Reform edges Labour across 40 local contests — but the net gains tell a different story

Reform UK has emerged as the most dominant political force in local council by-elections held since Andy Burnham formally took office as Prime Minister. According to detailed electoral analysis conducted by GB News, Nigel Farage’s party has successfully secured the highest number of individual council seats and the largest overall aggregate vote share during this critical opening period of the new administration.

Between the 20th of July and the 18th of September, encompassing the first sixty days of Mr Burnham’s premiership, voters went to the polls in forty separate council by-election contests across the country. In these varied elections, Reform UK achieved a remarkable eleven outright victories, surpassing all competing political parties in total seat acquisitions.

Furthermore, when examining the electorate’s broader voting preferences, Reform UK successfully accumulated a vote-weighted aggregate share of twenty-three per cent. This underlying metric indicates a significant and sustained breadth of support across the contested local wards, firmly establishing the party as a formidable ongoing presence in the British local electoral landscape.

In stark contrast, the governing Labour Party, despite the much-anticipated electoral boost often referred to as a “Burnham Bounce” following their change in national leadership, managed to secure nine local council seats. Their combined vote share across the forty varied contests stood at 22.2 per cent, trailing slightly behind the resurgent political operation led by Mr Farage.

The Conservative Party found themselves relegated to a disappointing third place in both crucial performance metrics. The Tories claimed just six by-election victories and garnered only 16.7 per cent of the aggregate vote share, illustrating the deep and ongoing challenges facing the official opposition at the vital local government level.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats managed to match the Conservative seat tally by securing six local council victories of their own. However, their overall aggregate vote share was notably lower, as they managed to attract only 12.4 per cent of the total ballots cast across the entire set of by-election contests. The Green Party achieved four seat wins, bolstered by a respectable and growing aggregate vote share of 14.6 per cent.

Further down the overall electoral scoreboard, Plaid Cymru successfully took two seats, while the Scottish National Party and an independent candidate secured one local victory each. Smaller political factions and local independent groupings failed to win any seats at all, collectively polling approximately 2.5 per cent of the total vote. Over 91,745 valid ballots were cast by engaged voters across these varied local democratic exercises.

However, the detailed GB News analysis reveals a considerably more complex political picture when the raw data is properly adjusted to reflect net gains and losses, rather than simply tallying the total number of seats won during this specific two-month window. While Reform UK won eleven contests outright, their net gain amounted to just three seats, which nevertheless managed to triple the single net addition achieved by the Labour Party.

The Liberal Democrats performed equally efficiently in terms of overall forward progress, matching Reform UK’s final tally by also concluding the sixty-day period with a net gain of three council seats. This specific metric demonstrates highly efficient and well-organised targeting by the Lib Dem electoral machine in specific, winnable local battles.

Unquestionably, the Conservatives emerged as the most significant political casualties of the period under review. Despite defending only eleven of the forty locally contested seats, the party suffered the highest number of incumbent councillor losses, culminating in a concerning net deficit of five local representatives.

A deeper dive into the specific geographical shifts demonstrates that Reform UK’s notable individual victories were heavily concentrated within traditional Conservative electoral territory. Mr Farage’s aligned candidates successfully flipped five Tory-held seats in the varied wards of Cuxton, Heacham, Snettisham, Hutton and Locking, and East Markham.

Moreover, Reform UK actively demonstrated an ability to directly challenge the incumbent national government, seizing three council seats straight from the Labour Party and capturing an additional seat from an independent representative. This underscores the populist party’s proven capacity to draw broad support from across the traditional left-right political divide.

Nevertheless, the intense electoral churn was not entirely one-sided in Reform’s favour. The party also surrendered six of its previously held council wards to political rivals. Four of these direct losses ultimately benefited the Labour Party in areas including Grays Riverside, Grays Town, Penistone East, and Billinge and Seneley Green, whilst two seats were lost directly to the Liberal Democrats in Almondbury and St Neots Eynesbury.

The Liberal Democrats clearly distinguished themselves during this period by picking up their new seats without conceding a single one of their existing council representation. Ultimately, both the Labour Party and the Green Party concluded the period with a very modest net gain of one seat each, neatly reflecting the highly volatile, competitive, and bidirectional nature of the current local electoral environment under the new Prime Minister.

Elsewhere across the country, the Scottish National Party and independent council representatives each experienced a minor net drop of one seat, while Plaid Cymru maintained a completely steady position with zero net change to their overall local government tally.

These fascinating local by-election results arrive directly in the wake of the extensive May 2026 local elections, during which Reform UK recorded historic and unprecedented nationwide breakthroughs. During those earlier nationwide contests, the insurgent party remarkably secured in excess of 1,450 council seats across England and took absolute majority control of fourteen distinct local authorities, making substantial and highly publicised inroads into both historic Labour and Conservative working-class heartlands.

Commenting on the broader electoral trajectory prior to these latest figures, Nigel Farage has previously described his party’s dominant performance in traditionally working-class Red Wall areas as “truly astonishing”. Speaking to an energetic crowd of supporters following earlier victories in Chelmsford, he proudly highlighted that the party had achieved outright majority control in significant northern councils, explicitly naming Sunderland, Gateshead, and South Tyneside.

Mr Farage forcefully asserted to his supporters that Reform UK is now directly capturing the political support of “patriotic old Labour” voters in tight-knit communities that the governing party has largely been comfortably able to take for granted since the end of the First World War. GB News confirmed they have officially approached both Reform UK and the Labour Party headquarters to request formal comment on this latest comprehensive by-election analysis.