■ Pulse Points / Reformation Day

🏴 England — 5,066 council seats are up across 136 local authorities, including all 32 London boroughs and six directly-elected mayors (Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Watford). A recent prediction from polling group ‘More in Common’ found that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK could win in excess of 1,400 of these seats, with the Greens picking up just shy of 1,000. The historic “two major parties,” the Conservatives and Labour, would lose over 2,500 seats between them, with Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party bearing the largest loss. The combined Labour-Conservative share of all English council seats already sits at 57% — its lowest point since the 1970s.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland — All 129 Holyrood seats are up under the Additional Member System. More in Common’s poll shows: the far-left, long-governing Scottish National Party (SNP) 56 (−8), Reform UK 22 (up from just one seat, previously), Labour 17, Lib Dems 14 (a tripling), Conservatives 12 (−19), Greens 8. The SNP would almost certainly govern in a far-left coalition with the Greens in this scenario. YouGov’s separate polling is more bullish on the SNP at 67 and a narrow majority. Reform UK surges into being the official opposition.

🐉 Wales — The first Senedd election under the new 96-seat closed-list system across 16 six-member constituencies. More in Common’s poll: Plaid Cymru (far-left Welsh nationalism) 30, Reform 28, Labour 24, Conservatives 7, Greens 4, Lib Dems 3. YouGov has it tighter still, with Reform in the lead on 37, and Plaid on 36. Either way, Wales is heading for its first non-Labour First Minister since devolution in 1999. A far-left Plaid–Labour coalition seems the only viable route to a government.

💀 Labour Laceration — Sir Keir Starmer’s party is defending 2,500 English council seats on a 21% national share. They are projected to lose 1,500+ councillors, fall to third in Wales after 27 unbroken years of governance in Cardiff, and post the lowest Holyrood vote share for any winning party in the parliament’s history. A whopping 79% of Welsh voters say it is time for change — including 47% of Labour’s own remaining voters.

📈 Reform Realignment — A party that held just a single Holyrood seat and barely contested Wales in 2021 is now on course to be the official opposition in Cardiff Bay, second-largest at Holyrood, and the largest single winner of council seats in England. Essex County Council — Conservative-controlled for a quarter-century — is set to fall to Farage’s Reform. The party also stands a fighting chance in places never before thought possible, including the North West of England, and even some London boroughs.

🟦 Tory Twilight — Welsh Conservatives are projected just 7 seats — below the 5-seat threshold required to form a parliamentary group, barring them from chairing committees. This is an historic devastation for Kemi Badenoch’s party, which will likely hide their losses behind Labour’s even greater defeats. The Scottish Tories are projected to drop 19 seats to just 12. In London, the party hopes to recapture Westminster, Wandsworth, and Barnet — three flagship councils lost in 2022 — but the national picture is one of structural decline.

🌱 Green Ground Game — In far-left weirdo Zack Polanski’s first major electoral test as leader, the party could deliver +1,000 English councillors, mayoral wins in Hackney and Lewisham, four seats in the Senedd (their first ever in Wales), and eight at Holyrood — including their first constituency MSPs in Edinburgh and Glasgow. His recent comments, however, attacking police officers for aggressively stopping a rampaging terrorist, have caused him to sharply decline in the polls just a few days before Britain goes to the ballot.

🎯 The Big Picture — The combined Labour-Conservative national vote share now sits around 43%. Scotland’s effective number of parties is projected to hit 5.5 — the highest in Holyrood history, eclipsing even the 2003 “rainbow parliament.” No single party can plausibly expect to govern alone in Cardiff, Edinburgh, or in growing portions of England’s town halls. On these projections, two-party British politics is — at all three levels of government simultaneously — formally over. The night will likely be one of great celebration for Farage and his party, while Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour Prime Minister, will likely face calls for his resignation or ouster as a result of the expected historic defeat. The National Pulse will be reporting live from Reform UK HQ on Thursday night as results come in. Follow Raheem J. Kassam on X for breaking news.