The News
The UK right-wing populist party Reform won a special election against the ruling Labour Party, bucking US President Donald Trump’s drag on conservative movements elsewhere.
Britain also held nationwide council elections, in which Reform and the left-wing Greens performed well. Labour and its longtime rival the Conservatives have fallen to “dismally low” vote shares, a Financial Times columnist noted, as disillusioned Britons seek change — although smaller parties regularly overperform in local elections, which voters often use for protest votes.
Nigel Farage, the Reform leader, has avoided being tarred with the Trump brush, unlike Pierre Poilievre of Canada, the former frontrunner who lost his election bid this week; Australia’s Peter Dutton faces a similar challenge in this weekend’s vote.