There's an ongoing illegal immigrant crisis, which the government makes lots of noise about handling seriously, when the only thing serious about it is how much encouragement it gives phoney asylum seekers to pile in a boat and paddle on across the Channel.

Nice deterrent @Keir_Starmer pic.twitter.com/3uT2Qb2aJC

— The Jackal… (@ToonDazza) May 1, 2025

Now Starmer and Co. are going to pay for 5-year home rental contracts for their country's uninvited guests on top of all the other benefits struggling British taxpayers are footing the bill for.

The 'free to talk' thing really rankles, too.

Keir Starmer: "We've had free speech for a very, very long time in the UK."

Meanwhile in the UK, a 64-year-old anti-abortion campaigner was found guilty of holding a "here to talk" sign outside an abortion clinic. 🤡 pic.twitter.com/7b7XBpSt0W

— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) May 2, 2025

Grooming gangs, winter heating allowances, whacko adherence to lunatic Net Zero goals.

The clowns are running the circus. pic.twitter.com/nEWsLxCmmD

— James Melville 🚜 (@JamesMelville) May 2, 2025

British farmers can't stand him.

“We’ve set out a roadmap for farming which has been welcomed by farmers.”

~ Keir Starmer

This is completely untrue. pic.twitter.com/rQUfCXrPJV

— No Farmers, No Food (@NoFarmsNoFoods) May 1, 2025

'Two-Tier' Keir.

Never forget...

He laid flowers.
Said nothing to grieving families.
Left after 19 seconds.
Went to a party in Downing Street.
Called everyone 'far-right'.
Then jailed people for social media posts.

Keir Starmer is the most morally repugnant prime minister in modern history. pic.twitter.com/tJpaOAKUi5

— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) May 1, 2025

So this 'by-election' was for city and county council seats, with some bigger mayoral seats thrown in. In England, these are a big deal and winning a majority of the seats in some of these counties is considered a real prize.

Many parts of England have 2 tiers of local government:

• county councils
• district, borough or city councils

In some parts of the country, there’s just 1 (unitary) tier of local government providing all the local services. The 3 main types are:

• unitary authorities in shire areas
• London boroughs
• metropolitan boroughs

County Councils

These are responsible for services across the whole of a county, like:

• education
• transport
• planning
• fire and public safety
• social care
• libraries
• waste management
• trading standards

District, borough, and city councils

These cover a smaller area than county councils. They’re usually responsible for services like:

• rubbish collection
• recycling
• Council Tax collections
• housing
• planning applications

With Reform polling as strongly as it had been in recent weeks, Starmer knew Labour was going to get a bit of a shiner at the ballot box. The only question was how bad it was going to be. Would his party need an ice cube or an NHS ambulance?

Almost all of the counting is over with, the majority of results and recounts are in, and the verdict appears to be?

BRITAIN THINKS LABOUR PRETTY MUCH SUCKS

The Daily Mail calls it a 'Reform quake.' And Keir is all about 'I get it."

Oh, he got it all right.

Keir Starmer insisted he 'gets' voter anger today after Nigel Farage triggered a political earthquake by seizing Runcorn & Helsby in a dramatic by-election.

The PM said he wanted to go 'further and faster on the change that people want to see' as 'disappointing' results show a huge Reform surge. 

But speaking on a visit to Bedfordshire he insisted that decisions such as hiking national insurance, cutting winter fuel allowance for pensioners and curbing benefits were 'tough but right'.  

The reaction came as Labour threatened to plunge into civil war over the growing threat from Reform. 

A jubilant Mr Farage hailed a 'big moment' as Runcorn was secured by just six votes following hours of delay for nailbiting recounts.

Meanwhile, the party are racking up gains across England.

Even in areas where Labour managed to hang on in the face of a Reform challenger, it was only by a thread compared to what their previous margins had always been in what were once considered Labour strongholds.

...In one of the first major shocks of the night, Labour's Karen Clark won the race to be mayor of North Tyneside - held by the party since the post's inception in 2002.

But the margin of victory was just 444 votes, ahead of Reform's John Falkenstein in second place and the Tories pushed down to third.

The last time the mayoralty was up for grabs in 2021 the Labour majority was almost 14,000 - although a different voting system was used then.

With 18 of 23 councils reporting in, Reform is running away with this election and Labour has lost their shirt...and 160 seats they'd held.

Labour's also in a pickle in some of the councils they've run forever, as Reform, while not winning a majority of seats, is picking up enough to be a player and form a coalition that ices Labour out of chairs they've been comfortable in for decades.

...Labour has the most seats on Durham Council (52 out of 126), but has been shut out of power for the past four years by a multi-party coalition that includes the Tories, the Lib Dems, Greens and various independents.

Before losing control in 2021, Labour had enjoyed a majority in Durham continuously since 1925.

At this election the council is being reduced in size from 126 to 98 seats, which makes the outcome hard to predict. Labour will hope to regain full control, but is facing a new challenge from Reform.

One senior Labour source told MailOnline: 'Durham could be a bigger story than Runcorn. 

'The results were awful last time, I think they will be worse this time. 

'Reform has an outside chance of running the council. Considering we ran the show for 102 years up to 2021 it'll be devastating.'

Um...about that 'outside chance' of running the Durham council?

Reform took the whole damn thing in a landslide.

With 79 of 98 seats declared, Reform has won a landslide victory in Durham, crushing Labour pic.twitter.com/jUDhjvTMMp

— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️ (@LeftieStats) May 2, 2025

YOICKS - THAT HAD TO LEAVE A MARK

Labour did lose a seat in Parliament last night, though - their Runcorn seat went to a Reform candidate by a mere six votes, and it had always been presumed to be safe as pie. Starmer never bothered to make an appearance to boost his party's candidate in the area, where Farage's smiling visage had.

This is a brutal post-mortem in today's Telegraph.

Starmer has turned Labour into the most hated party in Britain

Runcorn should be a warning to this inept Government that Reform isn’t going anywhere. Yet it wants to double down on its terrible agenda

Not in my lifetime has a political party been so deserving of a beating. By just six votes Labour has suffered a humiliating defeat in Runcorn. Keir Starmer didn’t visit the constituency once during the campaign; now it’s not hard to see why.

The usual caveats apply. There have been many such by-election successes for Liberals, Social Democrats and other smaller parties in the past. By-election results can rarely be extrapolated across the country. With no record to defend, Farage’s party had the advantage.

It was a terrible night for the Tories, but this was a seat won by Labour with a 14,696 majority last year and was the party’s 49th-safest seat of the 411 secured in 2024. Keir Starmer’s personal approval rating has plummeted; Labour has slipped behind Reform in polls. This time it could be different.

Nigel Farage was, of course, ecstatic and lobbing bombs at the hapless Starmer for not campaigning.

Quite astonishing victory, especially considering what margin Labour had. An almost impossible task, but Reform overturned their huge majority.

— PETER JEFFRIES (@jeffries_p46145) May 2, 2025

Just as suddenly, all those snickering, snide wink-winks about 'Oh, right - PRIME MINISTER Farage, 2029' aren't so funny anymore.

Statistically, it's now in not just the realm of possibility, if Starmer stays the Labour course, but of probability.

The voice, the mannerisms and the inability to read the room are all tragic.
We hate you @Keir_Starmer , we is the majority of the country.

pic.twitter.com/nBDqyMwI0A

— Matt Casey 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇬🇧 (@MattCas04807118) May 2, 2025

For his part, Farage is wasting no time in making the distinction between Reform and Labour even clearer while turning their newly won councils around.

BREAKING🚨: Nigel Farage has told reform councils climate and diversity staff to find new jobs.

Reform have control over the following councils:

- Durham
- Staffordshire
- Lincolnshire
- Derbyshire
- Lancashire
- Nottinghamshire
- Kent

Do you support Reform sacking DEI staff? pic.twitter.com/UGUcrDlE4C

— The British Patriot (@TheBritLad) May 2, 2025

It's never pretty when the peasants finally get mad enough to act.

...But around those moments, big majorities at Westminster for the Conservatives or Labour. In 2017 the big two in the Commons swept up 82.4% of the vote combined.

Perspective should triumph over breathlessness, then. But it is also true that if yesterday was a test to establish if Reform could match their opinion poll ratings with actual votes they have actually surpassed that.

This then is a profound moment in our contemporary politics whatever lies ahead, for Labour, the Conservatives and others will be obliged to respond to it.

Senior Reform figures believe the primary driving motivation behind their surge, that most powerful of human emotions: betrayal; betrayal, they argue, from both of Westminster’s big beasts.

The Brexit spirit hasn’t left us. Working-class people are still demanding a seat at the table. They are still furious with the establishment. And they are turning to Farage to make their presence felt, says Tom Slaterhttps://t.co/XVmycZhOE2

— spiked (@spikedonline) May 2, 2025

Let it roll.

Beege UPDATE: Final shakeout - not a bad haul. Reform got 30% of the vote to Labour's 20%.

And claimed 10 of 23 councils outright.

Britain wants Reform. 🇬🇧 pic.twitter.com/4duIOiILWZ

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) May 3, 2025