“We are now the opposition party in the U.K. to Labour, and the Tories are a waste of space,” Farage told reporters in Runcorn.
The results of the by-election vote — held after the previous Labour MP was convicted of assaulting a constituent — came as the counts from a slate of local elections in England began to trickle in.
There were some limited scraps of relief for nervous Labour strategists panicked by the rise of Reform UK in the polls. Labour won key mayoral races in North Tyneside, the West of England and Doncaster — though Reform came second in all three.
Among the results still to come is the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral race, where Reform’s Andrea Jenkyns — a former Conservative MP who jumped ship — looks on course to win.
The Conservatives, in national government just last year before a kicking in the general election, are braced for a torrid day.
There are 22 local councils to be declared Friday afternoon, with the vast majority of the 1,641 council seats in contention still to be announced. These seats were last fought in 2021, at the height of the then-Tory government’s bounce in popularity over a successful Covid vaccine program.
