Up next in 10
LBC's Aggie Chambre joins Shelagh Fogarty to discuss the results of the by-elections, which saw a triumphant night for Nigel Farage's party.
15 million voters headed to the polls on Thursday. Reform UK snatched up a narrow victory by six votes over Labour in Runcorn and Helsby, a major blow for Sir Keir Starmer as he failed his first by-election test as Prime Minister.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns was also elected for Reform UK as the first Greater Lincolnshire mayor, securing a majority of almost 40,000 over the Conservatives.
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0:00
Aggie Chombray joins me, LBC's political correspondent, to talk us through the highlights of the night, the main points of the night for people who may just be tuning in to these results. Fire away, Aggie
0:10
That's right, Sheila. So I think the biggest thing that has happened so far happened overnight, and that was Labour losing what was their 16th safest seat
0:20
That was, of course, the seat of Runcorn. They lost that by six votes, just six votes after a 17 point swing
0:28
That is now the seat of Sarah Potchen, who is a Reform UK MP now Reform UK MP, I should say
0:36
And that has led to a lot of frustration from Labour MPs publicly, which is fairly rare for those Labour MPs
0:44
But this is also a story about Reform UK, as in Nigel Farage's words, becoming the official opposition
0:51
Of course, that's not technically true, but he believes being able to gain this seat that they are making serious gains
1:00
And of course, there's also the story of them winning their first mayoral election, Greater Lincolnshire
1:06
and also of the Tories losing numerous council seats, as expected, mostly to Reform UK
1:12
OK, part of the reason for that as well is that the last time these council seats came up for election, that was in 2021
1:19
It was directly after that vaccine bounce by Boris Johnson when the Conservatives were extremely popular
1:25
So this was always going to be a difficult set of elections for them
1:29
And those, I should say, are still very much coming in. And we should expect those going into the late afternoon and evening
1:35
But we have heard from Keir Starmer. And just on that point of frustration from Labour MPs, there was also frustration publicly from one of Keir Starmer's winning mayors
1:46
That's the Labour mayor for Doncaster, Ros Jones. Now, she basically pointed to decisions on PIP, on national insurance, on winter fuel allowance, and blamed those for the collapse in her majority
1:58
And our colleague Shivani Sharma asked Keir Starmer this afternoon what he was going to change following those comments
2:06
Well, we promised change at the last election, and we're getting on and delivering that change
2:11
So waiting lists are coming down to three million extra appointments on the NHS
2:16
Wages are up faster than prices, hugely important in terms of pressures of the cost of living
2:22
And interest rates are down now three times, which, if you've got a mortgage, makes a material difference
2:27
But look, I could stand here and say, you know, governments tend to do badly in these sorts of elections at this part of the cycle
2:35
or that run corners very close. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to say in relation to those that didn't vote Labour in these elections
2:43
I get it. We need to deliver that change faster. We need to go further
2:48
I've been saying for some time that we need to turbocharge what we're doing. What I take out of these is a sort of reinforcing of that message
2:57
that we need to deliver the change that people want. We need to go further and faster I determined to do so Now I think there are questions Sheila about we need to turbocharge what we doing we need to go further and faster What that actually means When I spoken to Labour
3:11
sources this morning, they have pointed to the fact that the public is incredibly impatient for
3:17
change, basically blaming that on the loss of that by-election. But at the same time saying
3:24
what we are trying to do is going to take time. And even in that conversation I was having with
3:29
them and conversations I've had with Labour MPs, they can't necessarily marry those things together
3:34
because we can tell the public is impatient. We hear that from lots of people, indeed people
3:40
texting, calling into programmes today. And then you have Nigel Farage basically saying, look
3:46
this is a result of migration, this by-election win that we have, and also saying that he is now
3:52
the official opposition. The victory in Runcorn and Helsby, it may be by a small margin, but it's
3:58
a huge win. And this is one of Labour's safest seats in the country. If I said to you a year ago
4:03
reform would win this by-election, you know, you'd look at me as if I came from Mars. But it's
4:08
interesting because we're biting deep into the Labour vote here. My sort of biggest observation
4:13
looking at the results, is there are now large parts of England, majority of England
4:18
in which we are now clearly the main challenger party to Labour. And actually, if you vote
4:24
Conservative, you're in danger of ending up with Labour. And that really, for me, is the big message
4:29
Now, there's always a danger of overstating the importance of one by-election or some
4:34
local elections results. The reason that these are important is because this is the first test
4:41
this Labour government has had at the ballot box since they won and won big last year. But it's also
4:47
potentially the start of a realignment of British politics? Because there are people already saying
4:54
this morning, like pollster John Curtis, that we could be headed for and already looking at
5:00
basically, instead of a two party system, a five party system. And that seemed to be what
5:05
the new Reform UK Sarah Potchen was hinting at this morning. To me, it's not just the six votes, it's the 14,700 votes of the, you know, the majority that
5:15
Labour had. This has been a historic win now for reform. It's going to be the start of a seismic
5:22
tidal wave of movement across the country, of people feeling that they can be proud to say they
5:27
vote reform, that they are proud to support Nigel. And I just think it's going to make so many changes
5:34
now to the political landscape of the country. We're no longer in a situation of two main parties
5:39
Reform is now one of those main parties. I'll be speaking to Richard Tice of Reform
5:44
just before two o'clock, and we'll hear from the other main parties as well over the next couple of hours
5:50
Still with you, Agi, Agi Shambra, LBC's political correspondent. This question of reform, Nadja Farage, we heard him there saying he's the official opposition
5:59
I mean, he knows that he isn't in the official sense of the word. But it seems to me reform are doing different things to different parties So the challenge they pose to the Conservatives is different to the challenge they pose to Labour in a way And when Keir Starmer says we need to turbocharge what we doing those three policies that
6:22
Forgive me, where was she from, the Labour mayoral candidate? Was that Doncaster
6:27
Oh, yeah. Yeah, those three policies that she pointed to, winter fuel, PIP
6:33
You know, she, people don't want those turbocharged. They want them stopped or at least reduced, don't they? I mean, he has to address the fact that some of Labour's choices are really hurting people and they're hurting Labour as well
6:49
and you can't, I heard Ellie Reeves this morning one with Nick, you know, constantly saying
6:53
we've made tough choices, we have to make them sorry and there's something dry about it
6:58
there's something deeply impersonal about it and you can't accuse Nigel Farage
7:03
of coming across impersonally, can you? He connects politically in a way
7:08
that many of the Labour front benches just aren't. I think that's completely right
7:12
and I think the fundamental problem one of the fundamental problems Labour is having
7:17
is what direction do they go in now? And I think a problem that they have had again and again
7:23
and this isn't me saying this, this is members of their own party saying this to me
7:29
is that they seem to have been devoid of hope, at least at the beginning
7:32
I think that was something they did try and deal with a bit more. But the big things that people think of
7:38
is exactly what Ros Jones was talking about, this new mayor, of course, Labour mayor for Doncaster, just re-elected
7:44
And that's why I think you've heard from Labour MPs coming out, not even just Labour MPs who are consistently critical of this government, but people like Kim Johnson, who's a Labour MP for Liverpool
7:57
She has said, Runcorn is a warning we can't ignore. Voters want change
8:01
And if we don't offer it with bold, hopeful policies that rebuild trust, the far right will
8:07
And, you know, that's mirrored by comments from other Labour MPs. And I think there's questions about a reset. There's always questions about a reset. And, you know, some Labour MPs say to me, you know, we should stay calm. We can't and we shouldn't reverse every unpopular decision we've made so far. We shouldn't necessarily have a mass reshuffle
8:26
But I think your point that Reform UK are different things to different people
8:32
And what we saw last July was them taking huge chunks out of that Conservative vote
8:37
What we are seeing now is that they are able to take off this government the 16th safest seat
8:44
They are a threat to Labour as well. And it's just as interesting to see the places they've come second in, isn't it? Definitely
8:50
That gives us a sense of the spread of their appeal, even though they might not be winning in all of those places
8:56
They're certainly beating other main parties in a lot of those places
9:02
Labour, in the vote last July, in the election last July, a great deal of their vote or a good chunk of their vote
9:10
was about an anti vote wasn it It was anything but the status quo kind of vote Are we starting to see here that that can only go so far that particular vote and that those voters many of
9:22
them, are not dyed-in-the-wool Labour voters and they will go elsewhere? I think that is probably
9:28
right and I think there's big questions about that. I think we've asked lots of questions as
9:32
in medias, the general public, whether or not Nigel Farage could be Prime Minister, whether there
9:37
is a ceiling to his support. And I think there's also now that question about this Labour government
9:43
Obviously, there wasn't a ceiling to their win last July. But the fact is, were people just
9:49
you know, we heard that they were essentially from polling experts, from lots of people
9:53
who looked into this, that that win was as much to do with anti-conservative feeling as it was to
10:00
feeling positive about the Labour Party. And if there is a third way, essentially, if there's
10:05
Reform UK that people think, okay, well, maybe they are the answer, then I think Reform UK could
10:11
continue to do extremely well. I would, however, point to the fact that Reform UK do not have as
10:18
many clear policies. There are lots and lots of things that they have suggested that we do not
10:23
know how they would pay for it or implement indeed. And, you know, criticism of Labour that lots of
10:29
people make is they're very good at campaigning, but they're not very good at governing. And part
10:34
of that is because they don't have that institutional memory anymore because they've
10:38
been out of government for so long. Well, imagine that with Reform UK
10:43
Those people have never been in government. So you don't even have those
10:46
Jonathan Powells you can bring back in to remind you how to work with the
10:51
civil service. Now, some people may see that as advantageous. They might think, well, we need somebody who's going to come in and completely change the system
10:59
It's shades of Trump, isn't it? It's shades of Trump. And indeed, you've heard Nigel Farage
11:03
say this morning that we need a doge in every county but also then you have things like the
11:08
nhs we just explain what that is because lots of people won't remember right and so the doge is
11:12
basically what elon musk has set up uh in the united states department of government expenditure
11:17
it was efficiency efficiency yes and that's basically getting rid of lots of things they
11:21
believe they don't need waste exactly um and but then you have things like the nhs which we know
11:28
is incredibly popular in this country. And Nigel Farage has basically said
11:34
on the eve of the local elections just this week, said to Sky News
11:37
I do not want it funded through general taxation. It doesn't work. It's not working
11:42
We're getting worse bang for the buck than any other country, particularly out of those European neighbours
11:48
Now, that's something that I don't think is going to go down well. And indeed, Labour MPs, Labour ministers
11:53
are absolutely making hay of that. And I think what a Labour source said to me this morning
11:57
is the scrutiny on their policies should now ramp up, will now ramp up
12:02
which isn't a bad thing for us in the long term. But I think fundamentally looking at this result
12:08
the Labour government will want to think about how they cannot have a repeat performance of this
12:13
and what that's going to look like I think actually should become clear pretty quickly
12:17
Thanks very much, Aggie. Aggie Chombre, LBC's political correspondent
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