England Is Splitting Apart as Labour Collapses

Yves here. I am sure we’ll have many more reports and hot takes on the UK election results in Links tomorrow. I thought it still made sense to put up this piece by Richard Murphy, which discusses some of the early outcomes, to allow UK and other interested readers to weigh in. Regardless of who feasts on the carcass, this is an epic and well deserved defeat for Labour, and will lead to the overdue departure of “never here” Kier Starmer.

By Richard Murphy, Emeritus Professor of Accounting Practice at Sheffield University Management School and a director of Tax Research LLP. Originally published at Funding the Future

England’s local election results are revealing a dramatic political shift. Reform is making major gains across poorer regions, coastal towns, and former Labour heartlands, whilst London and larger cities are resisting the trend.

In this video, I look at what these results tell us about poverty, inequality, neoliberal failure, Labour’s collapse outside London, Conservative decline, Liberal Democrat resilience, and the Greens’ disappointing performance.

I also ask whether Britain’s traditional two-party system is now breaking apart for good, and what this means for the future of English politics.

The early results suggest a country splitting politically, geographically, and economically, and unless inequality is tackled, Reform’s growth may continue.

This is the audio version:

This is the transcript:

It’s just after 7:00 in the morning on the 8th of May 2026, and a new England is emerging as a result of this morning’s local council results, those that are already declared, that is.

We’ve only got one-third of the results in at present, that or near abouts, and the consequences are clear. Let’s ignore Scotland and Wales for the moment. There are no election results from there as yet. Let’s just talk about England and the major political trends that are already visible this morning.

Reform is advancing strongly across England, but it has to be said, that is only outside London, and it is also only outside our larger towns and cities. In poorer regions and coastal areas, many people are swinging to Farage’s Reform Party, and that is particularly true in the northeast and the northwest of the country.

In the northeast, Reform won all the available seats in Hartlepool. In the northwest, in places like Chorley and Tameside, there have been big wins for Reform at cost to Labour, and that is also being seen in other areas in Manchester as well, where there have been big swings once more.

Reform is now winning many seats, but so far, few councils. Only Newcastle-under-Lyme has so far become a Reform council as a consequence of these elections, and it was one of the rare ones outside London where all seats were up for election. The new council is dominated by Reform, and the losses were to Labour, who lost all but two of their seats, and to the Conservatives as well.

This was a general trend across the areas where Reform won heavily. They won at the expense of both of these parties. But let’s be clear, they are struggling in urban areas. London is resisting Reform very clearly. They’ve won almost no seats that I can see there as yet in the about five results so far declared, and in places like Oxford, and Reading, and Lincoln, they are showing small swings and, in fact, are making no significant gains.

England is splitting politically and geographically.

The fact is that Labour is having a terrible night overall. It’s losing more seats than it’s winning, and losses outside London are particularly severe. They’re not so bad in London. But Manchester is doing badly for Labour, and that’s particularly significant because that is the power base for both Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner, who are major challengers to Keir Starmer in any leadership race, and that leaves them politically exposed, just as much as Keir Starmer is. The fact that Labour is going to be in a terribly confused situation now is something that we can be sure of. There is no good outcome from this night for them. The narrative of confusion is going to continue.

The Conservatives are also collapsing, but rather more quietly than Labour, but they started these elections in a worse position than Labour did.

Their losses are heavy, but not as proportionately as bad as Labour’s, and they’ve also had some wins. They’ve won seats from Labour in Harlow, in Essex. They’ve won Westminster Council, taking it back from Labour, and they have pulled themselves into a position of no overall control in Wandsworth in London. These are notable successes for them. Kemi Badenoch will no doubt be shouting about them, but she can’t pretend otherwise; this is also a disastrous night for the Conservative Party. The two-party hegemony of power between Labour and the Tories that has ruled Britain for years is over. These two parties are both heading to be toast, and I think that’s the fair description of them.

The Liberal Democrats are proving resilient. Their overall voting share is down; I should stress that point, but they are winning seats, and in some places the results are quite extraordinary.

In Richmond-upon-Thames in London, they won all the council seats, every single one of them. They almost replicated that in Sutton, in South London, taking fifty-one out of fifty-five seats and protest vote is obviously helping the Liberal Democrats’ support in some areas, but let’s also be clear, in those areas where they have a long track record in local government, people are supporting them. They have got something going for them, and that is not what Labour and the Conservatives can be saying. That is the Liberal Democrats’ strength at this moment. They are not down and out; the other two are.

The Greens have undoubtedly had a disappointing night so far. There can’t be any other description than that. They are winning seats, but they are coming second in so many of them that they are not getting the breakthrough they need. That is clear. But the point that I’m going to make is this: the media attacks on Zack Polanski have worked. The attempt to cast him as the next Jeremy Corbyn is clearly having an impact, but at the same time, the Greens have to also get their act together.

They need to make clear what their message is, and I don’t think that is the case. Look at Tameside in Manchester. They didn’t win there, and that borough covers part of the Gorton and Denton seat that they just won in a parliamentary by-election. The failure to translate that into a local result is very worrying for them.

So where are we? Poverty is driving the Reform vote. That’s the message that we have from this morning. Neoliberalism is clearly failing, and those who are suffering are registering a protest vote. The fact that they are doing so by registering a vote for the only party in the UK that is dedicated to making the poorer people in this country very much worse off is one of the perverse outcomes of this election.

It is completely bizarre that the people who will suffer from cuts to services, cuts to healthcare, cuts to support for special educational needs, cuts for support to councils, cuts for support to social care, all of those things are going to be delivered by Reform, and all of those things are going to have the greatest impacts in places like Hartlepool, Chorley, and Newcastle-under-Lyme, places where they are winning.

This is the perverse outcome of the night, but Farage is winning, and the fact is, other parties have got to get their acts together to prove that they can deliver for those places, or we are facing a fascist onslaught. Let’s not pretend otherwise, and it is going to be very horrible indeed.

This is the fact that we’re having to face. We are at a very dangerous political moment in this country. England is splitting along economic lines. First-past-the-post is distorting representation very heavily in some areas, and unless inequality is addressed, Reform will keep growing.

That’s what I think. What do you think? There are more results to come. This situation will change as the day progresses. Let us have your opinion. We’re not putting a poll down below because we don’t think that is fair, as yet, but we will do potentially later in the day. Like this video if that’s what you do. Please share it, and if you want to support our work, we would, as ever, be very grateful.