I never had confidence that Starmer would be anything more than a mediocre prime minister;even so, I did not expect his premiership to be such an abject failure. George’s thread clearly sets out his shortcomings and how they have paved the way for a Reform govenrment. #ukelections #ukpolitics

Defending Starmer on the grounds that he is better than the alternative is not a mobilisation message. The Greens' 8% vote share gain without translating into many seats suggests there is an available left-progressive vote that is not being converted into power under current electoral geography.

Keir Starmer is the best Prime Minister for Rupert Murdoch, the Barclay Brothers and the Lukudists

Dear Starmer, Dear Labour MPs, Are you yet considering electoral reform & a change from the antiquated First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) system to a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system? This is what *your own members* told you they wanted at Conference - but you ignored them. #PRNow #ElectoralReform

The UK badly needs a proportional representation voting system. Not just cynically to stop putin's fascist-scumbag reform party from winning, but because PR leads to actual democracy and not a random outcome. We no longer have just 2 parties. FFS stop faffing and give us a fair voting system!

Farage is a traitor and always will be😱

At this point I’m convinced that Keir Starmer is fully set on handing this country over to the far right. There’s honestly no other logical explanation. Thank god for my EU passport. I don’t know how much more of this I can take.

Anyone still questioning why Farage's Reform did so well? The majority of the British public have no idea how politics work in this country, they listen to our press and its lies and believe every word. If there is to be real change we have to take on our media.

But the appointment of Mahmood was a goose-step too far. It was never going to work and it gave other progressives a lot to criticise.

Absolutely. Epstein and Mandleson pushed for Gordon Brown to resign as well after the 2010 GE and succeeded. bsky.app/profile/dcmi...

It’s an ongoing project to replace liberal democracies across Europe with anti-EU Putin puppets. Even “One Nation” Tories are too liberal for them…

On the bright side & judging by their past performance, I doubt whether many of these new Reform councillors will still be in post in 6 months' time...

Of course he does.

This👇

“UKIP's here.” New Reform councillor has to be corrected on which party he now represents

Well today is depressing. Yet again the billionaire media barons and billionaire donors have persuaded people to vote against their own interests.

I’m not sure there is a bleaker - or older - phenomenon in politics than desperate voters turning to charlatans and bigots for change. Reform councillors will do nothing to help someone’s elderly Mum get social care or keep the local library open for kids. And Farage is laughing his arse off.

Nigel Farage's beaming face is featuring heavily in the local elections coverage, but the truth is that the real architect of Reform's gains is the man whose disastrous 'Blue Labour' strategy we were confidently told would prevent them bylinetimes.com/2026/05/08/l...

I've just signed a petition calling on the UK government to give British businesses a better deal with Europe. Add your name please - and share. 👇👇https://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/single-market-petition

I honestly don't know what it means to be "credible" on immigration when neither falling numbers nor extremely hostile rhetoric seem to make any difference whatsoever

This ⬇️ "More results than ever will involve the winning party getting a disproportionate amount of power, considering the number of votes cast for it; fewer people will get what they voted for. The ever more random roulette wheel of our voting system will produce wildly odd winners and losers."

Exactly

The elections in the UK yesterday are so far showing Two Englands with a gulf between them - and maybe by the end Four Britains. A Disunited Kingdom. In areas that voted heavily for Brexit, Reform got 41%. Everywhere else they got an average of 10%.

Labour has done a great deal of damage to itself and the country by making “win over a caricature of Reform voters” and “panicked stakeholder management” its only governing priority. Time to make “win over a caricature of Green voters” and “panicked stakeholder management” the aim instead.

Imagine seeing Labour suffer one of its worst ever election results and your immediate takeaway is "the man whose entire strategy delivered this must have been right"

Several things true at once 1) Labour losing to everyone in every direction. Reform (with Green assistance eating into Lab vote) wiping Labour out in places Lab has always dominated 2) They’re often doing so on small %es of vote, rewarded by highly fragmented electorate. FPTPdoing the rest…

Doing what I do best - shutting down a question about the £5 million gift I received, because I can't stand scrutiny and don't think the rules apply to me.

We don't have a media system of good journalism as far as politics is concerned we have a Billionaire Oligarch stranglehold on our mass media that is not there to inform its there to distort. You only find "good" journalism if you search for it, which has been the case for decades.

Voting without knowing. GOOD Journalism could REALLY play a part here. After all excellent and accurate comms should be a mark of its quality and effectiveness. Not just giving headlines to bad actors for clicks. And there is a real loss in good quality local journalism here.

Just met a Reform UK voting couple who had no idea that it opposed: Recent rise in the minimum wage End of the two-child benefit cap Expansion of free school meals, free breakfast clubs Help with school uniforms Horrified that they would lose big from Reform How many others voted without knowing?

Until they get past the msm only reporting on the negative and ignoring positive this gov are always going to struggle

Is it any wonder people are pissed off? The only surprise about today is how slow, dumb and detached our trad political parties are. I knew it was bad — we all did. But bad enough to quietly let themselves get made extinct by Farage and Polanski? Useless. The lot.

On the left, we blame an economic system that is clearly dysfunctional and corrupt. Rigged markets. Vampire capitalists. Offshore criminality. Weak regulation. Bought politics. Supine leadership. On the right, they blame brown people locked in a motel in Clacton. Who knows who's right?

And the generation above you — I'm not saying poverty doesn't exist. But it's not The Weather. We're an electorate of triple-locked pensioners in cheaply bought homes that are now worth £1m, voting for a system that impoverishes their kids and boils their grandkids.

What 20 years of austerity (and growth only for the rich) means: If you're under 40 you've spent your ENTIRE WORKING LIFE in recession and insecurity, while Tories and Labour boast the country is getting richer every year.

Labour losing votes to Greens, Tories to Reform. The left / right split remains. The big story is loss of faith in trad parties. It's an inevitable consequence of nearly 20 years of austerity. The economy doesn't work for most of us. GDP means nothing if 90% of growth goes to the richest 10%

Places which voted for Brexit are now voting heavily for Reform🤦‍♂️ Yet Brexit has been the biggest, self inflicted blow to 🇬🇧 in 80 years. Those areas will have been hardest hit Where’s the sense? Where’s the accountability for Farage? #ReformUK #Brexit #NigelFarage #r4today #skynews

Seeing a few conclusions being drawn, including extrapolating out things like gain/loss rates, when we've not even had a quarter of seat declarations yet. Much too early to get beyond the broadest of strokes, especially as early declarations are by no means representative of all contests.

There were people who liked Corbyn and what he was selling. No one (statistically) likes Starmer. The parties always forget that Guardian columnists and lobby hacks may be loud, but they only have one vote each come election time.

It's not like they'd be short of material!

Maybe…just maybe…hear me out…these Reform wins will be a good thing. Their candidates are unserious people, elected for their prejudice, not their competence. When services are slashed, taxes rise & corruption scandals break, maybe then people will see them for what they are and turn away. Hope so.

Not exactly scientific, but every liberal I know went to the polls reluctantly, irritably, and without hope. So it's not exactly surprising to me that differential turnout favours Reform.

Ridiculously silly thing for them to say. There is no strategy. That's the issue.

However you dice it, it’s been a great night for Thai-based cryptocurrency billionaires & Vladimir Putin - who, incredibly, is currently getting more good news from the UK than Ukraine.

Groundhog Day. How utterly depressing that these dismal people get to fail us all over again. Big hand to the media for their starring role in this hellcycle of corruption, dishonesty and betrayal.

"I'm angry the @greenparty.org.uk split the vote" mother rants as Reform swoop in many council seats in the UK local elections. No, it wasn't the Greens, it was the Labour Party you cherish & the media working together with the biggest smear campaign since Corbyn. They want hate, not peace.

I feel like we have been pretty vocal telling Labour they were losing our votes in their attempt to court Reform votes Either they are deaf, arrogant or they like the racism