In the United Kingdom, municipal and local elections are handing a major victory to the nation’s leading populist, anti-immigration party. Following district council elections Thursday, the reigning left-wing Labour Party has been soundly rejected by local voters, losing a staggering 1,045 council seats and control of 23 councils at the time of this writing. The increasingly unpopular Conservative Party also lost more than 460 council seats. The big winner of the election has been Reform U.K., led by Brexit engineer Nigel Farage, which picked up 1,196 new council seats and now has control over 10 district councils. Previously, Reform only held two council seats.

“What you can see already is there is an historic shift in British politics that is taking place,” Farage said of the election results in a video statement. “I think the best is yet to come. I’m looking forward … to us wiping out Labour in areas they’ve dominated for over a century,” the member of parliament (MP) for Clacton continued. “What we’re beginning to see is that politics is no longer about the old arguments of Right and Left; it’s about people who value patriotic ideas, believe in this country, and want to see things turn around.”

While Reform made significant inroads in locales previously dominated by Labour, including Sunderland, the immigration-control party also made gains in previously Conservative-held territories, such as Newcastle-under-Lyme, Suffolk, and the crucial Essex, which hosts the parliamentary seats of a number of Conservative Party officials, including Conservative Party Leader Kemi Badenoch.

Originally co-founded by Farage as the Brexit Party in 2018, Reform evolved to focus on broader issues following the success of Brexit (the push to withdraw the U.K. from the European Union) in 2019 and 2020. Late in 2020, Farage and then-Reform Leader Richard Tice campaigned heavily against the COVID-19 lockdowns and restrictions implemented by Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who resigned in disgrace in 2022 following revelations that he and other Conservative Party elites had violated their own lockdown rules and that Johnson had turned a blind eye to a series of sex scandals within his own party.

Farage positioned Reform as an alternative to the Conservative Party, which he faulted for allowing mass immigration — and, in particular, illegal immigration — despite pledging to curtail immigration. “Is there a Conservative Party? I haven’t spotted it — all I can see is two big social democratic parties,” Farage said in 2024, claiming that there is “no difference” between the immigration policies of either Labour or the Conservatives. Pointing to the more-than-a-decade in power squandered by the Conservatives, he insisted, “They have destroyed themselves.”

Between 2025 and 2026, more than 20 sitting MPs, mostly from the Conservative Party, defected and joined Reform. One of the most prominent was Suella Braverman, the former Home Secretary, who was removed from the post after stringent criticism of the Conservative Party’s lax immigration policy and allegations that British police treated right-wing protestors more harshly than Muslim rapists and anti-Israel “mobs.”

Reform’s top policy is immigration control. “Illegal immigration is out of control because politicians choose not to enforce the law, and let foreign courts rob British citizens of a border. A Reform government will stop the boats by immediately leaving the” European Convention on Human Rights and “restoring full control of our borders, intercepting and detaining all illegal arrivals, and deporting them. There will be no loopholes, no delays, and no endless appeals,” the party’s website states. “We will also end Britain being treated as a global welfare system. No more free housing. No more benefits. No more taxpayer-funded incentives for illegal migration. An end to NGOs facilitating illegal migration. Detention and deportation will be the only outcome,” the party’s website continues. “Britain is a welcoming country. But it must be a country with borders, laws, and consequences.”

The party also aims to establish a national border security force “with the legal authority, manpower, and technology to stop illegal entry by land, sea, and air,” and to withdraw from all international treaties and agreements which would impose immigration standards on the U.K. Reform also proposes a five-year plan to identify, arrest, and deport illegal immigrants, including the formation of a U.K. Deportation Command. Another policy plank would eliminate the indefinite leave to remain (ILR) policy implemented under Johnson and the Conservatives, which allowed millions of foreigners on temporary work visas to overstay their visas without consequence and enroll in welfare programs.

Other Reform policies include terminating climate change-related programs and regulations, easing taxes for farmers, reshoring British manufacturing, boosting falling birth rates and providing for British families, significantly cutting foreign aid, and “defend[ing] and protect[ing] British culture and traditions,” including free speech and religious liberty. The Reform website notes that the U.K. “is built upon Christian values. Those will be protected and celebrated.”

In the face of Labour’s stunning defeat, calls have increased for Labour Party Leader and Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign, with many from within his own party anticipating a bloodbath in the next parliamentary election under Starmer’s leadership. The prime minister, however, has refused to step aside, suggesting that his resignation would “plunge the country into chaos,” although he admitted that the election results are “very tough” for Labour. “The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved,” he said. “I was elected to meet those challenges, and I’m not going to walk away from those challenges…”

Votes for council elections are expected to continue to be counted in the coming days. The U.K.’s next general election, which will determine the makeup of Parliament’s lower chamber, the House of Commons, is scheduled to be held on or before August 15, 2029. Currently, Labour dominates Parliament with 403 seats, followed by the Conservatives with 116 seats. Farage is one of eight Reform members currently in Parliament.