Inside Farage’s political earthquake
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2026
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As Keir Starmer clings on to his premiership, there’s one man continuing his victory laps. Nigel Farage’s party Reform UK was the big winner in last week’s local elections, picking up more than 1,450 council seats. So, what’s behind this? Is this just a blip – or the start of a new phase of British politics?
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Guest: Lara Spirit, deputy political editor, The Sunday Times.
Host: Luke Jones.
Producers: Callum Martin, Sophie McNulty.
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Read more: New Reform councillor suspended after racist posts emerge
Further listening: “Keir Starmer couldn’t run a bath.” What next for Labour?
Clips: BBC, Manchester Evening News, LBC, Reform UK, APT.
Photo: Getty Images.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is The Story. I'm Luke Jones. |
| 0:09.6 | Will Kirstama remain as Prime Minister? |
| 0:13.4 | Having said at the weekend, he wanted to be in power for 10 years. |
| 0:17.7 | Yesterday, at points, it was looking touch and go as to whether they'd make another 10 minutes. |
| 0:21.6 | There are people very near the top of this government who do not know whether the Prime Minister is going to see out the day. |
| 0:29.6 | An increasing number of Labour MPs are saying they don't want him to remain as Prime Minister. |
| 0:35.6 | Some ministers want him to leave too. But among those trying to save |
| 0:40.0 | Starma, including the Prime Minister himself, there is a regular refrain. Don't open the door to reform. |
| 0:47.3 | We are not just facing dangerous times, but dangerous opponents, very dangerous opponents. |
| 0:58.0 | This hurts not just because Labour has done badly, |
| 1:02.0 | but because if we don't get this right, |
| 1:06.0 | our country will go down a very dark path. |
| 1:18.7 | That dark path being Nigel Farage and his latest, increasingly popular, populist right party. |
| 1:25.3 | We're seeing some truly historic shifts in voting patterns. |
| 1:29.0 | At last week's selections, they did very, very well. |
| 1:32.9 | Things, frankly, I could never have dreamt that we've seen. |
| 1:35.6 | Which is leading some commentators to ask, |
| 1:39.2 | is Nigel Farage on track to be our next Prime Minister? |
| 1:43.1 | Unless Kirstama goes shortly and is replaced by somebody else, |
| 1:46.5 | in which case, is Nigel Farage on track to be the next Prime Minister after that? |
| 1:48.2 | The stakes are incredibly high. |
| 1:51.3 | If we don't improve and we don't start doing better, |
... |
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