Labour’s By-Election Collapse Leaves Reform Scenting Blood Across England

Labour’s local election weakness is now becoming impossible to hide. The governing party is not only losing badly where it stands, but in several English by-elections it is not even appearing on the ballot paper. Michael Heaver looks at a string of local by-election results that show Labour being squeezed from every direction. Reform wins in Cheshire East, Winsford and Bracknell Forest, while Labour is absent in multiple contests. Elsewhere, the Lib Dems hold on in Dorset, gain in Malvern Hills, the Conservatives pick up a rare win in Fylde, and the Greens take a huge victory in Lancaster. But the central pattern is clear: where Labour stands, its vote is falling; where it does not, its absence looks even more damaging.