Reform UK comes to Merseyside
Plus: a great last-minute Christmas gift idea and a gender reveal party's unsightly aftermath
Good afternoon, readers, and welcome to your Monday briefing. Just one more full working week until Christmas! Are you feeling the holiday spirit yet? If not, we’ve got you covered with some festive events in our Post Picks down below.
Today we’re looking into the news that Reform has won its first ever council seat on Merseyside, and what that change might say about the region’s reputation as a left-wing stronghold. We’ve also got your usual news bits and some wonderful recommendations for things to do and read. But first, an editor’s note on a recent story.
Last week we published our report into the Liverpool Care Pathway for the Dying Patient (LCP), asking whether the controversial palliative care program wound down in 2014 might still exist in some form today. Several readers in the comments and in emails to us recounted the negative experiences their relatives had also suffered on the LCP and other palliative care programmes since. We’d like to thank everyone who reached out on the matter.
Some readers, however, took issue with the story’s balance, with one recounting a personal experience that left him with an impression of the LCP that was “nothing short of compassionate, dignified and humane”; he asked why we didn’t include more of these positive accounts in our story. After all, the British Medical Journal reported in 2013 that nine out of 10 palliative care experts polled said they would choose the LCP for themselves.
Firstly, when we appealed to readers in multiple callouts to reach out to us with their experiences of the LCP, not a single respondent was positive. And as for the BMJ’s poll, which featured in an earlier draft of our article, it didn’t come as a surprise to us that a majority of health care workers who were involved with the LCP early on said they’d choose the program for their own end-of-life treatments. The pathway was always meant to provide a high standard of palliative care. With our story, we wanted to examine how sometimes even the best of plans and intentions can lead to the worst outcomes.
Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that not everyone’s experience with the LCP or other palliative care protocols will be the same. If every one of the 600 cases surveyed by the report we cited was a clear case of abuse or medical neglect, that would still be a small minority of the total number of patients who have undergone palliative care in the NHS in the last decade. By reporting on some cases that did go wrong, our article was in no way intended to demean the palliative care profession or any positive accounts of end-of-life care by patients or their families.
The big story: Reform’s first foothold on Merseyside
Top line: Reform UK, the party led by Nigel Farage, has won its first ever council seat on Merseyside. What might this mean for the region’s “left-wing” reputation?
Context: In last Thursday’s by-election, Reform UK candidate Victor Floyd became the new councillor for the Blackbrook ward of St Helens. The vote was held after Labour representative Linda Maloney died aged 71 following a short illness earlier this year.
Labour remains in firm control of St Helens Borough Council, holding 28 out of the 48 available seats. It also dominates the Sefton, Knowsley, and Liverpool City councils, and is the biggest party on Wirral Council, too. This apparent supremacy led the writer and political strategist Jon Egan ask for a Post story earlier this year whether Labour could ever lose in Liverpool.
But the scale of Floyd’s achievement in Blackbrook has been enough to raise eyebrows across the Liverpool City Region. The Reform councillor won 41.1% of votes cast, leaving Labour candidate Sally Yeoman in a distant second place with 34.7%. This represents a 30% swing in the district from Labour to Reform, a party that did not exist before 2018, and was known as the Brexit Party until 2020.
The numbers for Reform’s St Helens triumph are somewhat belied by the political truism that incumbent parties are usually punished in by-elections. In February, when Labour were still His Majesty’s Opposition, they took Kingswood and Wellingborough parliamentary seats by massive swings of 16.4% and 28.5% respectively. Turnout for this council by-election was also very low at just 16.3%, meaning that although Floyd’s percentage victory was large, only 546 people actually voted for him.
Nevertheless, chair of the Reform St Helens branch Malcolm Webster said he feels support for Reform is swelling in the region, with 800 members in St Helens. “Far more people are willing to put their heads above the parapet, that ‘shy voter’ or ‘shy supporter’ syndrome, people are starting to be a bit more open about support for us,” Webster was quoted as saying, describing Floyd’s win as a “watershed” moment. “The aim is to take control of the council,” Webster said.
Merseyside began to turn further toward Reform in the summer’s general election, where the party surged in popularity across the region. Reform finished in second place in a majority of seats, including Bootle, Garston, Knowsley, St Helens North, St Helens South and Whiston, Wallasey, Walton, and West Derby, and had strong showings in Birkenhead and Southport, finishing above the traditionally strong Lib Dems in the latter constituency.
Conventional wisdom states that the first-past-the-post system is effective at repelling newer or less mainstream parties. Nationally, Reform UK won five seats, distantly less than the 13 the exit poll projected for them. Regardless, this represents a parliamentary triumph other right-wing populist parties in recent years could only have dreamt of. UKIP, in many ways Reform’s predecessor as a Farage-led anti-immigration party, gained only two seats in its entire history, both through defections rather than at the ballot box.
And unlike Labour, who swept to victory at Westminster, Reform’s popularity has not diminished in the months since. Two weeks ago, a Find Out Now poll put Reform on 24% — a percentage point ahead of the ruling party itself. Yesterday, the Techne UK tracker poll caused The Independent to report that Reform looks likely to make 2025 “a three-way race” with Labour and the Conservatives.
Although Merseyside has not yet sent a Reform MP to the House of Commons, the fact that just shy of 81,000 people voted for them across the region in the summer’s general election must call into question the area’s reputation as a left-wing stronghold.
Anti-immigrant feeling has made itself known on Merseyside in recent years. In 2023, an anti-migrant protest outside the Suites Hotel in Knowsley turned violent, with asylum seekers, hotel staff, and other people of color targeted, missiles including lit fireworks hurled at police, and a police van vandalised and set ablaze.
And in the summer of this year, the Southport riots saw a mosque peppered with bricks and bottles, police hospitalised, and far-right protestors chanting about “nonces” and “paedophile protectors”.
Bottom line: Despite being only a council by-election with a low turnout, Victor Floyd’s win in St Helens vindicates those who called Reform’s Merseyside performance in the general election a “wake-up call” for Labour.
As Jon Egan points out, “in relatively recent decades three-quarters of the Wirral and two-thirds of Sefton were represented by Conservative MPs, while even more recently, Labour occupied the opposition benches on Liverpool City Council itself.” Egan cites Dr David Jeffery, whose 2023 book Whatever Happened to Tory Liverpool? is required reading for anyone who wants to get a handle on Scouse political identity.
In 1968’s municipal elections, the Tories won 62% of the vote and 78% of the seats on Liverpool City Council. At that point, they had run the council for 86 of the previous 100 years. In 1972, they lost control of the council, and just 11 years later they lost their last two MPs. If this annihilation from a point of hegemony can happen to the Conservatives, it can happen to anyone — Labour included.
It’s also notable that this decline, while more precipitous than in other demographically similar places like Newcastle, Leeds, or Birmingham, also happened later in Liverpool, meaning a right-wing political contingent clung on for longer here than in other northern cities. Since the 1980s, Liverpool has been undeniably anti-Tory, almost synonymous with resistance to the party and its ideals. But the question Labour and its supporters will need to ask now is whether anti-Toryism necessarily means being pro-Labour in any meaningful way other than by proxy.
This Christmas, give the gift of local journalism
Christmas is barely a week away — do you have all your presents for friends and family sorted yet? If not, don’t fear! We have the perfect last-minute gift for the Liverpool lover in your life. With a subscription to The Liverpool Post, they will receive two extra subscriber-only editions every single week, from blockbuster investigations to whip-smart cultural analysis and everything in between.
You can buy someone else a subscription, and set it to kick in at Christmas, by pressing the button below.
Your Post Briefing
A south Liverpool by-election looms after a Liberal Democrat councillor announced his resignation last week. Dave Aizlewood, councillor for Much Woolton and Hunts Cross, has left his position with immediate effect, citing ill health. When Aizlewood was elected last May, it was with 25% of the vote as one of then-two Lib Dem ward members; the other, Mirna Juarez, left the party in August, meaning the official party opposition on the city council now risks losing the area entirely. City council leaders Labour were quick to mobilise, with Knotty Ash and Dovecot Park member Harry Doyle tweeting: “following the resignation of a Lib Dem Councillor, there will be a by-election. The other councillor quit the Lib Dems. People are asking, what is going on with the Liverpool Lib Dems”, finishing with the hashtag #UnseriousLeadership. As Aizlewood has stood down due to ill health, Doyle’s pronouncement was met with some criticism on the social media platform X, with several asking what Aizlewood’s health had to do with leadership; Doyle claimed that his tweet had been “More of a point about” Juarez’s resignation.
A Christmas party for Liverpool FC staff at the city’s Anglican cathedral came to an abrupt end on Thursday night after suspected drug paraphernalia was found on the premises. None of the club’s players were in attendance; the party was for non-footballer staff. Liverpool FC confirmed an "incident" had taken place in a statement to the BBC, saying "we do not condone or tolerate the use of illegal substances at any of our sites or events”.
And the hosts of a gender reveal party at Crosby beach over the weekend appear to have left all their blue-for-boy litter behind, if a Redditor’s photo of the aftermath is to be believed. “As if gender reveal parties couldn’t be more shameful,” one poster wrote on the thread. Another pointed out that at least this couple didn’t start a deadly wildfire like those other gender revealers in the United States – it could have been much worse.
Home of the week
If you’ve ever dreamed of living in a Grade II listed duplex in the Georgian Quarter, it’d be hard to beat this beautiful townhouse on Sandon Street. The sitting room’s windows are practically floor-to-ceiling and overlook a serene stretch of treetops, which feels incredibly special for a city home. Hard to beat this location, too. But she’ll cost you a cool £450,000. Take a tour here.
Post Picks
🎅 On Tuesday, Future Yard’s Christmas music quiz returns. All proceeds will be split between MIND, a mental health charity, and the Whitechapel Centre, the leading homeless and housing charity for Merseyside. Festive knitwear is encouraged. Tickets here.
🎄If one Christmas quiz isn’t enough for you, never fear: on Wednesday, QUARRY will be hosting one of their own – which will sadly be their last-ever quiz event in their current location on Love Lane. QUARRY is currently fundraising to move to a different venue, as Laurence wrote about a few weeks back. Buy tickets and donate to support their relocation here.
🎶 On Friday, head on over to Ullet Road Church Hall for a relaxed and informal Christmas concert, with genres ranging from medieval to folk, as a part of The Telling’s unchained series. Tickets here.
🤠 On Saturday, American country star Luke Combs performs at Hangar 34 as part of his UK and Ireland tour. Tickets here.
Recommended reads
The Face recently published their guide to going out in Liverpool, written by regular Post writer Ella Easton Benson – so you know it’s gonna be good. From shopping to club nights to the best hungover breakfast spot, Ella’s got you covered.
The Guardian has published a collection from photographer Steve McCoy’s 45-plus years of living, working in and photographing Merseyside. There are some amazing shots in here, though our favourite has to be the beach shot with an adorable pony in the foreground.
And over in our sister publication, The Londoner, Joshi Herrmann and Andrew Kersley dug into a 2016 book written by the foreign secretary’s aide, Ben Judah, and the ways in which it paints a disturbing picture of the capital, littered with racial stereotypes and falsehoods. Their story has caused a bit of a firestorm on social media: check it out for yourself to learn why.
The closest political truth that can be said about Greater Liverpool is not that it is left or right, but that we simply don’t have representation.
One by one, the political parties have variously betrayed us or been compromised making them untouchable for any decent person. That includes Labour, who are not elected by around 80pc of Liverpool’s citizens.
Political vacuums don’t exist in perpetuity. Most recently ours appeared to have been filled and used for most unsavoury purposes.
If Reform can show they offer a genuine change to how our city region is run and treated, they have as good a chance as anyone.
Congratulations to Victor Floyd. Let us hope this is the beginning of the end of the scourge of Labour in the region. Labour have relied on it's anti-Tory nonsense & lies to dominate locally, scaring people to vote Labour. Gradually people are starting to see how bad Labour has been for the region.
Maybe one day we will even get a better elctoral system that encourages people to vote.