This week, Reform UK gathered thousands of supporters at Birmingham’s National Exhibition Centre to present itself as a government-in-waiting. Reform has repeatedly used Birmingham for national campaign launches and conferences, committing considerable resources to making it a showcase for its advance.
Birmingham, which is young, working-class, multiracial, and almost evenly divided between residents recorded as white and those from Black, Asian, mixed, and other ethnic groups, is portrayed by Reform leader Nigel Farage as a warning: a place where an older Britain has supposedly been displaced by a new one.
In May’s local elections, Reform became the largest single group on the Birmingham City Council, winning 23 of 101 seats. However, the party’s growing presence in Birmingham does not indicate a failure of multiculturalism but rather highlights a feeling of abandonment spreading across Britain.
Reform’s gains in the city warrant serious attention. They should neither be minimized by those opposed to its politics nor inflated into a popular mandate the party did not achieve. Birmingham is not a single electoral community; it is a mosaic of neighborhoods with different histories, class compositions, and political instincts. According to an analysis of the 2021 census, 48.6 percent of residents identified as white, while 51.4 percent identified as Black, Asian, mixed, or other ethnic categories. However, citywide diversity does not imply that every ward is equally diverse or that ethnicity is the only factor influencing voting behavior.
Reform’s strongest performances were concentrated in particular outer-city wards that are poorer and less diverse. Meanwhile, the Green Party won the largest number of votes across the city but secured only 19 seats due to Britain’s first-past-the-post system. Labour fell to 17 seats (down from 65), the Conservative Party obtained 16, the Liberal Democrats 12, and 14 went to independent groups and candidates. The overall result of the election was fragmentation, not a shift towards far-right politics.
Being the largest group in the council has not translated into power for Reform, as the party has found no partners. The city is currently governed by a collaborative minority administration of Liberal Democrats, Greens, and the “Better Birmingham” Independents group, with a Liberal Democrat leader and Green deputy.
This situation is significant because national commentary often suggests that disillusionment with Labour can only benefit Reform. While it does benefit Reform, it also creates space for a progressive challenge. Under their leader Zack Polanski, the Greens have presented a clearer message of economic justice, public investment, and opposition to racism. Nationally, they won the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, solidifying their position as a credible progressive electoral option, leading to unprecedented council gains, controlling councils, winning mayorships, and making strides in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
The election results have revealed Labour’s dual vulnerability: voters are moving to the right but also towards a left that rejects the notion that Farage represents everyone left behind. Reform and other parties are filling a political vacuum left by ineffective centrist politics.
In Birmingham, it is not surprising that Labour is losing support. For years, residents have been told to accept decline as if it were an unavoidable reality. The Labour-controlled council declared bankruptcy in 2023 due to historic equal-pay liabilities, a failed IT program, and the long-term erosion of local government funding. Services were cut, council tax increased, youth services diminished, and a prolonged refuse strike left waste in the streets. The cost-of-living crisis has impacted communities already weakened by low pay, insecure work, and inadequate services.
Recent local data indicates that more than half of Birmingham’s neighborhoods fall within England’s most deprived fifth, with official estimates showing that 44.4 percent of the city’s children live in poverty. As a former associate director of health inequalities across Birmingham and Solihull’s NHS system, I observed how these pressures affect health. Poverty leads to poor health long before a patient reaches a clinic, manifesting through inadequate housing, insecure employment, unaffordable food, chronic stress, and barriers to accessing prevention and treatment. A city cannot neglect the conditions necessary for a healthy life and then be surprised by rising illness and anger.
Reform’s narrative regarding these issues is misleading. The party offers a false sense of nostalgia, promising a return to a secure, culturally uniform Britain that never existed for many working-class individuals. It replaces historical context with a comforting myth and blames migrants and minorities for an imagined loss.
However, simply labeling Reform voters as racists is both morally lazy and politically ineffective. While racism exists, and some voters are attracted to Reform because it legitimizes prejudice, others vote out of anger, alienation, or a desire to punish every party that has governed them. It is essential to differentiate between legitimate grievances and the harmful narratives offered by Reform.
Scapegoating is not an incidental aspect of Reform’s politics; it is a mechanism that redirects anger towards marginalized groups rather than the economic powers that hold real influence. The party presents itself as an insurgency against the establishment while receiving substantial support from wealthy donors. An analysis of Electoral Commission records found that Reform received nearly 15 million pounds ($20 million) in large donations in the first half of 2026, primarily from a small group of high-value contributors in cryptocurrency and finance.
A party funded by millionaires and billionaires, while proposing significant cuts that would disproportionately affect poorer households, does not challenge oligarchic power. Instead, it protects it by inciting conflict among its economic victims.
What Reform overlooks is that ethnic-minority communities are integral to the working class. The Pakistani care worker, Black graduate, white pensioner, and former Longbridge factory worker share common interests in decent wages, housing, services, and democratic power.
As a former Birmingham councillor, I have witnessed how abstract differences diminish when people unite around shared concerns, such as a threatened school, inadequate housing, or a missing bus route. Solidarity does not erase racism or differences; it rejects the notion that security for one community necessitates insecurity for another.
Reform has chosen Birmingham to assert that even this city has turned against the Britain it represents. The outcome reveals a more pressing reality: a minority embraced Reform, while many others abandoned parties that had failed them.
Ultimately, Birmingham reflects broader British society: diverse, unequal, wounded, creative, and capable of solidarity. Its history and present both point to the same solutions – individual rights, community and public power, economic justice, and a shared purpose – rather than division and scapegoating.