How Reform is plotting to defeat Labour and Tories

In two weeks time – if Nigel Farage has his way – Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch’s worst nightmare may have come to pass: a realignment of English politics.

Reform UK are hoping to be the big winners of this year’s local elections. Seats across 24 authorities – 14 county councils and eight unitary authorities – are up for grabs.

Many of them are in the Midlands and North East, Tory and Labour – so-called “Red Wall” – heartlands which, the last time they were contested in 2021, favoured Boris Johnson heavily thanks to the successful rollout of the Covid vaccine.

But instead of tearing chunks out of each other, it is Reform which is providing the biggest threat to both of them.

So while Parliament lies empty for Easter weekend, MPs and ministers are not relaxing.

Outside of Westminster, in regions across England, pavements are being pounded, doors are being knocked, leaflets are being pushed through letterboxes – and voters complained about everything from potholes to public services.

So what may lay in store for each of the parties and their leaders?

Keir Starmer and Labour

Labour may only be nine months into a landslide election victory, but voters are already disillusioned after controversial policies such as benefit cuts as well as a stagnant economy.

Reform sources say they expect gains in areas like Durham, Doncaster, Nottinghamshire and Staffordshire – some of which are Labour-held councils.

And they are predicting that the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, caused because Labour MP Mike Amesbury resigned after his conviction for assault, will be close.

“I think there will be 1,000 votes in it,” one insider said of the seat that, mere months ago, was a safe Labour constituency.

Amesbury had a 14,696-majority in 2024, with more than 52 per cent of the vote. Even if those 1,000 votes fall on Labour’s side, such a cutting of a majority would be humiliating.

Labour MPs have been asked to visit Runcorn and Helsby during the campaign amid concerns it could be lost to Reform.

The party has twinned each MP with a seat up for grabs at the mayoral and local elections and asked them to visit during April.

MPs are also encouraged to call undecided voters via the Persuasion Pathways technology which targets undecided voters. At last July’s election 22 per cent of voters targeted via the online technology voted Labour after a call from a candidate.

Insiders believe the results on 1 May could come down to “a handful of voters in a handful of polling districts”.

A Labour MP said the Government’s intervention to take control of the steelworks in Scunthorpe had “resonance” with voters and was “useful ammo” on the doorstep.

Government announcements about cutting NHS wait times, and increasing police patrols, are having little cut-through at the moment, they said.

“Stuff on public services only cuts through when it starts to impact people’s lived experience – when people start realising it’s easier to get an appointment or they visibly see more police on the street,” the MP added.

A West Midlands Labour MP said of the 250 seats up in the region, 25 are Labour – arguing, again, it is a “Tory election to lose”.

They said that while there may be some “impatience” among voters keen to see the current Government making waves, the suggestion of disillusionment is overplayed.

“I think if you’re on X, you’d mistakenly think that that’s where the public view is. It certainly isn’t. I’ve been out door-knocking and people understand Labour has inherited a mess. Most people know it will take time,” they said.

Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives

Labour insiders are insistent that it is the Tories who are set to lose out in this round of elections – arguing that the last time these were contested was in 2021 when the party was still riding high under Johnson’s leaders.

Unfortunately, for the Labour Party, one issue “cutting through” on the doorstep is the Birmingham bin strikes – which has led to national coverage of the city piled high with rubbish and crawling with rats.

Multiple campaign sources said the issue has been brought up outside of the area – even outside of the West Midlands – in the run up to the elections.

And Tory leader Badenoch has been doing her best to monopolise on this by campaigning in Birmingham.

Starmer responded in kind, deploying Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner to the region where she attempted to push the union, Unite, into accepting a deal to end the strikes.

A Tory source said the issue was speaking to a wider level of concern among voters.

“The bin strike is part of a general theme of people not being very happy and things not working. Depending where you go, we do have people who switched to Labour in the last election and are now saying, ‘Oh maybe I am regretting that decision’,” they said.

“Birmingham has really helped us quite a lot, because we’ll bring that up on the door to point to the result of Labour in power.”

When it comes to the Runcorn by-election the Tories were almost neck and neck with Reform in the constituency at the 2024 general election but, with just 906 votes separating them, Labour sources say, they are “nowhere to be seen” now.

Nigel Farage and Reform UK

It is no secret that Farage is hoping his party can break through at the local level, and build on the five MPs won at the general election (even if infighting has reduced this to four).

A Conservative councillor, based in the South East, said they felt that their party was in a “much better position than this time last year” but said they were concerned about “shy” Reform voters.

“I don’t see the doorstep that we see in the polls, in terms of Reform support, but that also has happened in the general election as well so it seems we have quiet, shy reform voters out there,” they said.

“And when we do get Reform voters a lot of them – when you look at their data – it is their first time voting or it’s the first time voting in a very long time.”

A Reform source said: “People are really angry about the winter fuel allowance decision, immigration is coming up a lot and potholes – that is actually a big one, people are really pissed off about the state of our roads.”

Privately Labour sources admit that recent council by-elections imply the results after 1 May could make for uncomfortable reading, even if the party is not defending a high number of seats.

A North East Labour MP said attempts by Reform to encroach in so-called Red Wall seats is “nothing new” and something No 10 has been “completely across”.

“They [those close to Starmer] have the data and know what the set of issues are and it’s all about left behind bits of the country that have really had four decades of a lack of investment,” they said.

“Nothing I am seeing in the constituency is as bad as the national opinion polls would suggest. Reform came second in 89 Labour seats and those MPs speak all the time and discuss the issues at play. But we can go into this knowing the Tories are going to be in a much worse situation than we are. I think everyone’s best guess would be Reform gains at the expense of the Tories,” the MP said.

Gawain Towler, Reform UK’s former head of press, who now works for the public affairs firm CWC Strategy, predicted a good night for the party – saying winning Runcorn was a “massive ask” but “not impossible”.

“What I want to see across the board is that our votes tally with our polling – I don’t know what that means in number of seats. If that means we don’t win any council seats but we’re at 26, 27 per cent, then I’ll be comfortable with that, because we’re building to 2029, we don’t have to win now.”

Lib Dems and Greens

Tory sources say Labour’s vote is under threat from both Reform and the Greens throughout the local election areas. Those parties are scooping up votes from frustrated former Labour voters who feel that Starmer’s Government is not yet delivering what was promised.

Labour MPs suggested ministers were keeping quiet about certain sensitive political issues so as not to create more of a challenge on the doorstep.

One said they believed the Government did not want to talk about the looming 19 May UK-EU summit until after the local elections due to fear of Reform capitalising.

“It’s no Europe until after the local elections,” they said. “That is going to be the point at which the Lib Dems do really well, not because everyone in this country is really interested in Europe but because [US President Donald] Trump looks like a weirdo and it compels people to ask: why aren’t you working with Europe?”

And there are other challenging policy decisions – taken at national level – are also coming up repeatedly on the doorsteps.

Labour sources say they are also aware that, in some areas, the wider welfare cuts are being brought up as issues.

A Green Party source said they were hearing a lot about the “neglect of public services and why things aren’t working anymore”, as well as the state of high streets, poor special educational needs support and, of course, potholes.

The verdict

Lord Robert Hayward – Tory peer and elections guru – told The i Paper the results imply Labour is being aggressively squeezed from both sides of the political spectrum.

“There were two council by-elections recently in Tameside in Jonathan Reynolds’ constituency, and one in David Lammy’s constituency. And in Reynolds’ Reform walked it, in the case of Haringey the Greens walked it,” he said.

“Labour have attempted to defend five council divisions in the last three Thursdays, and they’ve lost all five. The five seats have been in Port Talbot, Haringey, Tameside, Lincoln and Redbridge. Haringey and Redbridge are two very different demographic groups, and basically what the message is that Labour knew they were in difficulties.

“But this does really emphasise the extent of the problems they’ve got, because on one side, they’re losing to Reform on the right, while in the case of Lincoln and in Wales and also in Haringey, they’re losing to the Greens and the Lib Dems.”

He said that it was “immigration related issues on one side” and “welfare and foreign aid on the other” – and said the size of the losses were “extraordinary”.

“The Tories have recently defended everything they’ve got to defend bar one. So, they actually had quite a good March. They are defending seats which they held on to in 2023 or 2024 and therefore it’s a pretty low base, but they have proved to be fairly good at defending the seats they’re defending since Christmas.

“The two seats that stick out in terms of Tory failure one was in Farage’s own constituency – Clacton – and the other one which the Tories lost big time was in Liz Truss’s former constituency,” he added.

Where are the elections on 1 May?

14 county councils:
A county council runs a county and deals with things like waste and recycling, libraries, trading standards, planning and social care. They will work alongside smaller borough or district councils which may run leisure centres and rubbish collections. The following councils will hold full elections.
– Cambridgeshire
– Derbyshire
– Devon
– Gloucestershire
– Hertfordshire
– Kent
– Lancashire
– Leicestershire
– Lincolnshire
– Nottinghamshire
– Oxfordshire
– Staffordshire
– Warwickshire
– Worcestershire

The following county councils were due to hold elections but they have been postponed until 2026 because of plans to devolve and reorganise the administration of these areas:
– East Sussex
– Essex
– Hampshire
– Norfolk
– Suffolk
– Surrey
– West Sussex

Eight unitary authorities:
These are councils were there is just one tier of local government which carries out all the responsibilities of county and district councils. The following councils will hold full elections:
– Buckinghamshire
– Cornwall
– County Durham
– North Northamptonshire
– Northumberland
– Shropshire
– West Northamptonshire

The following unitary authorities were due to hold elections but these have been postponed due to local government reorganisation
– Thurrock
– Isle of Wight

One metropolitan borough council
These are councils, like unitary authorities, which run all services but in urban areas.
– Doncaster

Four combined authority mayors (also known as metro mayors)
These are directly elected mayors who will chair their combined authority – two or more local councils which are collaborating across boundaries.

– Cambridge and Peterborough
– Greater Lincolnshire (to be elected for the first time)
– Hull and East Yorkshire (to be elected for the first time)
– West of England

Two directly elected mayors
These are mayors directly elected to run a local authority
– Doncaster
– North Tyneside

One parliamentary constituency by-election
– Runcorn and Helsby

Others
– Isles of Scilly