10th May 2026
Nigel Farage gloats after Reform UK local election surge
Millionaire stockbroker, demagogue and phoney ‘man of the people’, Nigel Farage, beamed from the pages of the weekend newspapers as Reform UK surged in the local elections on 7th May. The increase in Reform councillors, over 1400 nationwide, was matched by the collapse in the number of Labour members elected, with Labour heartlands in Sunderland falling to Reform, Newcastle city being reduced to 2 Labour councillors, Labour being wiped out in Wales and formerly safe London Boroughs such as Lewisham falling to the Greens.
Inevitably media commentary has focussed upon the impact of the Reform vote in Labour heartlands but in many cases the impact of the Green vote has been equally significant. Both sets of voters are breaking with the two main parties as they desire change. In both cases there are limits to the benefits to the working class that changes promised by either party can deliver.
In spite of garnering votes from working class communities the Reform agenda is anti-working class to the core. The anti-trade union, anti-local government agenda which Reform advocate will impoverish hard pressed working class communities even further at the expense of big business which will seek to benefit from the deregulation which Reform advocate.
The Green Party has managed to capture votes from Labour voters disaffected with the performance of Labour in government and unhappy with its obvious weaknesses on international issues, in particular the failure to condemn the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Those Labour members still hankering after closer ties with the banker friendly European Union, while harbouring the delusion that NATO is a purely defensive military alliance, will also find a home with the Greens.
Labour have clearly lost votes due to their failure to retain close enough ties with their working class base, either in local communities or the trade union movement. The failure to build upon the progressive agenda set out under Jeremy Corbyn, and the gains in the 2017 General Election, have resulted in Labour becoming a pale shadow, more concerned with electoral success than actual change.
While the electoral success of 2024 delivered a thumping Labour majority and propelled Keir Starmer into 10, Downing Street, working class communities have felt no benefit, as Labour remain more concerned with the markets and the need to placate the City of London than address the issues facing working class people. The commitment to increase military budgets even further will no doubt be at the expense of investment in schools, hospitals and transport.
The obscene profits recently announced by BP and Shell , as a result of the war in the Middle East, has not resulted in any windfall tax. The pressure to drill further in the North Sea rather than increase investment in solar and renewable energy continues to build. There is no commitment to providing support for local government, the key conduit for social and community services, which are a lifeline for many working class communities.
The personalisation of politics, fuelled by the media, has hardly been to Labour’s advantage given the automaton like demeanour of Keir Starmer and the airtime given to Nigel Farage. However, the personality politics beloved of the media simply disguises the real issue, which is less about which political party is in office than the failure of capitalism as a system to deliver for the working class.
The clamour from certain sections of the Labour Party to replace Keir Starmer, with Andy Burnham being mooted as the darling of the Left, may help Labour recover some of its electoral position and give the appearance of change but will not make a fundamental difference.
The focus upon electoral politics offers no answers for the Labour movement or for the working class. The ballot box will not save Labour and, as things stand, could be the route to a right wing government in the form of Reform UK.
Mass extra Parliamentary action and being rooted in local communities will be the key to any possibility of a Labour revival. The basis of any such revival must be a commitment to socialism as the only system which can deliver for the working class and a commitment to lasting change, not just securing temporary office to manage capitalism.
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