Reform UK has said results from Sunderland are “outstanding” as the party reaches new levels of support at the expense of the Conservatives.
Reform, which is standing in all Sunderland council seats, has enjoyed a slew of great results while the Tories are down significantly.
In one constituency, Reform won 32.3% of the vote, while the Conservatives lost 22.3%.
In other seats, they secured 15.8%, 19.3%, 18.8% and 16.8%, but the Conservatives lost by similar margins.
Reacting to the initial results, Reform UK chairman Richard Tice said the results were “outstanding”.
He added: “We expect to beat the Conservatives with a majority of the 25 seats in Sunderland.”
Commentator Sir John Curtice told the BBC’s election results programme that the Conservatives should be “concerned” about Reform and said: “It will be a difficult night” for Rishi Sunak.
“This is a very Eurosceptic part of the country and it’s also where UKIP has performed well in past local elections.”
“We’re now seeing the Reform Party beating the Conservatives in every election result. What we’ve been getting from Sunderland so far has become outdated.
“The Conservative vote numbers are significantly worse than they were in 2021 and in fact worse than they were this time last year so there is reason for the Conservatives to be concerned about what’s happening in the Eurosceptic world, at least in these early results,” he said.
A Reform UK spokesman said the early results were “clearly significant”.
He told the UAE Breaking that while it was still “early days”, it was notable that Sunderland was part of a country that was a bellwether for Brexit and is now showing the potential for a continued rise for Reform UK.
Another key area of reform is Bolton, which will be announced around 2am.
The Blackpool South by-election is also important for Reform Britain, whose spokesperson said it was likely to push the Conservatives into second place.
Luke Trill, the British director of More in Common, warned that this would cause “Tory panic”.
But reformers warned the Conservatives had far more data on where voters were than in the 2019 election.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s former pollster James Johnson has said Sunderland’s reform results will make Nigel Farage “quietly watch”.
Cabinet minister Chris Heaton-Harris said that, as the result in Sunderland showed, “it would be hard to deny that if he were to return home it would add further fuel to Reform UK’s already strong performance in the city”. : “If you vote for reform, you get Labour”.
The Northern Ireland Minister told the BBC:
“If they want to vote for reform, they’re going to end up with a Labour MP, they’re going to end up with a Labour government and they’re probably going to end up with everything they didn’t want to vote for.
Based on the profile of the Reform voter.”