A FULL recount of the Runcorn by-election is underway after Reform claimed to have beaten Labour by just FOUR votes.
Nigel Farage is looking to land a blow on Sir Keir Starmer by taking the Red Wall seat in what would be a seismic upset.
RexA full recount is underway in the Runcorn by-election[/caption]
PANigel Farage at a campaign stop ahead of Polling Day[/caption]
The razor-thin initial result saw Labour demand a full recount, meaning election staff have started tallying ballots all over again.
Mr Farage said just after 4.30am: “Reform UK have won the Runcorn & Helsby by-election by 4 votes!
“Labour have demanded a recount. We are very confident we have won.”
Acting returning officer Stephen Young said: “Because of the close proximity of the parties, we have agreed to do a full recount of all the ballot papers.”
Runcorn’s four-vote margin would be the closest ever by-election, highlighting how tight the two-horse race has been.
Win or lose, it is a massive swing to Reform who have wiped out the near-15,000 majority Labour won in Runcorn just last July.
In the wider local elections taking place across England, Reform have been hoovering up Labour and Tory council seats.
By 5am, the right-wing insurgents had gained 54 councillors, with Labour down 12 and the Tories down 38.
The Runcorn by-election was triggered after then Labour MP Mike Amesbury punched a constituent to the ground in a fit of rage.
He quit the Commons following a suspended prison sentence, triggering the contest deep in Red Wall territory.
Sir Keir would have hoped to cling on to the North West constituency despite it becoming an early Reform target.
Mr Farage’s party threw the kitchen sink at the constituency, which is fertile territory for the insurgents looking to make inroads into working class, Brexit-leaning areas.
Four years ago when these council seats were last up for grabs, Sir Keir suffered a humiliating defeat in the Hartlepool by-election which led him to the brink of resigning.
More than 1,600 council seats are in play across 23 local authorities in England, making it the biggest first electoral test since last July’s general election.
Votes are currently being counted and results will pour in throughout Friday.
The Tories went into the elections defending the most seats and are therefore equally expected to lose the most.
Kemi Badenoch is forecast to lose as many as 475-525 from 2021 when these seats were last contested.
Bracing for a bruising night, she has played down impending losses as a mere “correction” to the heights reached four years ago under Boris Johnson.
Riding high in the polls following a Covid vaccine bounce, it was an emphatic victory last time that led Mr Johnson daring to dream he could have a decade in power.
The main beneficiary of the Tory slump is set to be Mr Farage, who is forecast to snaffle between 400 to 450 council seats largely in the Midlands and the North.
Sky NewsLabour MP Mike Amesbury punched a constituent several times[/caption]
Labour strategists have been managing expectations by insisting the council seats up for grabs are not their naturally fertile terrain.
On Thursday evening after polls closed, party chairman Ellie Reeves said the elections were always going to be tricky.”
She said: “These elections were always going to be a challenge, being held largely in areas dominated by the Conservatives, often for decades.”
She added: “We know people aren’t yet fully feeling the benefit and we are just as impatient for change as the rest of the country.
“However the results turn out this evening, this Labour government will go further and faster in turning our country around and giving Britain the future it deserves.”
Doncaster is the only majority council Labour is defending in the elections.
But they are facing a major offensive from Reform who smell an upset in this working class stronghold.
The West of England Mayoralty has seen a five-horse race with Labour, Tories, Reform, Lib Dems and the Greens all within the margin of error.
Whoever wins this tightly-fought contest will claim a coveted mayoralty vacated after Labour incumbent Dan Norris was arrested for rape.
Mr Farage has set his sights on the ultimate prize of becoming Prime Minister.
Despite leading a start-up party with a mere rump of MPs in the Commons, he has stormed up the opinion polls to even top some recent surveys.
Public frustration with immigration, wokeism and a struggling Tory party has presented an opening for Reform to cut through.
Reform has all the momentum – but can Nigel Farage really become PM?
By JACK ELSOM, Chief Political Correspondent
DOES Nigel Farage finally stand on the precipice of becoming Prime Minister?
The man himself certainly hasn’t been coy in revealing his ambition for the top job.
All the momentum is with Reform: a membership surge, high-profile defections, mass rallies – and a Labour and Tory party struggling to land a glove.
With such wind under his sails, it’s becoming harder for the Brexiteer to contain his trademark Cheshire Cat grin.
Farage is not naive, he knows he has a mountain to climb. He has seen this movie before.
In his heyday with UKIP, he secured 12.5 per cent of the electorate in 2015 – and returned just one MP.
In July, Reform came third on votes with 14.3 per cent – and returned just five MPs.
Farage is a world-beater at galvanising a mass supporters movement, and has proved that time over.
But if he is serious about getting to No10, he needs to do something much more challenging: break a political system that has stood for centuries.
Getting millions of votes is all well and good, yet it counts for nowt if he’s coming second in hundreds of seats.
Farage knows this and is adapting. Since becoming leader, he and his impressive chairman Zia Yusuf have been quietly professionalising the Reform outfit.
No longer a cavalier rabble, they are looking to raise serious sums of cash to pour into data-driven campaigning and advertising.
Get that right, and Reform will become an even greater force to be reckoned with.
GettySir Keir Starmer won a whopping majority in last year’s election[/caption] Published: [#item_custom_pubDate]
