I feel like I've been hit by a tsunami as surging Reform UK ousts me after 24 years as a Lancashire councillor
A Lancashire councillor has been ousted from his role 24 years after first being elected, saying it feels like he's been hit by a tsunami.
As results flood in in the 2025 Lancashire County Council elections, it looks likely Nigel Farage's Reform UK could win a majority and end up running the authority.
The current Conservative administration is seeing its councillors voted out, being replaced by Reform UK, and that is something ousted Labour opposition group leader Matthew Tomlinson is 'genuinely worried' about.
He said that the "vast majority" of Reform UK candidates have "no experience" and "don't know what they've left themselves in for".
While they "have to deliver for the people of Lancashire", he claimed one candidate didn't even know what SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) stood for, despite it being an area of big pressure for the authority.
On being voted out, he said he had loved being a county councillor for Leyland Central, having first been elected in 2001, and was "very, very disappointed".
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "There's a tsunami going across local government today. If you're in the way of a tsunami, you're going to get hit and that's how it feels a bit today.
Blaming the Labour government for the loss as Reform’s support surged locally and nationally, he said: "Last year [in the general election], people voted for change and sadly, I have to say, they are not seeing the change that they voted for. In fact, the only change we're seeing at the moment is more and more bad news. I'm hoping the Labour leadership at Westminster will sit up and take notice of what the people are telling them."
Mr Tomlinson said in local elections, most people tend to vote based on the national picture. That meant it had been a disastrous day for the Conservatives, but Labour had not fared much better.
He mentioned issues such as compensation to WASPI women, cuts to the winter fuel allowance, threatened cuts to disability benefits - all of which "don't feel like Labour things".
Hannah Whalley will be Leyland Central's new county councillor, having won 1,539 votes - 440 more than Mr Tomlinson.