{"id":438639,"date":"2026-05-08T11:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/438639\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T11:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:53:08","slug":"truly-historic-shift-in-uk-politics-says-farage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/438639\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Truly historic shift in UK politics,’ says Farage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage has said local election results are a “historic shift in British politics”.<\/p>\n

Asked by reporters whether the success was a result of a protest vote against the Labour government, he said: “It cannot continue to be a fluke or a protest vote.<\/p>\n

“I can honestly say you are witnessing an historic shift in British politics. This (Reform UK) is now the most national of all parties.”<\/p>\n

Reform UK made gains across the country as hundreds of Labour councillors were voted out, heaping pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Farage added Labour and the Conservatives were being “wiped out” in their traditional heartlands and said Reform would bring a mix of new ideas and experience.<\/p>\n

Standing outside Havering Town Hall in East London, he added: “We all know that finances of local councils all over the country are severely stretched. We are not promising miracles but we are promising good value for money.”<\/p>\n

Mr Farage added the Conservative Party will “cease to be a national party” following the local election results.<\/p>\n

“I think what you’re going to see by the end of today is that, whilst the Conservative party have the odd pocket of strength, predominantly in very affluent areas, they will cease to be a national political party.<\/p>\n

“We are competitive, right down from the southwest of England, up to the northeast of Scotland, and I would honestly say now, that we are the only true natural party that are competitive everywhere,” he added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage has said local election results are a “historic shift in British politics”.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-438639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}