Farage claims Reform on course for general election win after early local gains
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/2026-local-elections-reform-farage-b2972744.html
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
Farage claims Reform on course for general election win after early local gains
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/2026-local-elections-reform-farage-b2972744.html
Posted by tylerthe-theatre
43 Comments
Amazing that after the total failure that was Brexit people are prepared to give this grifter *yet annother* chance
Here’s me looking at the results thinking we have way to many councillors.
I’d love to say the state of Reform councils in a few years might dissuade some people but we’ve seen time and time again that it simply doesn’t matter to their voters.
I mean that’s early to say and anyone logically knows this.
But once again the back lash over immigration drives the public to vote aggressively because they can see the demographic change in their area. Labour should have cut immigration far faster, 200,000 a year is still way to high.. they also really need to work on their communication.
Ah, fuck this country.
Cheerfully running into disaster again and again.
He should look at previous council election vs general election results. Its by no means a linear path….
Bold claim not only because its a years out from a GE and lots can change in that time but also extrapolating council results into a GE result is notoriously difficult to do and is rarely accurate. Reform really need to win a couple of by-elections (if the pop up) to see the depth of their support.
Can’t say I’m suprised any more. I might be left leaning, but its clear the vast majority are more right leaning. Such a shame such a grifter party can still get in. Sigh.
The term “turkeys voting for Christmas” springs to mind.
Ask a Reform voter what the party is in favour of, and they likely will not know – but they may be well versed in what the party are against. Ask a Reform voter to detail any ACTUAL Reform policy and the conversation will end.
A nation of lemmings. Again.
Not once every council they run turns into an absolute basket case.
Denmark’s proof that you can kneecap the right-wing overnight if you actually get a solid grip over immigration (and I don’t mean “reduce numbers coming in down to what they were in 2024”). Labour just don’t have the will to see it through, or worse, they actually want Farage to win because they prefer being in opposition anyway.
Depressing start to the weekend honestly. I can’t fathom how anyone can vote for this billionaire funded grifter. The dude doesn’t even try to hide it at this point.
Our great grandparents would be rolling in their graves seeing what we’re about to vote into power. Traitors to the country as far as I’m concerned.
I see Reform and Green as two sides of a very idiotic cerberus
The Green Head is telling people they are increasing minimum wage to unsustainable levels which will kill youth employment and decimate small buisness while allowing for increased immigration channels to bring more older pre-trained workers in to fill gaps left by young people. They call for protecting the youth but the choices they make will hurt young people the most at least at first.
The labour head is doing a lot of work that the two sides want them to do but is too embarressed to show it.
Too scared of upsetting it’s left wing base by talking about a 20% increase in deportations and an increase in defence spending
Too scared of showing it’s left wing colours by increasing fuel independancy and increasing worker and renter rights and upsetting the voters it managed to glean from right so it just stays silent and lets everyone think they are doing nothing.
And the reform head is barking constantly and telling everyone that the sky is on fire and nobody is doing anything about it and labour are just the same as the green party on immigration and that the only way to save your women and children is to vote for them while actively chewing on the bones of social cohesion.
In this analogy the Tories are cerberuses arsehole the source of the current shit.
Think it shows the state of politics that someone with the reputation of Farage can come in, make a load of baseless bold claims, stir up hate and division, receive various donations of insane monetary value that anyone else would be destroyed for (people were calling for Kier to quit over a suit) and after fleeing politics due to the chaos his Brexit campaign caused still convince the poorest in society that he is the answer.
The people who will lose the most under him because of his views on benefit culture, his views on children in poverty and his views on education/healthcare came out in droves to vote at a local election with minimal understanding of what they were voting for.
I have zero doubt that they’re going to steamroll the next GE, scary times ahead.
It’s protest voting against cost of living, immigration and the general news around the state of some places of the UK (e.g. high streets full of vape shops, illegal activities etc.).
The issue is the people they’re bringing in will do jack all about any of that – words and leaflets just get them into ‘power’. After which they can build out their bank balance like they do over in the US.
We are a nation that has let corporations run the news and push their agenda. propaganda is now rife across social media, gb news etc..
I’m not surprised people have brought into the lies as it’s all you see and hear.
Until Labour etc fight this nothing will change and since Labour are part of that status quo they are not going to fight it in any real way
He isn’t wrong.
I hope Labour will not make the same mistakes which were made by the Democrats four years ago.
Because alternatively, a lot of people will vote for the parties claiming to tackle the two elephants in the room.
Ideally, if Labour backbenches understand that and fix these issues instead of attacking Starmer (for doing a good job, by the way).
46 of the 136 councils have fully declared and Reform have, so far, only taken control of two councils (one of these was from the Tories) and moved to the dominant party in two others – one was, again, by eating the Tory vote and the other was at the expense of the Lib Dems and local independents.
They, along with the Greens, have forced 26 of the councils into NOC, but this doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. Labour are haemorhaging councillors across the board, not purely to Reform.
This Farage-boosting is media clickbait.
The absolute state of Reform councils before this election was shocking. Who thought to themselves “I want a piece of that”?
Maybe Labour could NOW implement proportional representation?!?!
No? Ok.
The reality is most people don’t realise they are in reality voting for the interests of a man named Chakrit Sakunkrit in Thailand who had bankrolled Farage’s campaign. The common folk are all voting against their interests. See: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/apr/25/christopher-harborne-mystery-billionaire-bankrolling-reform-uk-nigel-farage
As things stand with a third of council results declared, Reform are +2 councils up. It should be fucking moronic for Farage to be coming out and claiming he’s on course to win a general election from that. But it gives the right wing media more fuel to declare that it’s a fait accompli, Reform are the only viable choice, while they continue to do a hatchet job on the other parties. Sadly, a lot of people are easily swayed by things like seeing the same guy declare he’s going to win an election on every media outlets they choose day in day out for years on end.
Still, we’re three years from a general election. A lot of time for Reform led councils to keep proving how incompetent they are, for the Reform base to keep proving it’s a hive of bigots, and for the party leadership to keep proving they’re not in fact populist revolutionaries at all, they’re completely in the pay of the very establishment they claim to want to tear down.
From the guardian:
(TL;DR – results are worse for Reform than they look and suggest they have peaked)
Peter Kellner, the elections expert and former YouGov president, has posted a good analysis of the results so far on his Substack blog. It is well worth reading in full, but here’s an extract.
Behind the impressive tally of Reform’s gains – likely to end up well over 1,000 – Nigel Farage should be privately worried. In last year’s local elections Reform won 41 per cent of all seats contested across England. On the basis of the overnight figures, this year’s tally is around 33 per cent. If there were no polls, and there had been no elections last year, this year’s figure would be astonishing. But we do have the record of recent polls and elections, and it seems clear that Reform has peaked …
In contrast to Reform, Labour has cause for relief, despite losing half the seats it was defending yesterday. It’s bad – and in normal times it would be catastrophic – but it’s not as bad as its record in local council by-elections over the past 12 months, where it hast lost three-quarters of the seats it was defending …
However, even on the most optimistic interpretation of Labour’s performance, the overnight figures contain a stark warning. John Curtice told BBC viewers in the early hours that while Labour has lost many SEATS to Reform, it has lost VOTES more to the Greens.
Leftie bias reddit users are going to hate this. Those pesky far right bigots 🤣
And this means Scotland and Wales are more likely to escape Farage’s England by declaring independence.
People like Coldplay and voted for Reform. You can’t trust people, Jeremy.
Can’t wait for a private company to run our government! Yay
The rise of reform and the greens is a direct result of the two main parties being shocking.
Now it’s hard right or hard left.
Remember the UKIP earthquake? For all their gains so far, they only have control of two councils. The media need to stop giving him the megaphone.
well when you are funded by billionaires who also control the media, social media & can drown you in constant influencers and bots across all these on top…then you have support of Russia, and Trump…its hard to compete with that
Wow we’ve really looked at the US and said “gimme some of that”
Farage can claim what he wants. The general election is years away. He’s got a few years to run local councils into the dishwater to convince people reform are wank.
Trees voting for the axe
Absolutely insane state of politics that were letting this bullshit billionaire sponsored grifter get away with this
I’m still trying to understand how in some of the places that usually vote Labour because they don’t like the tories they have now decided to vote for the super Tories
I guess I’ll start wearing black to mourn the premature death of the NHS….
Worth remembering 18% of British adults are functionally illiterate. Everything makes a lot more sense then
Everyone bashing reform voters. The voters clearly are not happy with the current government, so they have the right to vote.
It not like they haven’t been screwed over the past 20 years.
UK deserves everything it gets at this point. Sick of being mad at them, been mad at them for last 10 years and more. Now I’m just apathetic.
The lib dems would like to show you that Local elections mean feck all in the general elections lad.
Retired boomers are not really affected economically by Brexit so they don’t understand what all the fuss is about.
Hopefully once they run some councils in to the ground, people will think twice about voting them in. I worry that the idiots that vote for them ignore these facts though.
My fellow Brits are hilarious.
Donald Trump was voted in twice by Americans.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Brexit and now Farage lol. The UK deserves what they get.
Reform will line their own pockets given any opportunity