Hull and East Yorkshire mayor: Labour finish fourth as Reform win

Reform’s Luke Campbell has been elected in the race to be mayor of the Hull and East Yorkshire combined authority, while Labour trailed in 4th place.

He won 48,491 votes, or 35.82%. Campbell is a former professional boxer – he won gold at the 2012 Olympics – and was widely regarded as the favourite following his entry into the mayoral race.

LabourList’s Luke O’Reilly visited the area, writing that some people in Hull and East Yorkshire were impressed with Campbell’s status as an outsider to politics and a local success story, but that many were unaware of the nature of the new mayoral role. This is the first time the Hull and East Yorkshire mayoralty has been contested.

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In second place were the Liberal Democrats. Hull council has been controlled by the Liberal Democrats since 2022. The Liberal Democrat candidate Mike Ross is the leader of Hull city council. Ross won 37,510 votes, or 27.71%.

Labour’s candidate Margaret Pinder won 18,568, or 13.72%. She came in fourth place behind Campbell, Ross and the Conservative candidate Anne Handley.

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Born in Hull, Pinder was inspired to get into Labour politics by Gordon Brown’s speech following Labour’s electoral defeat in 2010.

She narrowly lost the parliamentary seat of Beverley and Holderness to the Conservative Graham Stuart last summer. Stuart took the seat with a majority is 124.

The results declared so far have seen Labour projected to slump to its joint worst vote share projected in over four decades, down around 150 seats.

The party lost both the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by a whisker and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralty, whilst suffering double-digit seat losses in once Labour-controlled County Durham, Lancashire and Northumberland.

Labour managed to hold on to the West of England, Doncaster and North Tyneside mayoralties, but only by fine margins as Reform advanced.

Nationally as of mid-afternoon Friday,  Reform won seven of the first 11 councils declared and had over 500 councillors with the Lib Dems gaining more than 300 and the Greens gaining dozens. Labour was down around 150 on just 75 in the small number of contested areas, and the Tories down by more than 500.

READ MORE: Runcorn blame game begins – why did Labour lose?

The blame game is well underway after the closest by-election in history in Runcorn, which went to a recount and saw Reform’s swing exceeding national polls – likely sparking angst among many MPs who might lose on a similar swing.

Survation warned it made up to 100 constituencies now Reform targets, Keir Starmer said Labour must go “further and faster” on current policy, while others say the cost of living is key and both left critics and defeated candidates have blamed spending cuts. Some warn against mimicking Reform as a solution, however.

In Labour’s historic mining heartland County Durham, where it had governed for a century until 2021, won every constituency last year and was last week the largest party, the party shed a staggering 38 seats to finish fourth as Reform took control with 65 councillors.

In Lancashire, Labour-run in the New Labour era, Labour’s leader slammed spending cuts after he and 26 colleagues lost seats as Reform took control, with the Tories also losing 39 seats.

In Northumberland, where Labour was the largest party in the 2000s, the party lost a dozen seats  finishing a distant third behind Reform and the Tories, who narrowly remain the biggest party.

READ MORE: ‘‘Labour has lost in Runcorn – here are the eight things the party should do now‘

But the first three major sets of results fully declared had all seen Labour edge tight victories to hold on, with Reform finishing second in three mayoralties.

In Doncaster, Labour’s Ros Jones was re-elected for a fourth time, but only by around 700 votes to Reform.

In North Tyneside, Karen Clark held it for Labour but with only 32.4% of the vote to Reform’s  29.4%. Labour’s vote tally more than halved, however, from 33,119 for Clark’s outgoing predecessor in 2021 to just 16,230 this time round.

In the West of England, Labour’s Helen Godwin secured a majority of less than 6,000 votes over Arron Banks, with 25% of the vote to Reform’s 22.1%, It marked an unusual four-way contest, with the Greens third on 20% and Tories on 16.6%.

Read more on the 2025 local elections:

Analysis and what to expect

• Expert predicts ‘bad night’ with no net Labour gains 
• What’s a good night for Labour?
• ‘Uxbridgitis: If election results are grim, let’s not learn the wrong lessons again’
• Where’s Keir? PM barely features in Labour party election broadcasts for the locals
• The meme elections: Labour’s social media pivot to take fight to Farage

LabourList’s on-the-ground reports from the campaign

• Hull and East Yorkshire: Labour candidate spars with Reform’s boxing star in UK’s most disillusioned city
• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Nik Johnson on why he’s standing down and Anna Smith on knife-edge Labour-Tory fight to replace him
• West of England: Tory and Green threats, Dan Norris and low voter awareness
• Lancashire: Long shadow of Gaza looms over key battleground

Inside the Runcorn campaign

• Mood on the doorstep: Labour’s last push for Tory voters to keep out Reform
• At least 150 Labour MPs visit – but Keir Starmer ain’t one
• Karen Shore interview: Labour candidate on Reform, the NHS and closing asylum hotels
• Runcorn poll: One in ten Labour voters expected to back Reform

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