Reform UK 'snapping at Labour's heels' after strong election night

In brief…

• Reform UK beat the Conservatives in multiple seats while winning four of their own so far
• Nigel Farage thinks this result could put him one step closer to Downing Street
• The party will pose a challenge to Labour, particularly on immigration, the News Agents say.

You will either want to look away or jump for joy. Reform UK made waves on election night, winning four seats and coming second in various constituencies.

Now, Farage reckons he is not just a populist force shaking up the country, but could be a genuine contender for Prime Minister in the years to come.

As he said in his victory speech after winning his Clacton seat: “My plan is to build a mass national movement over the course of the next few years and hopefully be big enough to challenge the general election properly in 2029.”

Has Farage got a point? And should Keir Starmer be worried?

Here’s what the News Agents say.

Emily Maitlis says that Reform are now “snapping at Labour's heels”.

It comes after they snatched up seats across the North East, which are “very safe Labour heartlands”.

Maitlis adds: ”For every seat that they did get, there are others they didn't get, where their share of the vote is still phenomenal, sometimes on over 30%.”

Jon Sopel says this will push Labour to take the issue of immigration seriously if they are to “see off the threat of Reform”.

“You just have to look at what's happened in France over the past 22 years of the rise of the far right in France. Each election getting higher and higher and higher”, he says.

Sopel adds that the same phenomenon is taking hold in the UK. He says: “I think it's people who feel that the system has let them down, that there are too many foreigners in the country taking their jobs, that their livelihoods have cost the living, everything. And they just blame it all on this simple thing. And Farage is capitalising on that.”

Lewis Goodall agrees that Labour will need some bright ideas to keep Reform at bay.

He says: “We can bet our bottom dollar that if we think the Tories have had a tough time on immigration and what's gone on in the channel in this parliament, you just wait, right?”

And with a powerful group of voices on the right wing of the Conservative Party, Labour will be facing a “chorus” of attacks of immigration and small boats from all angles.

Goodall adds: “Starmer has found himself unwittingly as the kind of slayer of the center right. He's going to be the midwife of actually a more radicalised right wing in this country because he's created such a massive election victory.

“And that means that, paradoxically enough, politics could end up being dragged onto territory that the Labour Party, Keir Starmer, doesn't much like. And he's going to have to have an answer to that.”

"A people's revolt is under way"

Or so claims Richard Tice, the party chairman, who won the Boston and Skegness constituency with 15,520 votes.

He added in his winning speech that this is “just the beginning, we are just warming up".

But whether Reform will simply push Labour hard on immigration or become a genuine contender for power at the next election remains to be seen.