Former Stoke City footballer Graham Shaw elected to signify native council
The former Stoke City player has been elected to represent the Knutton ward on Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council as Reform has seen a substantial success across the nation
Graham Shaw (L) wins Knutton for Reform UK
A former Stoke City player has been elected to represent his borough council in the local elections.
Voters across the country took to the polls on Thursday, May 7 with Reform gaining seats in several areas.
Graham Shaw, a retired footballer, has been elected to represent the Knutton ward on Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council.
Shaw also played for Preston North End and Rochdale before making the move to politics.
Shaw spent over 40 years living and working in the area.
According to Reform, he believes he has seen the decline of Newcastle first-hand and was standing to help restore pride in the town, support local businesses, and tackle crime and disorder.
The candidate told the BBC that he thinks people on the doors were happy to “give him a chance” because of frustration with national politics.
As results are still being counted, Reform have picked up 267 seats so far. These have mainly come from Labour and Tory losses, who are down 191 and 103 seats.
Although Reform UK is ahead, the party has “probably not” reached 30% of the vote, underlining “the fracturing of British politics”, polling guru Sir John Curtice said.
Sir John told the BBC: “It may well be now that Labour lose rather less than the 1,500 seats that perhaps some people said was potentially the tipping point for attempts to unseat Keir Starmer.”
He said: “There is still a very long way to go and certainly what one has to say is this: the big picture is Reform are ahead.
“It’s clear that Reform are so far winning most votes in the elections that have been declared so far, in much the same way as they were in last year’s council elections.
“And they are basically being trailed by four parties that are all of them just a little bit below 20% or so, somewhere between 15 and 20%, but are actually at the moment quite difficult to disentangle.”
He continued: “But none of the parties are very big, let’s make that clear. Even Reform are probably not quite at 30% of the vote, so the fracturing of British politics is underlined by these results and confirmed by them.”
He added that the Greens were struggling to convert votes into seats so far because they were getting “far too many creditable second and third places”.
