𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer has suffered another devastating blow after voters in Labour’s heartland of Durham turned their backs on his party and elected Reform councillors instead. Durham County Council, in Labour’s “red wall” heatland of the North East, will now be now run by Reform.

Previously Labour was clearly the largest party with 56 councillors. The Tories were the second largest group with 21, less than half as many as Labour. It meant that no party was in overall control of the authority, which has 126 councillors in total. Tories had teamed up with Liberal Democrats, a Green councillor, independents and councillors from local parties to keep Labour out of office..

But everything has now changed after the stunning win by Nigel Farage’s party.

A triumphant Nigel Farage said on X: “Reform has just defeated the Labour group leader on Durham County Council.” He said he would travel to the north east to speak.

Durham has turned its back on Labour in the past, when Conservatives took a number of Parliamentary seats from Labour in the 2019 general election. But the county appeared to have returned to its traditional support for Labour when Labour took the seats back in last year’s general election.

The unexpected loss of Durham County Council will worry Labour as it suggests Nigel Farage and Reform are doing with former Conservative leader Boris Johnson did previously, and winning over red wall voters in the north

Reform has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election as well as the election for Greater Lincolnshire mayor – elections where it was always thought the party had a chance of doing well, even though the by-election was close with Reform winning by just six votes.

But it has also won a series of council election victories that go beyond what anyone expected.

Reform UK seized control of Lincolnshire when counting resumed on Friday.

The party followed up its triumph in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election by taking enough seats to control the county council, which has 70 councillors.

With around 20 seats still to declare, Reform UK had won 36, with the Liberal Democrats on five, Conservatives four and Labour three.

The Conservatives had previously controlled the council with 54 seats, with six Independents, four Labour, three Liberal Democrat and three Reform councillors.

Reform UK are also took control of Staffordshire council. As counting continued they had 41 seats. They had none going into this election and the Conservatives held 53.