The new mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire and the coming political battles in the county of East Riding
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After Luke Campbell's victory in the Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral campaign, on 1st May 2025, and the strong performance of ReformUK in the local elections on the same day, what is the future of local politics in the East Riding of Yorkshire?
Luke Campbell won the May 2025 mayoral election in Hull and East Yorkshire by a respectable margin and his party, ReformUK (Reform for short), also put in a strong performance in the nearby and similar county of Lincolnshire. Reform also did well in other agrarian counties, so we can safely say that the future of local politics in East Yorkshire have changed. This may not be visible yet except for the new mayoralty, but the ground beneath the councillors in County Hall, Beverley, is moving. And not in a way that virtually any of them will like.
ReformUK is coming for the East Riding
There is going to be one hell of a battle over the next two years to decide the political future of the East Riding of Yorkshire. So how will that battle unfold? For a start, Reform must now have the East Riding of Yorkshire firmly in its sights as one of its top targets.
I have mentioned that Reform won the Lincolnshire mayoralty and control of its council, Lincolnshire County Council (Lincs). What does this have to do with the East Riding of Yorkshire (ERY)? Well the two counties are very similar:
- coastal communities with many people on low income seasonal work in towns like Bridlington (ERY) and Skegness (Lincs)
- large agrarian economy - both counties have big farming sectors which are adjusting, shall we say, to Brexit and also struggling with mounting farm operating costs
- conservatively minded rural voters. In both counties 'small c' conservatism is a major force
- centre-left urban voters. In both counties the county town has elected more centre-left local councillors. In the city of Lincoln the Lib Dems and Labour rule, in Beverley and Pocklington the Lib Dems have a clean sweep of councillors.
Reform's leadership will look at the East Riding of Yorkshire and doubtless see possibilities there to take wards.
Is ReformUK a serious force?
A big unknown with Reform is how ready it is for government. Recently Boris's sister, Rachel Johnson, described it on TV as a 'Potemkin party', a reference to a Russian field marshall who built fake villages to impress his Russian Empress. The villages were just facades, and there are those who claim that similarly Reform is a facade with no real ability to govern, and has no real roots in local communities. Like MAGA in the USA, it is claimed that Reform is a social media and right-wing media phenomenon born of keyboard warriors and contrarian fantasies.
Admittedly Reform, again like MAGA, is well organised in the various media. It more or less has its own TV channel - GB News. It has high visibility transatlantic support from Trump's MAGA chums - though things seem to have cooled off there of late. Last but not at all least it has a huge army of shouters on Twitter-X, YouTube, Facebook and beyond. Millions of people use these media channels, and they all have votes.
Some say that Reform will be a flash in the pan. The Labour government of Keir Starmer certainly hopes so. It is apparently now talking about and will possibly roll back its two biggest policy tragedies so far - the winter fuel payment and the payment of independence allowances to disabled people. With each of these policies Labour shot itself in a separate foot. There must be questions being asked somewhere in Westminster about Rachel Reeves - and not just by the opposition parties. There are also ghostly voices from Labour's past - Tony Blair - warning about Ed Miliband's wide-eyed and hurried hurtling towards Net Zero. Can it be done that quickly and will it be bodged by the arguably over-promoted Mr Milliband? Reform has always been a critic of Net Zero and is capitalising on doubts about Mr Miliband.
Don't underestimate (it's too early yet) Starmer's government's ability to respond to the challenges presented by Reform. The PM may need to conduct a reshuffle to tune Labour's policies. Certainly many think he might need to tune out both Miliband and Reeves, and possibly Streeting too. Starmer also needs to find his Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell figures, to handle his government's communications, which have been appalling so far.
ReformUK in the East Riding
During mayoral campaigning it became apparent that Luke Campbell did not fully understand the job he was campaigning for. Early in the campaign he talked about being mayor of Hull, but there is already a mayor of Hull and has been for over a century. Luke now talks about making local government more efficient, which is a laudable aim, but his mayoralty is really an add-on, not any kind of replacement for the two existing local government bodies of East Yorkshire: the East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Hull City Council. Anne Handley and Mike Ross respectively are in charge of those two organisations, and for political reasons both will be wary of Luke's right-wing agenda. One suspects that Ross and Handley will work more closely together to try and use common sense to pre-empt some of the decision making in the new mayoral authority. Indeed Luke is so inexperienced that the wily Ross and Handley may end up running the show behind the scenes. We shall have to wait and see.
Where can ReformUK make gains in the East Riding?
The Labour vote
In the East Riding there is not much to take from Labour. Labour are not a major force in the county and look even less likely to be one, faced with the fact that Reform took many Labour wards in councils in May 2025. Also Reform took wards in the coastal communities of Lincolnshire and elsewhere. There are struggling coastal communities in the East Riding - but surprisingly Labour has not recently been able to establish itself in them. This is all the more surprising as some of the coastal communities are fishing based where the effects of Brexit on livelihoods has been negative, yet Labour still struggles.
The Tory vote
Another stressed East Riding sector is farming and here Reform may make big gains at the expense of the Tories, who have always been the traditional party of farming communities. After Brexit, farmers were hit hard by the withdrawal of EU farm support and the loss of friction-free export markets on the continent. The last Conservative government put nothing substantial in place to cushion the Brexit blow and local Tories may well pay a big price for that. The weakness of the ideologically driven Tory government of 2010-2024 was that it often did not think of the consequences of its policies on the ground. Specifically here in the farmyards. Or in the fishing harbours, for that matter. In rural and coastal areas of East Riding we might see, in 2027, anything from modest Reform gains to a Farage-led landslide.
One big problem for Reform is that the renewables sector in the East Riding, encouraged by its Tory council, is growing and providing some jobs and prosperity. Reform usually presents Net Zero and renewables as a bad thing which costs the taxpayer, and is in favour of fully exploiting British fossil fuel reserves. Try selling that to the residents of the Tory-held Yorkshire Wolds. Presumably all of the political parties will point out to Wolds residents that a Reform council and government might mean a resumption of fracking in those pretty hills. Many local people now earn their livelihood in the renewables sector: for example wind turbine manufacturing operations and electrical substation and cabling infrastructure. They might worry about Reform's policies in the renewables sector. More and more East Riding landowners are also allowing solar farms on their land, sometimes alas at the expense of their tenant farmers, but again Reform might endanger this source of income. Reform's environment policies could dissuade many greenish East Riding Tory voters, who see renewables as a good investment for the county, and believe in climate change, from jumping to the outright environmentally hostile Reform.
It is clear that Anne Handley, the East Riding Tory leader, still has some good options in the battle against Reform. Nationally Kemi Badenoch seems to push a listening, more caring form of conservatism. This might, if intelligently pursued, win back wavering Tory voters. Reform pursues policies usually supported by the Tory right-wing fringes. If moderate Tories can point out that Reform will simply be Dominic Cummings writ large, they might win back those leftish conservatives who have deserted them for the Lib Dems.
The Lib Dem vote
The Liberal Democrats did well in both the 2024 General Election and the 2025 local elections. Sure there were some disappointing mayoral results, such as Mike Ross coming second to Luke, but overall in the past year the Lib Dems consolidated their position as community campaigners and a force to be reckoned with. I have said in the past that the Lib Dems are virtually immune to Reform, and whilst they might not be completely 100% immune, the 2025 results show conclusively that Reform is NOT an existential threat to the Lib Dems, in the way that it could be for the Tories and even Labour. As Ed Davey said on a recent visit to Beverley, Lib Dem voters are very often reflective people who carefully weigh up the pros and cons of political ideas and actions; they are not taken in by harsh and extreme solutions. Lib Dem voters are innately less prone to the contrarian and divisive 'yaa boo' politics peddled by Nigel Farage.
In the larger towns and suburbs of the East Riding - Beverley, Pocklington, Bridlington, Hessle - the Lib Dems have taken council wards and hope to take more in rural areas from the struggling Tories. This is where Reform could cause problems for the Lib Dems - it will also, for sure, be chasing those rural and coastal wards.
The Green vote
One political party quietly making gains is the Green Party. So far it has nothing on the East Riding of Yorkshire Council, but one feels that it is only a matter of time before it does gain a ward councillor. That may be in one of the prettier or rural wards where people are worried about over-development or fracking. The pollution of rivers and beaches by ruthless private water monopolies is also a huge issue from which the Greens can possibly benefit. Now here is a party which IS immune to Reform, and they might profit from that perception.
How will ReformUK perform now it has some power?
A huge unknown is how Reform will perform now that it actually has some power in the UK political system in the form of the councils that it recently controls. There have already been ructions among its MPs with Rupert Lowe having the whip suspended and his supporters even talking about a breakaway party.
Some newly elected Reform councillors have said that local government can perhaps no longer provide certain services - this caused controversy. Which services? Many council services are important to the lives of some groups of citizens: mobile libraries, home helps, meals on wheels, SEND provision, community centres and so forth. Local councils can with community activities help to prevent social isolation and exclusion - not something that Reform is known for campaigning on.
Reform seems obsessed with lowering taxes, a policy which very disproportionately benefits the better off segments of society. The working man gains a few pounds a month; billionaires gain many extra millions. It may be that Reform's focus on lowering taxes gives ammunition to the other parties who can attack them as de-funders of the community.
Future politics of the East Riding
The future politics of the East Riding looks set for major change as the overall political situation in Britain also changes. The two-party system is beginning to break - ReformUK and the Greens gained MPs in 2024 and councillors in 2025. Some diverse communities elected non-party independents who were seen as more aligned with the world-view of their residents than the ideologically battling established parties.
Certainly big political changes are on the way for East Yorkshire. Possibly even a tectonic realignment of its politics.