Reform UK 'on course for a Commons majority' as Nigel Farage hails end of two party politics in the UK
Gains by Reform UK in English local elections show that “the tectonic plates of the UK party system are moving” – and Nigel Farage’s party is on course for a Commons majority, Jim Allister has said.
The Reform leader said the results – which saw the party gaining control of a string of councils and winning the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by election – marked the “end of two party politics” in the UK.
On the basis of the results the Reform UK has 30% of the projected national vote share, with Labour on 20%, the Lib Dems on 17% and the Conservatives on 15%, polling expert Professor Sir John Curtice told the BBC.
Mr Farage said that Reform will “resist” having migrants placed “in these counties that we now control”.
Speaking from County Durham on Friday afternoon, the Reform UK leader said: “The number of people I’ve met in the north, just so enraged because they get up early in the morning, they go to work, they pay their taxes, and they see young men crossing the English Channel, being dumped into the north of England getting everything for free.”
The former UKIP boss also warned council staff working on diversity or climate change initiatives should be “seeking alternative careers” after his party took control of Durham council.
After complete results were in from 12 of the 23 county councils with elections, Reform UK had won 420 seats, gaining 405, while the Conservatives had lost 322 and Labour were down 125.
TUV leader Jim Allister, who is in an electoral arrangement with Mr Farage’s party, said the political changes in England are of “critical importance” to the whole of the UK – particularly given that a party “with a commitment to ending the partitioning of our country through the Irish Sea Border, is on course to have a majority in the House of Commons at the next General Election”.
He said the EU is “using its control over Northern Ireland legislation to press the UK Government to apply the same laws in Great Britain in order to avoid divergence” - adding that “the party that achieves the reunification of the UK will have much to celebrate”.