There is no escaping it – the results are a catastrophe for Labour. One country (Wales) gone. Fifteen councils lost. Nearly 700 seats relinquished. A bloodbath stretching across the UK
Nigel Farage will have slept well last night. Today he will do what he always does – stand before the cameras, pint of self-satisfaction in hand, and tell anyone who will listen that Thursday’s vote was a historic, unstoppable, seismic shift in British politics.
He wants you to believe the country has spoken and that it spoke his name. He wants us to validate his success, the broadcasters to amplify it, and the public to accept it as a settled fact. The Mirror will not play that game. Not today. Not ever.
There is no escaping it – the results are a catastrophe for Labour. One country (Wales) gone. Fifteen councils lost. Nearly 700 seats relinquished. A bloodbath stretching across the UK.
And then there is Wales, where the damage was so savage it would have been unthinkable to Labour strategists even 12 months ago. A party that has dominated Welsh politics for generations is left reeling, its heartland crumbling in ways that should alarm every Labour supporter looking at the wreckage this morning.
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Keir Starmer said the results hurt. They should. When the people who put their faith in you withdraw it, that is supposed to sting.
Reform has seized almost 700 seats and taken outright control of Sunderland, Thurrock, Havering, Essex, Suffolk and Newcastle-under-Lyme.
These are no longer numbers on a results board. These are councils. These are budgets. These are real decisions about real people’s lives.
But before Farage reaches for another pint, let us be honest about the full picture, because it is not quite the one he and his cronies are painting. For all the noise, Reform did not sweep the board. More councils ended the night as hung than ended it under outright Reform control. The party that was promising a light blue tsunami from coast to coast, that spoke as though the keys to town halls were already in its corduroy pocket, fell short of a majority in more places thanit conquered.
It was shown none more so than in Wales, where, in a further blow to Reform’s claims of an unstoppable wave, it is Plaid Cymru that is now the largest party.
That is not a revolution. That is a party that still has a very great deal to prove. And prove it they will have to, in the places they did win.
Farage declared this result truly historic. He said it with the conviction of a man who has waited a long time to say it. But amid the confetti and the crowing, a rather important question went unasked.
Reform must balance impossible budgets. Decide which elderly care home stays open. Determine whether the pothole on your street gets fixed this year or next. Explain to a room full of anxious residents exactly why the money does not stretch.
We will be watching. Closely. Forensically. Without fear or favour. We will keep asking questions that others will now consider old news.
Who is funding Reform UK? A party that speaks endlessly about standing up for ordinary British people draws considerable support from wealthy donors, often living overseas. What is their interest in British local government?
What do they want in return? And what about those in the party who cannot even survive basic scrutiny?
The racist wannabe politicians we exposed. The Nazi salute. The Grenfell remarks. The suspension over comments about a Jewish community group. These things did not happen in Reform’s distant past. These problems happened in recent days, weeks and months.
None of this absolves Labour. Millions of people who feel ignored, overlooked and let down went to the polls and registered their anger.
That anger is real. It is legitimate. It has been building for years. The country did not fall for Farage on Thursday. It lost its temper. Those are very different things.
And what happens next depends entirely on whether Keir Starmer and the people in power are smart enough to know the difference.
