Reform UK make a political earthquake in Lancashire - but now for the hard bit

PLUS: Analysis on the challenge Reform UK will face

Hello and welcome to The Lancashire Lead.

Reform UK delivered a victory that was greater than either your worst fears or highest hopes depending on where you land on the political spectrum.

For them, the hard bit starts now. They promised to fix Lancashire County Council but said very little of note about how they would achieve it. “They can’t be worse than what we’ve got” was often the response to this. That remains to be seen.

But they are the elected members we’ve got and, in choosing to stand, they showed that they care. And the voters who went out to put them in County Hall showed that this is what they want as much as those who stayed at home displayed their indifference.

Let’s get into what happened.

Reform UK sweep to comfortable victory in Lancashire County Council takeover

By Paul Faulkner

Reform UK have swept to victory in the Lancashire County Council elections, in a result that one of their number described as “an earthquake”.

From a standing start, the party surged past the threshold needed to secure a majority – ending up with 53 seats.

It claimed some big-name scalps in the process – ousting Conservative county council leader Phillippa Williamson, who lost by just 29 votes in her Lancaster Rural North division.

Nigel Farage’s political project tore into both the Tories – who have controlled the authority since 2017 – and the opposition Labour group, which, after the general election result last year, had harboured hopes to take over at County Hall.

But support for both the two main parties collapsed county-wide – with the Tories 48-seat tally after the last election in 2021 plummeting to eight and Labour being left with only five elected members, having had 32 four years ago.

The Liberal Democrats jumped from two seats to five and the Green Party doubled their number to four.

The new makeup of Lancashire County Council

Stephen Atkinson, the outgoing leader of Ribble Valley Borough Council – who was himself a Tory until he defected to Reform in March – said it was “humbling” that the Lancashire public had put their faith in the party to such a degree.

“It’s an earthquake, this,” the new county councillor for Ribble Valley South West added.

He said that he and his newly-elected councillors – the vast majority of whom Nigel Farage acknowledged in an interview last month have no council experience – were ready to “roll their sleeves up”.

However, some of the county’s more established political operators – both winners and losers – expressed concern for the stability of the authority in the new order that has now been established.

The now former Tory cabinet member Michael Green – who lost his Moss Side and Farington seat – after a 15-year stint – said: “I hope they have a plan.”

Defeated Labour opposition group leader Matthew Tomlinson said when he asked one victorious Reform candidate about their plans for “SEND” – the acronym for special educational needs and disabilities services for children – they “did not know what [it] stood for”.

He added: “I genuinely worry for the county council, because…having spoken to one or two [Reform victors] today, [they] don’t know what they have let themselves in for.

“But they have got to get in and deliver for the people of Lancashire. – and so…I hope they do a reasonable job, because it’s important stuff,” added County Cllr Tomlinson, who lost to Reform in his Leyland Central division, having first been elected to County Hall in 2001.

Liberal Democrat group leader David Howarth – who retained his own Penwortham West seat – said he now had a “fear for the county”.

He accused Reform of having no “understanding of how council finance works”.

“I think we’re in for a very rocky and very difficult first 12 months at least. If they do try and implement this notion that we get rid of all debt, how on earth do we build schools…[or]repair our roads?” County Cllr Howarth asked.

During the local election campaign, Reform – locally and nationally – regularly attacked Lancashire County Council’s £1.2bn of borrowing and the resultant daily debt interest bill in excess of £100,000. The line taken by the party united the other political groups who defended debt as being necessary to invest in infrastructure and assets.

County Cllr Atkinson said his party had been careful not to over promise – with its priorities being an extra £31m of spending on highways over the next two years, “subject to the budget being in balance”.

He also said the group was committed to a referendum on the future of local government in Lancashire, amid national government plans to scrap all 15 councils – including the county council itself – within the next three years and replace them with a handful of new ones.

Asked whether he was now the de facto leader of Lancashire County Council, he said that matter would be a matter for the group – but that the subject of leadership would be top of the agenda when it meets on Saturday.

Independents’ Day

There are now seven independents sitting on Lancashire County Council – including former Preston city councillor and pro-Gaza campaigner Michael Lavalette, who took the Preston Central East division. Former Labour member Yousuf Motala retained his Preston City division seat, having quit the party over its stance on the Gaza conflict in November 2023.

A third independent – Almas Razakazi – was elected in Preston South East.

Elsewhere, three former Labour members retained their seats in Burnley and Pendle – including former Labour group leader Azhar Ali, who was suspended from the party in February 2024 and later resigned, in the wake of comments he made about Israel.

The hyper-local Our West Lancashire party secured two seats.

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Labour tried for broad appeal and landed on no appeal

By Luke Beardsworth

Labour tried to appeal to Reform UK voters but weren’t as good at that as Reform UK. In doing so, they became too much like Reform UK for everyone else. Who saw it coming?