Britain’s populist, anti-immigration party Reform UK has beaten Labour by a tiny margin in a by-election, dealing the government a mid-term setback and ruffling the country’s historically resilient two-party hegemony.

Britain's right-wing Reform UK party won a vacant parliamentary seat, two mayoralties and control of several councils on Friday in early results from elections that its leader Nigel Farage said proved it was now the real opposition.

Until now, Reform’s political impact had far outweighed its electoral impact. Mr Farage’s team had topped the polls on and off since the start of the year; the local elections on May 1st were a chance to show that this surge was not just an artefact of polling. The party took it.

Reform UK members in Worcestershire are promising to cut spending and end what they call "woke politics", despite not having overall control of the county council after Thursday's elections. The party is now the biggest on the authority with 27 seats - two shy of an overall majority.

Reform UK’s newly-elected 25 Leicestershire county councillors met for the first time yesterday (Saturday) after dramatically becoming the largest party at County Hall following Friday’s election results.