the siren voices on the Left are already trying to flip him to their ideological default setting. The main electoral threat to Labour right now is in fact Reform as after last year’s General Election they are in second place in 89 Labour seats. And after last week’s elections a majority of these Labour seats should now be classed as vulnerable. Thus we have already seen Starmer’s team trying to tiptoe to the Right on topical issues: cutting the cost of government, the oft announced but never delivered ‘bonfire of quangos’, talking up a tougher stance on illegal immigration, unequivocal acceptance of the Supreme Court ruling on trans rights etc. But the top three voter challenges Labour face are clear:
Economy – deliver growth
Immigration – noisily reduce it
NHS – make it work better
And the cold hard truth is, despite much endless spin, all three areas are heading in the wrong direction so far on Labour’s watch. And perhaps Labour is almost uniquely unsuited to tackle these three issues because history has shown, time and again, the only way you can solve them is through tried and tested tactics which are ideological anathemas to them: cutting taxes, deregulation, being nastier to foreigners and facing down the public sector unions. It is thus difficult to see how Labour can chart a course to improve their situation. They are trapped by their own ideology and their Left supporters.
For the Tories, life is in some ways simpler: they just have to kill Reform. That’s it. Period. If they do that, they reunite the Right as Boris did in 2019 and can win handsomely. If they don’t, they may be usurped as the natural party of the centre Right. The slight problem here is that they moved so far to the Left in government – high taxes, big government, net zero etc – Reform have stolen their centre Right credentials. Is it even actually possible for the Tories to out-Reform Reform? Their second problem is that Badenoch looks like a dud and their backbench MPs will only give it so long before their natural dedication to their favourite blood sport recommences.
But for all the positivity of the last few days, in Reform-land things are not much easier. The central fact is that to date Reform has been more a personality cult than a mature political party; this will need to change urgently if they are to realistically prosper. One unfortunate accident for Big Nigel and the whole party could nosedive in the polls quickly. But they have three other very significant challenges:
First, having now won 10 councils, the easy opposition stone throwing is over and the much tougher gig of being held to account begins. They will quickly learn that being in power is much harder than it seems as you get blamed for everything that goes wrong, whether you are responsible or not
Second, they have a track record of poor candidate vetting and thus historically more than their fair share of bad apples and eccentrics. The tricky task here is to quickly find some talented leaders and organisers who can actually deliver on their popular rhetoric and not get bounced from one scandal drenched councillor problem to the next
But these two challenges are in their control and the third one is a more existential problem. They have a liberal Left establishment media and every other political party baying for their blood, willing them to fail and actively searching 24/7 for any mud they can throw to aid that process. Add to that the public sector unions which in every council they control will become the belligerent and shortly on strike enemy within. It is fair to say they will likely have an unhappy and frustrating time as council leaders
So for all three main parties after this election, there is some serious soul searching to do. All of them face significant challenges with everything to play for in very febrile political times, and with a General Election most likely not until 2029. It is a marathon not a sprint and, to continue that analogy, marathons are usually won by someone in the leading pack but the lead runner often changes several times during the race.