Just wanted to make a quick point.
Yes, Reform are arseholes and nobody should vote for them. But please don't trouble yourselves with reading much into their success in English local elections, beyond wishing that more people actually cared about local government.
The people who most often vote in local elections are old right-wingers. It's always been that way. And that's the core Reform vote - they're just the same old Tory voters as before. Nothing has changed.
And as anyone who's familiar with Labour campaigns down the years will know, the people who only vote at general elections are overwhelmingly younger and more left wing.
It would be nice if it wasn't that way, if more people actually gave a damn about the important things local councils do, but we are where we are. It tells us absolutely nothing about 2029's general election, and you'd do well to ignore all the stories in the media and on social media from people pretending otherwise. They're just trying to look important and clever.
Obviously, if your council has just been won by Reform then I'm sorry. It's sad news. They'll probably be even more rubbish than your previous council. But don't beat yourself up about greater meaning. It's just the same old right-wingers who were your neighbours before. They've not suddenly become Nazis (some of them probably always were, admittedly), they've just voted for a Tory with a differently spelt party name.
(And yes, I'm specifically referring to England here. Wales and Scotland are more complicated and significant, and I'll not say anything until those are all counted. But given that England accounts for some ~85% of voters, that's where the people trying to claim greater meaning will be looking. Ignore them, it's for your own good.)
