Reform UK forecast to win up to 1,500 of around 5,000 English council seats as Farage targets the Conservatives' base
Nigel Farage's anti-immigration Reform UK, which has led every national poll for more than a year, is expected to make its largest gains yet at Thursday's English local elections, with some estimates putting the party on 1,000 to 1,500 of the roughly 5,000 council seats up for grabs. Farage's stated objective is to demonstrate that Reform has replaced the Conservatives as the natural party of the British right, with the strongest gains forecast in the north of England and the Midlands and the prospect of Reform turquoise displacing Labour red in some predominantly white, working-class areas of London.
Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, is expected to make its largest gains yet at Thursday's English local elections, capitalising on more than a year of consistent first-place polling. Some estimates put the anti-immigration party on between 1,000 and 1,500 of the roughly 5,000 council seats up for election.
Farage's stated ambition for the vote is to demonstrate that Reform UK has replaced the Conservatives as the natural party of the British right. The strongest gains are forecast in the north of England and in the Midlands, areas where the Conservatives picked up working-class seats during the Brexit-era realignment and where Reform's pitch on immigration has cut through hardest.
The party is also expected to change the colour of some London neighbourhoods. In predominantly white, working-class areas of the capital, the working assumption among forecasters is that Labour red could give way to Reform's turquoise — a shift that, if confirmed, would put the party on the council map of the capital for the first time at this scale.
Farage himself has had an unusually long political arc: long dismissed by Westminster as a gifted agitator rather than a serious force, he is now at the centre of British political life and is referred to by Donald Trump as "the Brexit guy."