Labour has retained the North Tyneside, West of England and Doncaster mayoralties despite significant swings to Reform UK, which finished a close second in each contest.
The insurgent party led by Nigel Farage also secured a landslide victory in Greater Lincolnshire.
Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative MP and minister, has been elected as the new Greater Lincolnshire mayor, amassing 104,133 votes and a majority of almost 40,000 over the Tory candidate.
Rob Waltham, representing the Conservative Party, won 64,585 votes, while Labour picked up 30,384 votes.
In her acceptance speech, Dame Andrea said: “I have fought many elections, four general elections, my third local election, but I’m going to be brief with this don’t worry, I’ve never experienced such negativity and soul-destroying campaigns against me like this one. It was soul-destroying. The dirty tricks in the US politics I now believe is being imported into Britain.”
She added: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new dawn in British politics. The rebuilding begins here.
“Now Britain, we’re going to have a Britain where we put British people first, where we put you and your families first, where we make sure you are in front of the queue and you are at the heart of our policy decisions.
“Today we as Reform, as we’re making gain across the country, we will see an end to soft-touch Britain. The fightback to save the heart and soul of our great country has now begun. Now that Reform is in a place of power, we can help start rebuilding Britain.”
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The full result in the Greater Lincolnshire race was as follows:
- Dame Andrea Jenkyns (Reform) – 104,133 (42.03 per cent)
- Rob Waltham (Conservative) – 64,585 (26.07 per cent)
- Jason Stockwood (Labour) – 30,384 (12.26 per cent)
- Marianne Overton (Independent) – 19,911 (8.04 per cent)
- Sally Horscroft (Green) – 15,040 (6.07 per cent)
- Trevor Young (Liberal Democrat) – 13,728 (5.54 per cent)
Meanwhile, Labour has held the West of England, North Tyneside and Doncaster mayoral posts.
Doncaster’s Labour mayor Ros Jones — re-elected with a majority of 698 after a battle with Reform — hit out at Keir Starmer’s government in her victory speech.
She criticised decisions to means-test the winter fuel allowance, hike employers’ national insurance contributions and cut welfare payments.
She told the BBC: “I wrote as soon as the winter fuel allowance was actually mooted, and I said it was wrong, and therefore I stepped in immediately and used our household support fund to ensure no-one in Doncaster went cold during the winter.”
She added: “I think the results here tonight will demonstrate that they need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street, and actually deliver for the people, with the people.”
The full result in the Doncaster race was as follows:
- Ros Jones (Labour) – 23,805 (32.61 per cent)
- Alexander Jones (Reform) – 23,107 (31.65 per cent)
- Nick Fletcher (Conservative) – 18,982 (26.00 per cent)
- Julie Buckley (Green) – 2,449 (3.35 per cent)
- Andrew Walmsley (Yorkshire) – 1,164 (1.59 per cent)
- David Bettney (Social Democrat) – 929 (1.27% per cent
- Mihai Melenciuc (Liberal Democrat) – 895 (1.23 per cent)
Labour also won the North Tyneside mayoral election, but by less than 500 votes after Reform vastly outperformed expectations.
The full result in the North Tyneside race was as follows:
- Karen Clark (Labour) – 16,230 (30.2 per cent)
- John Falkenstein (Reform) – 15,786 (29.4 per cent)
- Liam Bones (Conservative) – 11,017 (20.5 per cent)
- Chloe-Louise Reilly (Green) – 3,980 (7.4 per cent)
- John Appleby (Liberal Democrat) – 3,453 (6.4 per cent)
- Cath Davis (Independent) – 1,780 (3.3 per cent)
- Martin Henry Uren (Independent) – 1,460 (2.7 per cent)
Labour held on to West of England mayor, albeit on an even lower share of the vote than at North Tyneside or Doncaster. Labour won the mayoralty from the Conservatives when it was last contested in 2021 by a margin of 12,019 votes.
The full result in the West of England race was as follows:
- Helen Godwin (Labour) – 51,197 (25 per cent)
- Arron Banks (Reform) – 45,252 (22.1 per cent)
- Oli Henman (Liberal Democrat) – 28,711 (14.0 per cent)
- Mary Page (Green) – 41,094 (20.0 per cent)
- Ian Scott (Independent)- 4,682 (2.3 per cent)
- Steve Smith (Conservative)- 34,092 (16.6 per cent)
Commenting on these results and the local elections more widely (including the Runcorn and Helsby by-election), Ipsos director of politics Keiran Pedley said: “Labour will be buoyed by (narrowly) holding the North Tyneside, West of England & Doncaster mayoralties — a win is a win, as they say.
“But these results mask a clear trend of big swings to Reform, which came in second in each of these races. Reform clearly on the march, and the surge in support in opinion polls is very real.”
Pedley added: “Expectation management by Kemi Badenoch and the Conservatives were through the floor before the election. Based on the results so far, they have still ended up in the basement / just about managed to keep head above water.”
The winners of the Hull and East Yorkshire, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough mayoralties will be declared later on Friday.
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on Bluesky here.
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Reform UK beats Labour in Runcorn and Helsby by just six votes
