The rise of Reform UK's hard-right movement is turning Britain's two-party system upside down.

The United Kingdom is shifting to the hard right with Reform UK, the anti-immigration party led by Nigel Farage , who is also one of the most visible faces of Brexit. While in countries like Canada there has been a rejection of candidates reminiscent of US President Donald Trump, in the United Kingdom the party most in tune with the American president won yesterday's elections, the results of which will be announced today.

What was being voted on yesterday? Essentially, the renewal of one member of the House of Commons and 1,640 councillors in 23 municipalities in England (none in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland).

In the first case, the Runcorn and Helsby constituency was in Labour hands after last July's general election, and in the second, the party that had to defend itself was the Conservatives , which, in 2021, under the leadership of Boris Johnson, demonstrated its continued dominance by taking two-thirds of the seats up for grabs.

Things have changed. In Runcorn and Helsby, a territory adjacent to the south of Liverpool, Reform UK defeated Labour by a narrow majority of six votes, with 14,696 votes, or 38.7% of the ballots cast. The Tories had to settle for 7.2%. Reform UK made its debut in Parliament in 2024 with five MPs (until now it had four after one defected) and this is the first time it has won a by-election , which are the elections called in a territory when a seat falls vacant.

Regarding the local councils ( council and mayoral ), their results will be known throughout this Friday (those of Kent and West Northamptonshire are not expected before 7 p.m. London time), but the first ones to be published show a clear transfer of votes from the Conservatives (and, to a lesser extent, from Labour) towards Reform UK .

Reform UK's first female mayor

One example is Greater Lincolnshire, where Andrea Jenkyns, a former Tory politician, is set to become the first Reform UK mayor . Labour won in North Tyneside, West of England and Doncaster, but with Reform UK in second place. At the time of going to press, only the allocation of 319 councillors was known, distributed as follows: 167 for Reform UK (+167), 67 for the Conservatives (-138), 42 for the Liberal Democrats (+23), 20 for Labour (-41), 14 for Independents (-16) and 9 for the Greens (+5).

Despite their partial nature, these elections are of particular importance in British politics. First, they are the first since Labour's victory on July 4 , so they have become a test of the "change" promised by Labour. Second, they test whether Reform UK can end up dominating not only the Conservative part of the electorate, but also attract disaffected Labour voters and become a hegemonic party.

Yesterday's election should be read with an eye toward 2029, when the next general election is expected to be held in the United Kingdom and when Farage believes he could enter Downing Street. The latest YouGov poll gives Reform UK 26% of voting intentions, Labour 24%, and the Tories 20%.

The system punishes division

Labour swept the 2024 elections with a comfortable absolute majority, but by a narrow margin and thanks to a system that gives everything to the winner and punishes division, as was the case with the split in the Conservative vote, divided between the Tories and Reform UK.

Prime Minister and Labour leader Keir Starmer told the BBC that he understood the meaning of the vote and promised to go "faster and further in the change that people want to see ." "We have started the change: waiting lists are going down, wages are going up, and interest rates are going down," he stressed.

Nigel Farage 's message today captures the current stakes in British politics: "We've seen Labour's support plummet in the 10 months since they won the general election. I believe we've replaced the Conservative Party as the main opposition party in government."

Vote for other parties

John Curtice , Britain's leading political scientist, wrote in an article in The Times : "The results confirm the polling message that the Conservatives remain stuck in the grip of last year's disastrous defeat and that Labour's support from last year has melted like snow in April."

"The electorate hasn't yet forgotten the Conservative era and is disappointed by the pace at which Labour is generating economic growth and improved health services, and they have decided to express their discontent by giving their support elsewhere," he commented.