John Wall is a retired engineer and former Conservative county councillor in Hampshire.
For the Left the first of May is International Workers’ Day, it conjures up Morris Men and a Maypole and, of course – “Mayday!”
The international distress call comes from the French m’aidez – “Help me!”
There’s no doubt it’s now a happy dance for Farage and Reform at the moment having significantly exceeded expectations in the first major test of the government since the landslide of 4 July 2024 – and of course it was bad news for both Starmer and Badenoch.
Gaining 677 councillors and ten councils, two mayoralties and, of course, the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by the minuscule majority of six votes generated many headlines. There were also a lot of second places to worry their opponents, in this case primarily Labour.
Their Projected National Share has been estimated at 30 per cent or 32 per cent and the chart puts this in the context of 21st century Farragist European election results, using as they have a common baseline.
This suggests that Reform is continuing where the Brexit Party left off in 2019 and that those pollsters putting them in the high twenties were nearest the mark.
With many caveats the past is our only real guide and this doesn’t favour Badenoch, a decent type with a good ministerial record.
Sometimes the electorate “turn off” a party, it happened to Labour under Corbyn for the 2019 election and to the Conservatives in 2022 with Downing Street musical chairs and a large spike in inflation. Sunak, another decent type, was bequeathed a poisoned chalice and an endless procession of small boats.
The Major government was holed beneath the waterline by 1992’s Black Wednesday and then, despite a subsequently good economic performance, thrashed in 1997. The Conservatives weren’t trusted on the economy again until the early 2000s.
Between 1992 and 1997 the Conservatives lost a lot of ground in local government but subsequently regained this.
The obvious difference today is that after another historic drubbing the Conservatives aren’t recovering in local government. 2025 is compared with the “high” of 2021 but even allowing for that the Conservatives underperformed which must be due to the presence of Farage and Reform. They’re appealing to the centre-right/right leaning and those concerned about immigration, small boats, two-tier Britain, woke, etc and without any baggage from being in government.
Trump hit the ground running whereas Starmer just hit the ground.
Three months to produce a poor budget demonstrated the lack of a plan and virtually everything they’ve done, starting with paying off the junior doctors and train drivers without any productivity agreements, has been wrong.
Reform’s success suggests that, after only ten months, the electorate may have “turned off” Labour, which is hardly surprising when the Winter Fuel Allowance is still an issue.
If, uniquely, both brands are now broken Farage and Reform can eat into both their support which can be tested in 2026 when there are more local government elections, some postponed from 2025, together with the Welsh Senedd and Scottish Parliament. The latter use PR and Wales, long a Labour fiefdom, underperforms England, has gone deep into the woke rabbit hole and is a Reform target.
This doesn’t mean that Farage is going to stroll into No. 10, there is much that can go wrong.
His career has primarily been as a single-issue campaigner pressurising the Conservatives, authority without responsibility. Moving inside the tent is a massive change and he has personal baggage including, possibly now regretted, comments on the NHS, Putin and Ukraine, and being associated with Trump, which was unhelpful in Canada and Australia.
Reform now have hundreds of councillors, the offence archaeologists will already be digging, two mayoralties and ten councils to run. There will be money they can claim is wasted, eliminate and take credit for, but local government has long been squeezed, many functions are statutory, almost everything has its advocates, and social care absorbs money as rapidly as the NHS.
A party seeking to form a government needs credible, thought through and costed policies. Reform have much to do here.
There are those, from various parts of the political spectrum, who want Farage and Reform to fail, the scrutiny will be intense.
If by-election victories and local government success were reliable indicators of Westminster fortunes we should have had LibDem PMs, but if the electorate aren’t listening it does’t really matter what’s said, or by whom – and this applies to Labour as well as the Conservatives.
It looks like unless Farage falls flat or Reform implodes they will continue to take support from the two major parties and could well become a viable contender for the next General Election.
Both Badenoch and Starmer should be calling for help!
