Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has swept to power in Sunderland, winning 58 of the 75 seats on the city council and ending Labour’s 50-year control. Labour was left with just five councillors after starting the day with 48. The result was part of a wider collapse of Labour’s “red wall” across northern England, with Barnsley, Gateshead and South Tyneside also falling to Reform UK.
In Barnsley, Labour lost control of the council for the first time in its 52-year history. In Wigan, the constituency of Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, Reform UK won 24 of the 25 seats up for grabs, with Labour winning none. In Tameside, which includes the constituencies of former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and Chief Whip Jonathan Reynolds, Labour also lost control.
Voters expressed frustration with Labour’s performance. Denise Ralph, 67, of Houghton-le-Spring, said she and her husband had voted Labour for the first time: “I’m sick of Labour, sick of them not getting things done.” Her husband Brian, 69, added: “Labour’s not working so we wanted to try a change.” Record store owner Stewart Smith, 79, who voted Green, said: “Keir Starmer is a nice honest fella, but he’s not a politician.”
Reform’s newly elected councillors include a man who appeared to say in 2024 that Nigerians in Sunderland should be melted down to “fill in the potholes”, and a pub singer who gained fame for performing Sexbomb on ITV’s Benidorm. Two Labour MPs, Ian Lavery and Kate Osborne, called for Starmer to resign, but Sunderland MP Lewis Atkinson said voters wanted an end to “soap opera politics”.
