Reform UK's Sarah Pochin, right and party leader Nigel Farage talk to the media after the party won the seat in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election at DCBL Halton Stadium, Widnes, Cheshire, Friday, May 2, 2025. ( Peter Byrne/PA via AP)

LONDON (AP) — The hard-right party Reform UK led by Nigel Farage snatched a seat in Parliament from the governing Labour Party and made big gains in local elections that Farage hailed Friday as a turning point in British politics.

Reform's Sarah Pochin was declared winner of the seat of Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by six votes after a recount, defeating Labour candidate Karen Shore by the narrowest of margins.

It was a significant defeat for Labour, which easily won the district in last year's national election. The special election was held because Labour lawmaker Mike Amesbury was forced to quit after he was convicted of punching a constituent in a drunken rage.

Farage said “it’s a very, very big moment indeed” that shows Reform can win against both Labour and the right-of-center opposition Conservative Party.

“We are not a protest party, even though there is much to protest about," Farage told reporters at the election count. "We’ve dealt with the Tories. We’re now coming for the Labour Party."

The local elections held Thursday in many areas of England were a test of feeling about Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left Labour government, 10 months after it was elected in a landslide.

The Runcorn victory gives Reform, which got about 14% of the vote in last year’s national election, five of the 650 seats in the House of Commons, compared to 403 for Labour and 121 for the Conservatives.

But Reform appears to have momentum. National polls now suggest its support equals or surpasses that of Labour and the Conservatives, and it hopes to displace the Conservatives as the country’s main party on the right before the next national election, due by 2029.

As results came in Friday, Reform won hundreds of municipal seats in the elections for six mayoralties and the control of 23 local councils.

Reform won control of several county-level local authorities, including Staffordshire and Lincolnshire in central England — both previous Conservative strongholds — and Durham in the north.

Reform candidate Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative lawmaker, won the newly created mayoralty of the Greater Lincolnshire region of east-central England. Labour retained three other mayoralties and the Conservatives won one.

The victories will bring pressure for Reform to deliver on transport, garbage collection, potholes and all the other unglamorous demands of everyday politics.

A majority of the local seats being contested were held by the Conservatives, whose leader Kemi Badenoch could face a party revolt. Badenoch posted on X that she was “determined to win back the trust of the public and the seats we’ve lost.”

Farage’s party is also targeting working-class voters who once backed Labour. Starmer's popularity has plunged as his government struggles to kick-start a sluggish economy. The government has raised the minimum wage, strengthened workers' rights and pumped money into the state-funded health system — but also hiked employer' taxes and cut welfare benefits.

Starmer said he understood why many voters are discontented.

“My response is: We get it,” he said. "I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see.”

The results give only a partial snapshot of voter sentiment. Many areas, including London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, did not hold elections. Turnout for local polls is typically much lower than in a national election.

And Reform is not the only story. The centrist Liberal Democrats made gains by winning more affluent, socially liberal voters away from the Conservatives.

Reform UK is the latest in a series of parties led by Farage, a veteran hard-right politician who was crucial in taking Britain out of the European Union through a 2016 referendum. A charismatic campaigner, he is a divisive figure who has said many migrants come to the U.K. from cultures “alien to ours.”

Reform blends Farage’s long-standing political themes — strong borders, curbing immigration — with policies reminiscent of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration. During the campaign Farage said he plans “a DOGE for every county” in England, inspired by Elon Musk’s controversial spending-slashing agency.

University of Strathclyde political scientist John Curtice said the results showed that politics in Britain, long dominated by the two big parties, has fragmented. “Reform are now posing a big threat to both Conservative and Labour," he said.

“They are a major challenge,” he told the BBC.

News from © The Associated Press, 2025