Yves here. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of reporting and breaking news about the UK election results on the Links tomorrow. I thought it still made sense to post this piece by Richard Murphy, which discusses some of the early results, to allow the UK and other interested readers to weigh in. Regardless of who eats the corpse, this is a historic and deserved defeat for Labour, and will lead to the long overdue departure of “never” Kier Starmer.
By Richard Murphy, Associate Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School and director of Tax Research LLP. It was originally published on Funding the Future
The results of England’s local elections reveal a major change in politics. The revolution benefits the poorest regions, coastal towns, and former working-class heartlands, while London and the big cities resist the trend.
In this video, I look at what these results tell us about poverty, inequality, the failure of neoliberalism, the collapse of Labor outside London, the decline of the Conservatives, the strength of the Liberal Democrats, and the disappointing performance of the Greens.
I also ask whether Britain’s two-party system is breaking up for good, and what this means for the future of British politics.
Preliminary results suggest that the country is divided politically, geographically, and economically, and unless inequality is addressed, the growth of Reform may continue.
This is the audio version:
This is the text:
It is after 7:00 am on the 8th of May 2026, and a new England is emerging as a result of today’s local council results, which have already been announced, ie.
We have only one of the three results yet, that or close, and the results are obvious. Let’s ignore Scotland and Wales for now. There are no election results from there yet. Let’s just talk about England and the major political trends that are already evident this morning.
The revolution is making great progress all over England, but it must be said, that is only outside London, and outside our great towns and cities. In poorer counties and coastal areas, many people are turning to Farage’s Reform Party, and that is especially true in the north-east and north-west of the country.
In the North East, Reform won all available seats in Hartlepool. In the north-west, in areas such as Chorley and Tameside, there have been big wins for Reform at the expense of Labour, and that is reflected elsewhere in Manchester, where there has been a big swing too.
The reforms are now gaining more seats, but so far, fewer councils. Only Newcastle-under-Lyme has so far become a Reform council as a result of this election, and it was one of those rare ones outside of London where all seats were up for election. The new council is dominated by Reform, and the losers were Labour, which lost all but two of its seats, and the Conservatives.
This was a common practice in all the places where the revolution was most successful. They won at the expense of both teams. But let’s be clear, they struggle in urban areas. London is clearly against the Revolution. There are almost no seats that I see in the five or so results announced so far, and in places like Oxford, Reading, and Lincoln, they show little change and, in fact, do not gain anything significant.
England is divided politically and geographically.
The truth is that Labor is having an absolutely terrible night. It is losing more seats than it is winning, and the loss outside of London is worse. They are not so bad in London. But Manchester is doing badly for Labour, and that is very important because that is the power base for both Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner, who are the main challengers to Keir Starmer in any leadership race, and that leaves them politically exposed, just as Keir Starmer is. The fact that Labor will be in a worse position now is something we can be sure of. There is no good result tonight for them. The story of confusion will continue.
The Conservatives are also falling, but more quietly than Labour, but they started this election in a worse position than Labour.
Their losses are big, but not as bad as Labour’s, and they have gained something. They won seats for Labor in Harlow, Essex. They won Westminster Council, returned it to Labour, and have dragged themselves into a position of total impossibility in Wandsworth in London. These are remarkable achievements for them. Kemi Badenoch will no doubt be shouting about them, but she can’t pretend otherwise; This is also a disastrous night for the Conservative Party. The two-party power struggle between Labor and the Tories that has dominated Britain for years is over. Both of these parties are on the verge of being toast, and I think that’s their fair description.
The Liberal Democrats are showing firmness. Their overall voting share is low; I have to emphasize that point, but they are winning seats, and in some places the results are amazing.
In Richmond-on-Thames in London, they won every council seat, every single one of them. They almost repeated that in Sutton, South London, taking fifty-one seats out of fifty-five and the protest vote obviously helps the support of the Liberal Democrats in other areas, but let’s be clear, in those areas where they have a long history in local government, people support them. They have something going for them, and that is not what Labor and the Conservatives are saying. That is the strength of the Liberal Democrats at this time. They are not down and out; these two others.
The Greens have undoubtedly had a disappointing night so far. There can be no other explanation than that. They won seats, but came second in so many of them that they did not get the development they needed. That is obvious. But the point I will make is this: the media’s attack on Zack Polanski has worked. The effort to install him as the next Jeremy Corbyn is clearly having an impact, but at the same time, the Greens must also get their act together.
They need to be clear about what their message is, and I don’t think so. Check out Tameside in Manchester. They were unsuccessful there, and that constituency includes part of the Gorton and Denton seats they recently won in a parliamentary by-election. The failure to translate that into local results is of great concern to them.
So where are we? Poverty drives the Reform vote. That is the message we have from this morning. Neoliberalism is clearly failing, and those who are suffering are registering a protest vote. The fact that they do this by registering to vote for the only party in the UK dedicated to making the poor in this country worse off is one of the perverse effects of this election.
It’s really amazing that the people who will suffer because of cuts to services, cuts to health care, cuts to support special education needs, cuts to council support, cuts to social care, all of those things will be delivered by Reform, and all of those things will have a huge impact on places like Hartlepool, Chorley, and Newcastle-under-Lyme.
This is the opposite result of the night, but Farage is winning, and the truth is, the other parties have to get their act together to prove that they can deliver those places, even if we are facing a fascist attack. Let’s not pretend otherwise, and it’s going to be really bad.
This is the reality we have to face. We are in a very dangerous political time in this country. England is divided economically. First-past-the-post greatly distorts representation in other areas, and unless inequality is addressed, Reform will continue to grow.
That’s what I think. WHAT DO YOU THINK? There are many consequences to come. This situation will change as the day progresses. Give us your opinion. We’re not posting the survey below because we don’t think that’s right, yet, but we will maybe later. Love this video if that’s what you do. Please share it, and if you want to support our work, we will be very grateful as always.
