Are Reform a bigger threat to Labour or the Conservatives? Here's what local election results tell us

Despite Labour losing most seats to Reform, in-depth Sky News analysis of May's local election results shows that Reform's popularity is hitting the Conservatives hardest.

Meanwhile the Greens took fewer seats than Reform did from Labour, but may have been responsible for taking more of their votes.

The fragmentation of British politics away from the dominant two-party system continued as thousands of council seats changed hands across England.

Voter engagement increased, with indications that more people turned out to vote than the last time these seats were elected.

Where Reform's gains came from

One of the biggest questions now in British politics is where Reform UK are gaining their support, and at whose expense.

By sheer volume, Reform took more seats from Labour. They gained 798 seats from Labour compared with 471 seats from the Conservatives.

Many of these elections took place in areas that have traditionally supported Labour, and they were defending half of all the seats up for election. Another quarter were being defended by the Tories.

Together, Labour and the Conservatives lost three in five of their seats, while Reform UK, as well as the Greens and the Liberal Democrats, made sweeping gains.

Labour had the most at stake, and suffered the heaviest losses. They ended the election with 1,498 fewer seats than they started with, losing 60% of their seats.

The Conservatives made net losses of 563 seats, a loss rate of 49% of their seats.

Reform hit the Tories harder

While Reform took most seats from Labour, the Conservatives came out worse when we look at the percentage of seats lost.

More than two-thirds of the seats that they lost went to Reform, mostly in shire counties such as Norfolk, where the Conservatives defended 60 seats and lost 36 of them to Reform. A further one in five of the seats they lost went to the Lib Dems, with these losses particularly heavy in the South East.

Meanwhile just over half of Labour’s losses were to Nigel Farage’s party, with the biggest losses in the North East, followed by 29% to the Greens, who gained most in London and the East.

The big winners were Reform who made net gains of 1,453 seats, followed by the Greens who made 440 net gains. The Lib Dems made gains for an eighth consecutive year, finishing with 152 additional seats.

The Lib Dems won more than 10% of the seats the Conservatives were defending. The Greens won most of their seats from Labour, at nearly a fifth of those that Labour were defending.

Labour lost seats to Reform - but votes to the Greens?

Although Labour lost more seats directly to Reform UK than to the Greens, it does not necessarily mean former Labour voters switched primarily to Reform.

In a closed ballot system, it is impossible to know exactly how individual voters changed their support. There are interesting patterns in vote share changes, however, that provide some clues.

Labour had the biggest decline in vote share of any party regardless of who ended up winning the seat, including a 21 point drop in the seats they held.

This indicates a broad collapse in support across the country and means the seats that Labour held on to were won with small majorities and low vote shares.

It’s similar to what happened to the Conservatives at the last general election, and it looks as though the problems that plagued the Tories when they were in government have now come for Labour.

Meanwhile the Greens’ vote share increased most in areas where either they or Labour won the seat.

This suggests they performed best with former Labour voters and that while Labour lost seats to Reform, they also lost votes to the Greens.

The Tories’ biggest drop was in wards where Reform won, in those areas they were down more than 15 percentage points on average.

Vote changes by region

Reform made the biggest gains in vote share, rising by an average of 22 percentage points from a starting point of zero in most wards.

Their gains were strongest in traditionally Conservative and Brexit voting areas - particularly in the North East, where Reform’s vote share rose by more than 35 points on average.

The Greens increased their vote share by 9 points overall, with some of their biggest vote share increases concentrated in urban areas. Their vote share increased most in London, by 11 points.

But perhaps more surprisingly their biggest increase was in the East Midlands. After their recent victory in the Gorton & Denton by-election, they may have been hoping for bigger gains in the North West - their vote share rose by just 7.6 points on average there.

All other party vote shares were down on average.

Labour’s vote share dropped by 19.4 points, and the Conservatives were down by 9.2 points.

These drops were proportional, meaning Labour’s vote share fell the most in wards where it was previously highest.

Again, a trend we saw in the Conservative vote share before they were kicked out of government.

More competition means closer races

Having a greater number of competitive parties in a first-past-the-post voting system means the winner can claim victory on a smaller percentage of the vote.

Overall, the average winning vote share was just over 40% which is little change from last year but a significant drop from historic trends. In 2022, the average winning vote share was 53%.

Some places saw councillors elected with remarkably low vote shares. For instance, Labour held the Hatfield East ward in Welwyn Hatfield, Hertfordshire, with just 24.8% of the vote.

Motivated voters boosted turnout

Complete turnout figures for all councils will take a few months to collect, but we do have a snapshot from 1,247 wards so far that gives a sense of how many people voted in this set of elections.

Now that the political parties have more distinct offers, it appears that people are more motivated to vote.

In recent years, fewer than a third of eligible voters have participated at local elections.

Analysis of available data so far indicates that voter turnout was up by more than eight percentage points on average.

While Labour and Reform came out on top in wards with the lowest turnout, turnout increased the most in wards where Reform won.

This could either be because people felt like they had something to vote for in a Reform candidate, or because the party motivated their opposition just as much (if not more) than their supporters.

On the other hand, turnout increased less in seats that stuck to the status quo and re-elected Labour candidates. This may have contributed to Labour holding some of these seats.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

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