England local elections 2025: Mayoral and council results - as Starmer sees victory and one blow to Nigel Farage's Reform party
After a nail-biting night, election officials have announced that Reform UK’s candidate Sarah Pochin has won the byelection in Runcorn and Helsby.
The Labour party has issued this response to the Runcorn and Helsby byelection result. It says the result shows the government needs to “move faster” with its Plan for Change. A spokesperson said: “Byelections are always difficult for the party in government and the events which led to this one being called made it even harder. Voters are still rightly furious with the state of the country after 14 years of failure and clearly expect the government to move faster with the Plan for Change.
“While Labour has suffered an extremely narrow defeat, the shock is that the Conservative vote has collapsed. Moderate voters are clearly appalled by the talk of a Tory-Reform pact. There are encouraging signs that our Plan for Change is working – NHS waiting lists, inflation and interest rates down with wages up – but we will go further and faster to deliver change with relentless focus on putting money back into people’s pockets.”
Reform UK won by just six votes, with a swing of 17.4%. This is said to be the closest byelection result in history.
Speaking after the announcement, the Reform UK leader branded the prime minister a “coward” in a scathing attack. Speaking on GB News, he was asked why the prime minister did not show his face in the constituency during the by-election campaign. He said: “He’s a coward. He doesn’t lead from the front”.
Meanwhile Labour has won mayoral races in North Tyneside, the West of England, and Doncaster, with Reform a close second in each contest. The Doncaster mayoral race was very close at the top - not only between the top two candidates, Labour’s Ros Jones and Reform’s Alex Jones, but coming a close third was the Tories’ Nick Fletcher.
In her speech, Ros Jones said her priority was to the people of Doncaster. “I make this promise to the people of Doncaster, whether you voted for me or not, I will work for you every single day.” Helen Godwin securing a win in the West of England mayoral race. Godwin defeated Reform’s Arron Banks, who came second.
In North Tyneside Karen Clark, standing to replace the outgoing Labour mayor, won 16,230 votes, to Reform’s 15,786. The “Local Conservatives” candidate secured 11,017 votes, with the Greens fourth and Lib Dems fifth.