0:00
ever since Nigel Farage stepped back
0:02
into frontline politics last year to
0:04
make a surprise return as reform UK
0:06
leader he's been promising a political
0:08
earthquake that he says will change the
0:10
face of British politics the initial
0:13
results from Thursday's local elections
0:15
show that he might be on to something
0:16
reform has won a parliamentary
0:18
bi-election in Runorn and Hellsby in the
0:20
Northwest it was won by just six votes
0:23
so that's one of the narrowest margins
0:24
of victory for any MP ever but it gives
0:27
reform their first bi-election win and
0:30
their fifth MP of course with Rert Low
0:32
still suspended and what the result
0:34
shows is that reform is no longer just a
0:36
threat to the Tories so those Red Wall
0:39
seats that Boris Johnson won from Labor
0:40
in 2019 which went back to Kier Star in
0:43
2024 they could switch allegiance a
0:46
third time and go to reform and Vaj's
0:50
party has also picked up their first
0:52
mealy with Andrea Jenkins elected as
0:54
mayor of Lincolnshire this makes Jenkins
0:56
who was previously a Tory MP and briefly
0:59
a junior minister under Liz Truss the
1:01
most powerful elected reform politician
1:03
in the UK when she declared victory
1:05
overnight she said it was a once- in a
1:07
generation change and then there are the
1:09
council elections of course so that's
1:11
1,600 of them up for grabs across
1:13
various parts of England this cycle is
1:15
going to be particularly brutal for the
1:17
Tories as the last time these seats were
1:19
up for grabs it was that hopeful
1:21
postcoavid vaccine summer of 2021 when
1:24
Boris Johnson then prime minister was at
1:26
the height of his powers now the Tories
1:29
are down more than 20 percentage points
1:31
in the polls whilst also defending those
1:33
same thousand seats out of 1600 so they
1:36
could be set to lose more than 500 we've
1:39
only had about 150 seats in so far but
1:41
so far more than half of them have gone
1:43
reform and from initial data reform seem
1:46
to have achieved around 39% of the vote
1:50
the parties have given their initial
1:51
responses on the morning media round so
1:54
Ellie Reeves the Labour Party chair has
1:56
said that it will take the public a
1:58
while to feel the change that the
2:00
government is trying to usher in while
2:02
the Tory co-chair Nigel Huddleston said
2:05
"We knew this set of elections would be
2:06
difficult." Nigel Farage said earlier
2:08
this week that Thursday would be the day
2:10
that two-party politics in England dies
2:13
for good british politics is so volatile
2:16
that it's impossible to yet know whether
2:17
this is true but it's an idea that feels
2:20
less far-fetched than ever before for
2:22
everything you need to know as the
2:24
results continue to come in head to
