Reform UK and the Green Party were the winners at the ballot box in the Salford City Council elections as voters abandoned the city’s traditional political loyalties in favour of the two insurgent parties.
There had been whispers among senior figures in Salford’s Labour Party that a chastening night lay ahead, but even their most pessimistic candidates inside the CorpAcq Stadium could scarcely believe the scale of the losses as defeat after defeat came rolling in.
A total of 21 out of 60 seats were up for grabs on Salford City Council, with two councillors elected in Cadishead & Lower Irlam and one councillor elected in the other 19 wards.
Riding high on the coattails of their victory in April’s Barton and Winton by-election, right-wing nationalist party Reform UK made significant gains across Salford, winning 13 seats to cement its position as the official opposition on the city council.
Meanwhile, in wards such as Blackfriars and Trinity, long held by Labour but targeted by the Liberal Democrats, the Green Party swept up much of the left-leaning vote on a night when disillusioned Labour supporters turned their back on the party, which ran the council with 47 seats before the night began, but lost 13.
A penny for the thoughts of Labour leader Paul Dennett, who was tasked with consoling candidates who have long been the furniture of Salford politics, as the party’s local dominance buckled under the weight of pressure from the left and right.
Forlorn Labour figures increasingly admitted that the night felt like a stress test of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership and that attitudes towards national government increasingly dictated local politics.
The long-dominant party in Salford knew they were heading into the elections fourth behind Reform, the Conservatives and the Green Party, spearheaded by a Prime Minister whose approval rating has sunk to -42% since he moved into 10 Downing Street.
It is against that challenging backdrop that Salford Mayor Paul Dennett told Salford Now that Labour candidates must work to communicate “what we have achieved in recent times.”
As cities across the country turned their backs on a Labour Party that suffered sweeping losses, Dennett’s message fell on deaf ears, and candidates lamented the actions of those in Westminster for the local collapse in support as national politics overshadowed the regional campaign.
Labour MP Rebecca Long-Bailey said it had been a “soul-destroying” night.
The representative for Salford in parliament added: “We’ve lost so many good councillors tonight, and this wasn’t on them.
“Unfortunately, we’ve been picking up on the doorstep for a long time now that people were losing faith nationally in the Labour Party, not locally in what the councillors were doing, but they felt that we weren’t being Labour,” she explained.
“There were so many decisions that we were making at a national level, not scrapping the two-child cap and universal credit when we should, taking the winter fuel allowance off pensioners, and cutting disability benefits.
“Eventually, the government u-turned on those and got into the right place, but unfortunately, the damage had been done, and it overshadowed so many of the good policies that we had, for example, on workers’ rights, and then add to that the scandals that we’ve been enduring in recent months. People have just lost faith.
She added: “We need to regroup now as a party, have a moment of reckoning, and understand that it’s not just about analysing results and spin, or even changing faces at the top.
“It’s about making sure that as a government and as a party, we’re demonstrating Labour values, and we restore people’s faith in us again as the Labour Party.”
The writing was on the wall from the moment Reform candidate Miles Alexander Henderson beat Salford deputy leader Jack Youd, one of the leading figures in the party, in the Walkden North ward by 253 votes.
Youd, once seen as a potential successor to Mayor Paul Dennett, lost a seat that Labour had comfortably beaten Reform in 2024, when Adrian Brocklehurst defeated Craig Birtwistle by 1,030 votes.
The remarkable change set the tone for a night where Reform would make inroads across the board, winning in Swinton & Wardley, Higher Irlam & Peel Green, Pendlebury & Clifton, Swinton Park, Claremont, Little Hulton, Pendleton & Charlestown, Cadishead & Lower Irlam, Weaste & Seedley, Walkden North and Walkden South from Labour and Worsley & Westwood Park from the Conservatives.
Meanwhile, the Green Party capitalised, winning seats in Ordsall, Blackfriars & Trinity from Labour and the Quays from the Liberal Democrats.
David Jones, the new Green Party councillor for Blackfriars & Trinity, hailed his victory by an astonishing 1,048.
“I was optimistic. All our canvassing was pointing to it, and the polling was pointing to it, but not by that margin. We thought it would be much closer with Labour.
“It’s just spurred us on to do that extra bit of work and knock on a few extra doors. I’m very pleased with it.”
He noted that Green Party leader Zack Polanski has managed to mobilise people to vote for the Green Party at an unprecedented level and said his charisma has helped them to hit new heights in Salford.
“In the past we have been a bit more polite, he said. “What’s helped a lot as well is the legacy parties now, the Conservatives and Labour and the other Dems as well. People are just fed up with them.”
As expected, Reform had a stellar night, rising from obscurity to become the second most powerful party on the authority. In doing so, they proved Michael Felse’s low-turnout win in Barton and Winton was no fluke and underscored their credentials as a challenging party for Labour to worry about in the coming years.
Reform’s Monika Katarzyna Puchalska beat second-placed Labour candidate Karl Robson to become the councillor for Swinton Park by 290 as 39.45% of people turned out to vote in the ward.
She said: “It’s been a long journey and I’m very proud of what we achieved and what we are going to achieve and speaking to people, canvassing, leafleting, that’s a lot of knowledge that I gathered to help me to be a councillor, hopefully a good councillor and I do not want to disappoint people.
Puchalska came to the UK in 2011 and says she is proof that Reform isn’t just a party that’s extreme against immigration.
She said: “I’ve worked my way up without help and now I’m a British citizen and a councillor as well, so it’s about not taking government for granted and us taxpayers as well, so I think that was one of the biggest motivations.
“I want to be close to people. I want to make actual changes about the day-to-day concerns, so I’m going to focus on those smaller issues. I want to know what people are struggling, like supporting local businesses, and the violence, the crimes, the potholes, everything that we’re dealing on a day-to-day basis to make their life easier.”
The credentials of Puchalska and the Reform Party in driving positive change will be stress-tested over the course of her four-year term.
Full results
Blackfriars & Trinity
Green gain from Labour
David Jones (Green) – 1,611
Darren Matthews (Labour) – 563
Brian Westley (Lib Dem) – 451
Christopher Roscoe (Reform) – 295
Craig Russell Walsh (Conservative) – 141
Boothstown & Ellenbrook
Conservative hold
Jan Barrington (Conservative) – 1,616
Terry Mather (Reform) – 1,486
Muhammad Kashif (Labour) – 699
Paige Dawson (Green) – 587
Graham Bates (Lib Dem) – 279
Broughton
Labour hold
John David Merry (Labour) – 803
Gary Mark Bardsley (Reform) – 797
Kathleen Frances Allen (Green) – 570
Patience Assam (Conservative) – 156
Ben Thomas (Lib Dem) – 87
Hugh Patrick Caffrey (Independent) – 40
Cadishead & Lower Irlam
2 seats available, both won by Reform
James Richard Hart (Reform) – 1,626
Leighton James Medley (Reform) – 1,494
Bill McLaughlin (Labour) – 1,281
Ceewhy Ochoga (Labour) – 847
Alex Gravener (Green) – 410
Matty Wilson (Green) – 362
Skye Ainscough (Conservative) – 247
Jonathan Thomason (Conservative) – 212
Ninad Vivek Oak (Lib Dem) – 115
Claremont
Reform gain from Labour
Chris Bates (Reform) – 1,497
Neil Andrew Reynolds (Labour) – 1,262
Christopher Seed (Green) – 732
Janet West (Conservative) – 234
Ian McKinlay (Lib Dem) – 209
Eccles
Labour hold
Nathaniel Djangmah Tetteh (Labour) – 1,663
Denis Adshead (Reform) – 1,207
Sara Laing (Green) – 875
Janet Cgn (Conservative) – 338
Daniel Wells (Lib Dem) – 186
Sally Griffiths (TUSC) – 32
Higher Irlam & Peel Green
Reform gain from Labour
Christopher Evans (Reform) – 1,403
Mishal Saeed (Labour) – 938
Andrew Parkinson (Green) – 495
Akiva Kline (Conservative) – 192
Kersal & Broughton Park
Independent gain from Conservative
Andrew Walter (Independent) – 1,016
Declan Murphy (Labour) – 754
Simon Fan (Reform) – 731
Adam Carney (Conservative) – 454
Hormoz Ahmadzadeh (Green) – 381
Little Hulton
Reform gain from Labour
Lewis Croden (Reform) – 1,121
Teresa Pepper (Labour) – 837
Mike Ashdown (Green) – 334
Anne Fasan (Conservative) – 185
Stuart Oxbrow (Lib Dem) – 103
Ordsall
Green gain from Labour
Martyn Stockley (Green) – 1,124
Brendan Keville (Labour) – 772
Craig Barclay (Reform) – 428
John Grant (Lib Dem) – 332
Charlie Ng (Conservative) – 147
Pendlebury & Clifton
Reform gain from Labour
Natalie Rowland (Reform) – 1,627
Chichi Mgbeokwere (Labour) – 755
Andrew Nadin (Green) – 456
Angela Grant (Conservative) – 268
Susan Lewis (Lib Dem) – 168
Pendleton & Charlestown
Reform gain from Labour
Daryl Stone-Shaw (Reform) – 963
Andrew Behan (Labour) – 807
Matthew Callaghan (Green) – 725
Ayotunde Ajibola (Conservative) – 254
Kenneth Thompson (Lib Dem) – 144
Jacob Allen (Independent) – 54
Quays
Green gain from Lib Dem
Andrea Romero O’Brien (Green) – 1,062
Paul Heilbron (Lib Dem) – 874
Daniel Harold (Labour) – 294
Gary Slawther (Conservative) – 294
Owen Hammond (Reform) – 170
Swinton & Wardley
Reform gain from Labour
Peter Jones (Reform) – 1,543
Liz McCoy (Labour) – 980
Anton Strong (Green) – 627
Andy Spratt (Conservative) – 258
Colin Seeney (Lib Dem) – 156
Joe O’Neill (Independent) – 114
Swinton Park
Reform gain from Labour
Monika Puchalska (Reform) – 1,450
Karl Robson (Labour) – 1,160
Farzam Barghian (Green) – 570
Andrew Wong (Conservative) – 333
John McLellan (Lib Dem) – 252
Walkden North
Reform gain from Labour
Miles Henderson (Reform) – 1,209
Jack Youd (Labour) – 953
Adam Kenyon (Green) – 427
Paul Whitelegg (Independent) – 276
Arlene Royle (Conservative) – 181
Walkden South
Reform gain from Labour
Ivan Voronov (Reform) – 1,422
Irfan Syed (Labour) – 1,228
Rachel Fitzsimmons (Green) – 679
Guy Muntu (Conservative) – 518
Craig Birtwistle (Advance UK) – 101
Weaste & Seedley
Reform gain from Labour
Paul Doyle (Reform) – 1,173
James Robertson (Green) – 949
Alexis Shama (Labour) – 926
Anne Broomhead (Conservative) – 212
Oliver Ritchie Scott (Lib Dem) – 192
John Warmisham – 66
Worsley & Westwood Park
Reform gain from Conservative
Kaiden Morrison (Reform) – 1,342
JP Atley (Labour) – 1,047
Daniel Whitehouse (Conservative) – 635
Seema Rajpura (Green) – 571
James Blessing (Lib Dem) – 242
