Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has dramatically won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection by just six votes in a blow to Keir Starmer’s premiership.
The hard-right party narrowly overturned Labour’s 14,700-vote majority in the first full-scale electoral test of Mr Starmer’s government.
The result, which came on a night when Reform UK was expected to gain hundreds of council seats across England, is one of the smallest margins of victory in recent UK political history.
The closely watched contest had been billed as the first real test of Mr Farage’s ability to turn his party’s rising popularity into seats in parliament.
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Reform UK’s candidate Sarah Pochin, a former Tory councillor and local magistrate, becomes the first non-Labour MP to represent the Cheshire town of Runcorn in 52 years.
Despite the tiny margin of victory – which was so close it went to a dramatic recount at the DCBL stadium – the result will do little to dampen fears among Labour MPs that they could lose scores of seats to the hard-right populist party at the next general election.
The Cheshire byelection was triggered by the resignation of Labour’s Mike Amesbury, the former MP who was convicted earlier this year of punching a constituent.
Mr Farage’s party sought to make immigration the key issue in this overwhelmingly white British corner of northwest England, raising fears over small boat crossings, houses of multiple occupancy and even Turkish barbers.
Reform UK also attacked Labour’s cutting of the winter fuel payment – an issue repeatedly raised by voters – as well as its early release of prisoners and the rising cost of energy bills.
Its tactics appeared to work, delivering Reform UK its fifth MP and establishing the fledgling party as a serious challenger to Britain’s two main parties.
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The result appears to back up recent opinion polls which suggested the anti-European Union populists were on course to topple Britain’s historic two-party system at the next general election.
Despite Runcorn and Helsby being one of Labour’s safest seats, the party faced a challenge to win over voters from the beginning given it was sparked by Mr Amesbury violently assaulting a constituent in a drunken late-night row.
In the first weeks of the campaign, Labour’s candidate, Karen Shore, was criticised for launching a Facebook petition to close a hotel housing asylum seekers, in what some saw as a cynical attempt to stem the flow of votes to Reform UK.
Ms Shore, a former deputy council leader, denied her campaign was “prejudiced” but admitted “that the tone of it could’ve been slightly different – and the fact it was exploited by the populists”.
Labour and Reform UK officials appeared tense as votes were counted through the night at DCBL stadium, the home of Widnes Vikings rugby league club, just across the mouth of the river Mersey from Runcorn.
Campaigners from both parties repeatedly said the result was “too close to call”, downplaying talk of a decisive victory for either side.
Turnout in the contest was a higher-than-expected 46.33 per cent, which some on the count floor attributed to the “Farage factor” – a reference to the Reform UK leader’s ability to provoke strong opinion on either side.
There were bizarre scenes at the count centre when Reform UK officials announced that Mr Farage was expected to arrive imminently about 30 minutes before the result was expected – a sign they were confident of victory.
But as camera crews and officials gathered, some holding the door open for their soon-to-arrive leader, there was no sign of him. Journalists were then told he was instead waiting in a car near the venue, perhaps as word reached him that it was too soon to declare a win.
In advance of the result, Ellie Reeves, the Labour Party chair, said the elections across England were “always going to be a challenge” as the majority were in Conservative-held areas where Reform UK was expected to capitalise.
Ms Reeves said there were “promising signs” that the government’s plans were working but conceded that “people aren’t yet fully feeling the benefit and we are just as impatient for change as the rest of the country”.
She added: “However the results turn out this evening, this Labour government will go further and faster in turning our country around and giving Britain the future it deserves.” – Guardian
