The Morning Star View on the 2026 Election Results

The vote count gets underway in the 2026 Senedd elections at Ysgol Bro Teifi, in Ceredigion, May 8, 2026

THE threat of the far right looms over British politics. That is the most serious takeaway from the 2026 elections.

It is not that Reform are winning everywhere. The Scottish National Party look secure in power at Holyrood, despite their vote share falling. Labour’s historic defeat in Wales is down to the advance of Plaid Cymru, which topped the polls, as well as Reform.

Green advances have been strong in some areas, with the election of their first London mayor in Hackney a milestone for the party, and the Liberal Democrats are holding their own. The parties in freefall are the big two at Westminster, something polls have indicated for a long time.

But Reform is not only by far the biggest winner in terms of council seats — its advance is most general. Nigel Farage boasted today that it was sweeping aside Tories in Conservative heartlands and Labour in places that party had dominated since World War I.

This isn’t new either — Reform showed it by taking Durham and Kent county councils last year — but it’s a big problem for the left. Various left-of-Labour forces are capable of winning in particular parts of the country but there is no progressive party or alliance that is competitive at British level in that way.

Ultimately this is due to the crisis in working-class representation — the empty space in politics where a party of the working class should be.

That’s why left-of-Labour sentiment is expressed differently depending where you are.

Zack Polanski’s Greens are a growing force — but lots of their members and many prominent supporters were previously in the Jeremy Corbyn movement, their current alignment less down to anything distinctive about the Greens than the fact that their politics has been outlawed in Labour.

The Greens remain relatively marginal in Wales, since frustration at Labour has a more obvious outlet via Plaid Cymru. In areas where independent socialists have built a presence, as in Blackburn or parts of Birmingham, they can be the beneficiaries of Labour’s betrayal of its roots.

So Labour has been rejected — but not replaced. Whether that means the party can claw back lost ground is uncertain.

Collapse in Wales — where it has reigned for 100 years — retreat in London and wipeouts at Reform’s hands in parts of north-west England show it has no strongholds left. The corporate shills and smug politicos who ignored the demolition of previous red walls in Scotland and north-east England have brought this on the party.

Certainly Keir Starmer must be shown the door. Unions demanding Labour change direction should force the parliamentary party’s hand, insisting too on a clearout of the Labour Together clique whose every act since seizing control of the party has led it to this pass.

If Labour is to stand a chance of recovery it will need to adopt radical policies that make an obvious difference to people — nationalising water and energy, cutting bills, building council houses at scale.

And if the left is to stand a chance of stopping Reform it needs to become the mass movement pushing that change.

Trade unions need to reach into the 80 per cent of workers who aren’t organised: that means putting resources into trades councils to rebuild local visibility and presence, testing new access rights to demand entry to workplaces across the country, linking with community campaigns around housing or pollution. Anti-racist work needs to be embedded in the workplace, as well as on the streets.

Our movement has all but disappeared from most working-class neighbourhoods. The far right could soon be in government as a result.

We will not stop it by flocking to whichever left-liberal outfit is currently ahead where we live, though tactical votes for these often make sense. We will only do so by rebuilding working-class power, and that starts with the unions.