Election reflection on historic results night

Reform surge reshapes Tameside politics after 50 years. Listen to our reports from the night.

As the dust settles on a historic election night and result in Tameside, we take a look back at events as they unfolded and ask, what happens next?

In the early hours of Friday the Reform UK wins just kept coming as Tameside ward after Tameside ward turned turquoise, and the ruling Labour Party lost overall control of the council for the first time in almost 50 years.

You have to go all the way back to 1979 for the last time Labour did not have a controlling majority.

It was a picture replicated, as predicted, across the north and in council elections all over England.

For Labour in Tameside, it wasn’t simply the rise of Reform and the Greens, or the fallout from the ‘Trigger Me Timbers’ WhatsApp scandal. The message on the doorstep had been loud and clear: Keir Starmer, and policies that were difficult to defend, were exacerbating the problem.

Big names and long-serving Labour councillors were swept away by the turquoise tsunami as the Reform tide travelled across the borough.

HYDE WERNETH: Labour Councillor Shibley Alam, the Civic Mayor of Tameside, loses her seat to Reform UK.

Tameside Civic Mayor Councillor Shibley Alam, who made history last May when she became the first woman born in Bangladesh to become Mayor - not only of Tameside, but of any authority in the North of England - was the first major casualty of the night, losing her Hyde Werneth seat to Reform’s Christopher Stone.

John Taylor, who had been Labour councillor for Dukinfield since 1984, lost his seat.

Droylsden East councillor Susan Quinn lost her seat to Reform after almost 30 years of service to the ward.

Dukinfield-Stalybridge councillor Dave Sweeton, who had served the ward for a quarter of a century, also saw his seat go to Reform. Peter Robinson, who had served Hyde Newton for even longer, also saw his seat swallowed up by Farage’s party.

Former council leader Brenda Warrington, first elected in 2002, was out.

As was Ashton St Michael’s Labour councillor Bill Fairfoull, a former deputy leader of the council who had served as a Labour councillor for 16 years.

Former Mayor Betty Affleck, first elected in 2015, also lost her seat. Tameside’s first Muslim and ethnic minority mayor, Taf Sharif, lost her Mossley seat.

LABOUR'S ONLY WIN: Labour did win one seat - Ashton St Peter's (in the foreground) - but in the background were having to accept another major defeat on stage, as Mossley Councillor Taf Sharif lost her seat to Reform.

So it went on. Although the polls didn’t get everything right as Labour did win one seat in Ashton St Peter’s, although it went to a new councillor and wasn’t enough to save the old guard.

AT THE COUNT: Dukinfield Town Hall on Thursday night.

Our reporter Nigel Skinner was live at the Dukinfield Town Hall count throughout the night from 11pm on Thursday, and you can listen back to all our interviews as the historic picture gradually unfolded, including interviews with Tameside Council leader Eleanor Wills and former Tameside Labour leader Ged Cooney (now sitting as an Independent), the latter telling us Keir Starmer simply had to go.

INDEPENDENT CLLR GED COONEY: 'Starmer has to go'.

VICTORIOUS: Reform UK's new councillors gather to celebrate their emphatic win after a night that changed the shape of politics in Tameside.

We also have reports with winning Reform candidates and the Greens, businesswoman Emma Jones on why she was standing as and Independent and pose the question: what happens next?

LISTEN: