The two-party system in Britain is on the verge of collapsing.
A turquoise tide has risen. The opinion polls were not wrong. Across the country, a large section of the electorate has abandoned both Labour and the Conservatives and thrown in its lot with Nigel Farage’s Reform army.
The trend was seen most spectacularly in Cheshire, where Reform’s Sarah Pochin overturned a Labour majority of almost 15,000 to win the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. Yes, the margin of victory was a tiny six votes. Yes, Labour was not helped by the fact the contest was triggered when their former MP was forced to resign after assaulting a constituent on a drunken night out. But the big picture is that Labour has lost one of its safest seats to an upstart party less than a year after Sir Keir Starmer’s landslide election win. And the Prime Minister himself is so unpopular that Labour strategists did not dare send him to Runcorn for fear of making things even worse.
Reform’s surge is by no means limited to Cheshire. In early results, the party seized control of the Lincolnshire mayoralty, pushed Labour hard in a string of other contests in heartland areas like Doncaster and North Tyneside, and came a strong second in the West of England, which had been depicted as a straight fight between Labour and the Greens.
By the end of the day, Mr Farage’s party will have won hundreds of council seats and for the first time taken control of major councils like Staffordshire and Lincolnshire. With the Lib Dems also set to do well and the Greens poised to add to their strength in local government, the results add weight to the growing sense that the two-party system is disintegrating.
Unfortunately, Nigel Farage appears to be more gatekeeper than genuine nationalist, so it’s likely that a considerable amount of the momentum will be wasted, and there is no sign that Reform will begin the mass repatriations that Britain so desperately needs. But it is still a good sign that the British people are rejecting the siren song of Clown World and the two major parties that it controls.