Reform receives best result yet in Blackpool

Richard Tice’s party comes within just 120 votes of the Tories in by-election, close to finishing second place

REFORM UK received its best ever result as it came within almost 120 votes of the Tories in the Blackpool South by-election.

The Conservatives lost the seat to Labour on a dramatic 26 per cent swing – the third largest since the Second World War. The party only just managed to hang on to second place, with Reform finishing just 117 votes behind.

Richard Tice’s party received a vote share of 16.9 per cent, the highest in its history. But in Thursday’s council battles, the party did less well, gaining only a single seat.

Mr Tice told The Telegraph that the

Blackpool result showed it was “onwards and upwards” for Reform, which has gained steadily in the polls over the last year.

“We are delighted with our best Reform vote to date, way above our national polling average,” he said. “We are rapidly becoming the real opposition to Labour in the North and Midlands as the socialist Tories sink in the polls. Onwards and upwards.”

Mark Butcher, Reform’s candidate, said his vote share was “incredible” and he would run again in a bid to win the seat at the general election.

“We’ve done more than give the Conservatives a bloody nose,” he said. “I think we’ve made a massive statement – nobody can doubt that at all.”

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, hailed the Blackpool South result as a “seismic win” as his party took the seat with a 7,607 vote landslide majority, winning 58.9 per cent of the vote.

David Jones, the Tory candidate, declined to answer questions as he left the Blackpool Sports Centre after the result was announced at 4.50am.

On a turnout of just 32.5 per cent, Labour returned to power in a seat it had previously held from 1997 to 2019.

Chris Webb, who will succeed Scott

Benton, the seat’s former Tory MP who resigned earlier this year after a lobbying scandal, said in his victory speech that “the people of Blackpool South have spoken for Britain”. Labour sources said the swing in Blackpool South was much larger than what the party would need to win a general election, with that figure set at 12.5 per cent.

At the start of the night, Reform had only been cautiously optimistic that it had a chance of even nearing the Conservative share of the vote.

Both parties initially claimed they had pipped the other to second, with Mr Jones saying he was “absolutely confident” and Mr Butcher saying he had beaten not just the Conservatives but also Labour.

Reform has never finished second in an election or by-election and had never previously won more than 13 per cent of the vote, which the party achieved in the Wellingborough by-election in February. At 3am, Mr Tice declared that Reform had won “our best result by a ‘We’ve done more than give the Tories a bloody nose, I think we’ve made a massive statement’ considerable margin” and was now the “real opposition to Labour”.

As the count continued, David Campbell Bannerman, a leading figure on the Tory Right, warned that Mr Sunak’s time as leader would be over if Reform beat the Conservatives to second.

Prof Sir John Curtice, the elections expert, said: “The only thing that’s stopped this result from being basically an unmitigated disaster for the Conservatives was the fact they just narrowly squeaked ahead of Reform.”

Reform UK currently has one MP in Parliament, after the former Conservative deputy chairman Lee Anderson defected earlier this year.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Anderson rejected the idea his new party was helping Labour, saying that in many places the combined Reform and Conservative total would not beat Labour.

“Come the general election this party is going to win seats, a vote for Reform is a vote for Reform,” he said.

Richard Tice, Reform’s leader, has said his party is now ‘the real opposition to Labour’