REFORM UK, a right-wing and ‘anti-working class’ party winning the Runcorn and Helsby parliamentary by-Election on Thursday, was only possible because of the treachery by this current right wing Labour government.
Reform’s candidate defeated the Labour candidate by just 6 votes, with the Tories trailing behind in third place.
Reform also grabbed 23 seats on local authorities from all the other parties in the local council elections on the same day, as well as the Lincolnshire mayoralty, one of six contested, as counting still continues.
The swing from Labour to Reform was a large 17 per cent.
Clearly the working class has had enough of Starmer and his chancellor Reeves’ anti-working class policies and vicious attacks on the NHS and what is left of the Welfare State.
The Labour vote was down by 10,000 in the Runcorn by-election as workers responded to the super-austerity cuts imposed on them by the Labour government, with tax increases, continuing public sector pay cuts, underfunding of the NHS, education and social care services – all of which are plunging workers into a deeper poverty.
Council taxes are also exploding with several councils already declared bankrupt due to underfunding by central government.
Financial crises in local authorities have already bankrupted several, with at least 18 more to come in March 2026.
As the Daily Telegraph stated: ‘In February, the government approved a package of “exceptional financial support” for 30 councils including Windsor, or roughly one in 10 local authorities across England, allowing them to spread the cost of their spending into the future through borrowing, or funding it through asset sales rather than declare bankruptcy.
‘They will still need to face up to the structural issues with their budgets. And when they do, the consequences are easy to predict: fewer bin collections, more potholes, more closed libraries – and massive rises in taxes.
‘Again, the government has managed this problem by not managing it: a desperate accounting trick called the “statutory override” has been used to keep the debts acquired off council’s books. Next March, the override ends, and the debts hit the balance sheets. If no provision is made for this, then 18 authorities will go bust “overnight”’.
What the Runcorn by-election shows is the danger of right-wing-populist parties like Reform UK filling the political vacuum created by Labour’s betrayal of its election promises of no austerity and no new taxes, until the whole system explodes with a massive debt crisis and a massive joblessness!
Reform now has 128 councillors across the whole country and they plan to add hundreds more, until the bubble bursts and millions lose their jobs!
There is only one way to deal with this capitalist crisis and this is to get rid of the bankrupt capitalist system, before it puts the entire working class onto the rubbish heap!
What is most urgently needed is for the trade unions to mobilise the entire working class to take mass general strike action to defend jobs, wages and all public and social institutions, especially the NHS, which the bosses intend to abolish.
The arrival of right-wing movements like Reform UK are a reflection of the dire economic crisis engulfing Britain and the way it is to be dumped on the backs of the workers.
This historic challenge must be met by the working class, the trade unions, the youth and the pensioners taking action to bring down the counter-revolutionary Starmer government to bring in a workers’ government and socialism by nationalising the banks, and the basic industries.
Trade union leaders who refuse to defend their members’ jobs and livelihoods, must be dumped at once and be replaced with new leaders who will take the necessary general strike action.
The only way out of this terminal crisis of capitalism is a socialist revolution which requires building a revolutionary leadership and the building of the Workers Revolutionary Party and Young Socialists to do this.
Now is the time to join the WRP and the YS to organise the much needed British socialist revolution as the only way forward for workers and youth!
