Analysis of the local election results by the Electoral Reform Society shows Reform getting an almost 10-percentage point ‘winner’s bonus’ in their haul of council seats last Thursday compared to their vote share
Reform UK have reached a ‘tipping point’ where Britain’s electoral system works for them rather than holding them back.
Nigel Farage’s party has long opposed the First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system which holds back challenger parties.
But analysis of the local election results by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) shows Reform getting an almost 10-percentage point ‘winner’s bonus’ in their haul of council seats last Thursday compared to their vote share.
Across 22 of the 23 councils contested last Thursday, Reform won just under 31% of the vote but garnered just over 40% of the seats, leading to a ‘winner’s bonus’ of 9.8 points.
In the 2013 local elections – when Ukip got its strongest vote – the party got just 5% of the council seats available, despite winning 20% of the vote.
The ERS analysis shows that just a 12.2-point increase in Reform’s vote share in 2025 compared to UKIP’s in 2013 has resulted in a huge 35.5-point increase in council seat share.
Darren Hughes, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said: “It is clear from these results that UK elections are turning into a random lottery to see which party will get the ‘winner’s bonus’ under First Past the Post. “
But in worrying news for Labour, Keir Starmer’s party suffered the greatest electoral penalty from the FPTP system at the local elections, seeing a difference of -8.2 points, with its 14% vote share yielding just 5% of council seats.
Labour benefited from the system hugely in last year’s general election, turning a slim lead in votes to a huge commons majority.
The FPTP system saw Labour win a landslide 63% of the seats in Westminster on just 34% of the vote [2], leading to the most disproportional parliament in British history.
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Mr Hughes added: “At these local elections we again saw that people are voting in an increasingly multi-party way and our two-party voting system is simply unable to cope.
“That is why it is throwing out distorted results that don’t represent the way people voted with parties winning majorities on councils on just over a quarter of the vote.
“This just underlines the need to move to a fairer, proportional electoral system for town halls, as well as Westminster, that accurately reflects the way people vote in the seats parties receive.
“Rather than gifting different parties massive electoral bonuses that don’t represent the votes they won, the only bias the electoral system should have is to the voters.”
