Britain's right-wing Reform UK party won a vacant parliamentary seat, two mayoralties and control of several councils on Friday in early results from elections that its leader Nigel Farage said proved it was now the real opposition.
The populist Reform, led by the veteran campaigner for Brexit, hoped Thursday's local elections in England would mark the breakdown of a century of domination of British politics by the governing Labour Party and opposition Conservatives.
In the most closely watched contest, for the vacant parliamentary seat of Runcorn and Helsby, Reform won by just six votes after a full recount, giving Farage's party its fifth seat in the House of Commons. Labour had won the seat in last year's national election with a majority of almost 15,000.
"It's been a huge night for Reform," Farage told reporters. "This is heartland Labour Party, their vote has collapsed and much of it has come to us." The Conservatives were now "toast", he added. "You're witnessing the end of a party that's been around since 1832."
Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative minister who defected to Reform after losing her seat last year, became mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, which covers about a million people, making her the party's most powerful elected politician yet. Reform won another mayoralty in Hull and East Yorkshire.
Reform also took control of several county councils, including Kent, Derbyshire, Durham and Nottinghamshire. It was leading all parties in the initial tally of councillors elected, with well over half of the more than 1,600 seats up for grabs on local authorities declared.
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