Nigel Farage claimed he had broken the grip of Britain’s two main political parties as Reform UK gained an MP and swept to a string of victories in England’s local elections, making deep inroads into Labour and Conservative heartlands.
On a sobering day for Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch that brought immediate recriminations, Reform took hundreds of councillors from the struggling Tories and won the Runcorn and Helsby byelection by just six votes ahead of Labour.
