Nigel Farage's Reform Party wins Runcorn byelection by just six votes in blow to Labour

[Celerity]

Result will heighten government’s fears it could lose scores of MPs to Nigel Farage’s party at next general election

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/02/reform-runcorn-and-helsby-byelection-local-elections


Nigel Farage and Sarah Pochin celebrate her win by six votes for Reform UK in Runcorn. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

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 Starmer’s government and set a new record for the smallest majority at a parliamentary by-election since the end of the second world war.

The result, which came on a night when Reform UK was expected to gain hundreds of council seats across England, followed a 17% swing from Labour to Farage’s party. After a recount that delayed the declaration by three hours, Reform’s Sarah Pochin won 38.6% of the vote – amounting to 12,645 votes, six more than Labour, making it one of the smallest margins of victory in recent UK political history.

The Conservatives slumped from 16% of the vote at last year’s general election to 7% in this contest, narrowly finishing ahead of the Green party in third place. The closely watched contest had been billed as the first real test of Farage’s ability to turn his party’s rising popularity into seats in parliament.



Pochin, a former Tory councillor and local magistrate, becomes the first non-Labour MP to represent the Cheshire town of Runcorn in 52 years. Arriving at the count centre to declare victory at 6am on Friday, Farage said: “Here and across the country you’re seeing big swings to us, from Labour in the north and Conservatives in the Midlands and the south. It’s fascinating”.

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[allegorical oracle]

1. Guess the UK has its share of MAGAts, too. Farage is total jerk. nt

[dsc]

2. I know this isn't the entire point but that graph is crazy misleading

0.02 difference is nothing like what they are showing between those two parties. That said, the results are not good for Labor.

[Celerity]

3. you are misreading the graph, the Labour and Reform points are almost the same (on top of each other)

[dsc]

5. OK I see now

I didn't see the color of the line the first time.

[Celerity]

6. all good!

[ibegurpard]

4. The lesson that politicians refuse to learn

At least left or left-adjacent ones... is don't blow your mandates on austerity and half-measures.