I am anticipating a lot of self congratulatory hubris on these pages today as these, largely irrelevant, results arrive.
A surge for Reform was widely anticipated and is completely unsurprising. If it didn’t happen in the current circumstances there would be no hope at all for them.
I suspect that both major parties will secretly welcome it because now the voters will see just how competent Reform is, or isn’t, at local levels and where they take control of councils what the kind of approach they have will actually do to local services.
It’s easy to criticise from the stands. Much harder to deliver on the pitch. The king is about to be seen without his clothes. Which when the king is Farage is not an attractive prospect.
As with Trump and Musk in the USA Reform have promised a UK version of “DOGE”. There is already buyers regret in the USA. Getting some established here, now, won’t harm either of the main parties.
Things will be very different at a GE. There is a lot of political apathy around at present, other in those convinced by Reform and who would have been motivated to vote yesterday. I was with a group of friends yesterday evening. Only 2 had bothered to vote. Not one supports Reform.
That said it will be interesting to watch how the Tories respond because this is a critical point for them. If they try to compete with Reform they will lose and hand the keys of Westminster to Labour for the foreseeable future. If they return to the centre ground, offering pragmatism with their core values intact, under new leadership I can see them recapturing a significant part of those who voted Labour last year.
The media will indeed try to paint Reform as incompetent or find any dirt in them that they can.
In some ways I agree with part of what you're saying, as there's nearly always an anti-government vote at local elections.
However, the government are not taking the issues people care about seriously at all. Overall the health service, housing and cost of living are not changing. Big issues the government can't solve - largely due to complete incompetence. Much of it from cabinet ministers.
And then there's immigration - we talk about it, everyone talks about it. I believe even you have had enough of immigration. But the government remain committed to continuing to pissing everyone off by doing nothing about it.
People used to laugh at things like replacement theory. People openly slate Trump's deportations. But, secretly people wish it could happen in the UK. The majority of people now look around them and wonder what the hell is going on?
I do - I got on a bus the other day. A large Nigerian lady sat next to me (when I say next, I'm hardly frail but she was basically on my lap) - nice lady. Telling me to spice up my life (obviously fancied me). But what struck me was I was in a minority on the bus. Which is a regular occurrence.
This lady doesn't work, she goes to college. She has free accommodation and food and full unemployment benefit of 210 a week. She wasn't fleeing anything, however, just wanted a better life. I don't blame the opportunistic individuals who do so (the vast, vast majority of asylum claims). There is some Muslim trouble in the countryside in Nigeria but the majority come here from Lagos.
The story will be mirrored with the vast majority of people who have claimed asylum. How is that sustainable? It's not. It's patently ridiculous and you do have to start asking simply "why?".
Who does this benefit? Not the people here already at all, although there are a lot of decent people who claim asylum. Sorry, but being a decent person does not let you take hundreds of thousands of taxpayer's cash for no input at all from yourself, in my opinion. Or in anybody's realistic opinion. It's looking like an agenda.
Personally, I've had enough. I talk about it a bit to my friends but largely don't feel comfortable saying too much. Come the polls though, I vote for right wing populists who are anti-immigration. It's kind of the way polite and normal people are going to vote now. I increasingly hear it.
It's not fascism, it's not racism, it's genuine concern and the feeling of being completely ignored by the ruling parties and also the traditional opposition.
Hence, with Reform, I forecast at least a twenty percent vote in the general election but I believe it could go high enough to form a majority in government if the current establishment don't address what is no longer an elephant in the room.
It's a herd of elephants stampeding and marauding their way through villages, towns, cities, counties, regions and countries.
That the completely bonkers out of touch establishment can't see it is no surprise. Yet there's a few surprises coming for them. Trump is the beginning. Yet the rumblings are there for all to see and smugly ignore for now. Until, bang, too late - you misread the people worse than when anybody thought James Corden was popular.
England
France
Ireland
