‘Reform’s narrow Runcorn win makes 60-100 Labour seats targets’

The most significant takeaway from last night’s by-election result in Runcorn and Helsby is not the numbers or the margin – which are fairly in-line with Reform’s recent showing in national polls – it’s what it might unlock in voters’ minds.

For the first time ever, a Farage-led party has demonstrated that it can win a parliamentary by-election through the front door, not via defection or protest alone. This wasn’t Clacton or Rochester and Strood – engineered coups by UKIP in 2014 thanks to sitting Tory MPs switching sides. This was a regular electoral win, and in a Labour-held seat, with a full slate of parties standing.

READ MORE: Council by council Labour gains and losses – and its position in each mayor race

Nigel Farage has always chased the symbolic prize of a clean by-election win – especially in a Labour stronghold. Until now, it had eluded him. The near-miss in Heywood and Middleton in 2014 – where UKIP came within 617 votes of victory on the same day as Clacton – was the closest he came.

That contest has since faded from memory. Runcorn and Helsby, however, will not.

It matters very much where this happened. Runcorn and Helsby is (or was) far from the usual target seat for Reform and far from the “left-behind” areas which voted strongly to leave in 2016.

Runcorn & Helsby Profile

• 49th safest for Labour by percentage-point majority

• Leaned leave in 2016 (54%) but far from the seats which UKIP/Reform are used to targeting historically (65-70%+)

• Significantly better educated than the usual Reform target – more degree holders than the average of Reform’s wins in 2024

• Almost a third of voters own a house with a mortgage – these are working people holding mortgages and feeling the strain of the cost of living. Reform are usually more popular among those who own outright.

• A mix between young professionals and older voters

This is a seat that straddles multiple geographies and demographics – a commuter suburb, a post-industrial town, and semi-rural communities rolled into one.

It’s not quite “Red Wall”, not “Shire Tory”, but somewhere in between. Seats like this form the core of Labour’s 2024 coalition.

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Voters here are not the most deprived, but they are financially stretched, sceptical of politics, and alert to any party that promises to upend the status quo.

These are “held-back” seats – places where people feel they are working hard but getting little in return, and where neither major party currently inspires much enthusiasm.

READ MORE: ‘Results so far say one thing: voters think change isn’t coming fast enough’

Psychologically, this win alters the landscape. Voters now have evidence that Reform can win in new territory, and that belief is self-reinforcing – encouraging both otherwise non-voters and potential switchers alike.

At the general election last year Reform won 14% of the vote nationally but came out with fewer than 1% of the seats in parliament, splitting the Conservative vote across the country and allowing Labour to win a strong majority.

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Now, Reform are becoming a significant threat to Labour – their rise in the polls is being felt across Labour’s heartlands. Just as UKIP’s Clacton win gave the party political gravity on the right in 2014, Runcorn could now do the same – but in a way that targets Labour’s flank.

These demographic factors open up between 80-100 seats won by Labour in 2024 with a similar profile to Runcorn and Helsby.

For Labour, the danger isn’t just losing votes at the margins – it is that Reform has shown it can win outright in the kinds of seats once thought safely in Labour’s column. That knowledge is now clear  to voters – a narrative that will not easily be undone.

Read more on the 2025 local elections:

Results on the day

Analysis and what to expect

• Starmer: ‘Labour must go further and faster to deliver after Runcorn defeat’
• Runcorn blame game begins – why did Labour lose?
• ‘Labour has lost in Runcorn – here are the eight things the party should do now‘
• MPs who could lose their seat on Runcorn by-election swing to Reform
• ‘Results so far say one thing: voters think change isn’t coming fast enough’
• Three ways to measure Labour’s success tonight
• Expert predicts ‘bad night’ with no net Labour gains
• ‘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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