Starmer vows ‘further and faster’ change after by-election loss; Farage claims Reform now ‘real’ opposition

Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party won a parliamentary seat in a by-election besides a mayoralty and several local council posts on Friday after which the anti-immigrant firebrand leader Nigel Farage claimed that his party was now the ‘real opposition’.

The result was a loss of face for Prime Minister Keir Starmer, as it was the first since he took office.

Reform UK won the by-election by six votes, signalling rising support and Labour’s sharp decline under PM Starmer.

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The populist Reform hopes the local elections will mark the breakdown of a century of domination of British politics by the governing Labour Party and opposition Conservatives.

Starmer conceded that the loss of a safe Labour parliamentary seat to Reform was “disappointing”, but defended taking what he called the “tough but right” economic decisions.
“The reason that we took the tough but right decisions in the budget was because we inherited a broken economy,” he said.
“Maybe other prime ministers would have walked past that, pretended it wasn’t there … I took the choice to make sure our economy was stable.”

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Starmer added that Labour would go “further and faster on the change that people want to see” after losing the Runcorn & Helmsby by-election.

Reform made gains against both Labour and the Conservatives across England in local council elections and won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes in a blow to Starmer’s premiership.
The narrow victory saw Farage’s party take a constituency that Labour won with a majority of almost 14,700 at the general election less than 12 months ago.

The by-election was called after the previous MP, Mike Amesbury, resigned following his conviction for punching a constituent.

‘We are now the opposition, Tories are a waste of space’

Farage said that Labour’s vote collapsed because of a “loss of confidence” and the fact “no one knows what the prime minister really stands for”.

He said working people are fed up with higher taxes and illegal immigration.

Farage also declared, “We now are the opposition party in the United Kingdom to the Labour Party and the Tories, frankly, are a waste of space.”

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Reform’s Dame Andrea Jenkyns was elected as the party’s first mayor in Greater Lincolnshire with a majority of almost 40,000.
In her victory speech, she said, “The fightback to save the heart and soul of our great country has now begun.”

Reform UK, born out of the Brexit Party, campaigns for tough action to bring down immigration, arguing that it has got out of control and is damaging the country.
It has pledged to freeze all non-essential immigration if it wins at the next general election.

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Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said she’s determined to win back the trust of people.
“These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021 and our historic defeat last year - and so it’s proving. The renewal of our party has only just begun.”

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Tory co-chairman Nigel Huddleston dismissed Reform’s success, saying, “They are emerging into a populist popular party, not an alternative to the Conservatives, but trying to transcend and promise everything to everybody. That is not a long-term sustainable position.”