The Farage surge: is the two party system over?
The News Agents
Global
4.2 • 4.3K Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2025
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
For the last decade, the spectre of Nigel Farage has been haunting British politics. From UKIP to the Brexit Party, he has loomed in the background of Westminster, threatening but never quite managing to pose a real threat to the two major parties. All that changed today. With just six votes in it, Reform took their first seat from Labour, in Runcorn - which had been one of the safest seats in the country. The party has secured other big council and mayoral wins too. Farage now claims that he, not Kemi Badenoch, is the leader of the opposition.
Is he right? How will Labour respond to this Reform victory in the by-elections? What does it mean for Keir Starmer's government? And does it mark the end of the two party system as we know it?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.2 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.6 | Kevin Badeknot, please stay. |
| 0:13.9 | I mean, please don't resign. |
| 0:15.3 | We want you to stay on as leader. |
| 0:16.6 | I'll put some money in if you like to keep you there. |
| 0:19.0 | No, she's got an impossible job. |
| 0:20.2 | And to secure, well, just keep going. |
| 0:24.0 | You're making life easy. |
| 0:25.0 | Well, that was the man, pretty much the only man who is happy in British politics this morning. |
| 0:30.5 | Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party, speaking in Runcorn, having just snatched |
| 0:36.3 | one of the safest parliamentary seats in the country away from the government, taking seats in councils up and down the country from Labour and the Conservatives too. |
| 0:47.3 | Yes, the man in Runcorn, Cheshire, with an even bigger Cheshire cat grin on his face. |
| 0:53.9 | Nigel Farage is now thinking he is really |
| 0:56.7 | the leader of the opposition. Is he right? Welcome to the newsagents. The news agents. |
| 1:07.1 | It's John. It's Lewis. And we are recording this at about 12 o'clock just after midday on Friday. |
| 1:13.6 | Caviate here, most of the council results at the time of recording are still to come in. |
| 1:17.8 | Because alas, what I think is one of the great scandals of our time. Most councils have now done away with overnight counting. |
| 1:23.4 | Shame. I shame. So geeks like me don't have the thrill of staying up all night, getting all the results in advance. But nonetheless, we have had some results. And obviously, at the time we're recording the biggest one, what happened in Runcorn, as I say, this was one of the safest labour seats in the country, majority of over 14,000. It was an absolutely tantalising night. It was supposed to have a result about 3 o'clock in the morning, something like that. |
| 1:45.0 | In the end, we didn't get one until about half, five, quarters of six, because there was a full recount, because at one point, reform had a majority of just four. |
| 1:53.0 | In the end, with a recount, it ended up as a majority of six. |
| 1:56.0 | Went up by 50%. Indeed so. So if just four people had voted the other way who'd voted reform, Labour would have kept |
... |
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