No policies just vibes - is this what lead to Reform coming second at the general election in Greater Manchester seats?

After a landslide victory for the Labour Party across Greater Manchester and a devastating loss for the Conservatives with not one seat secured in the county, we look at how well the Reform Party fared in Bury, Bolton, Oldham and Rochdale.

The four boroughs contain nine parliamentary seats and the general election delivered a Labour MP to parliament in each borough, with a sizeable share of the votes going to Reform.

Dr Liam McLoughlin, a University of Liverpool lecturer whose research explores how communication platforms have changed the way we conduct politics said: “For the six weeks leading up to the general election there wasn’t much discussion of policy, just vibes.

“I’ve seen research that says that Nigel Farage and Reform both outdid the Labour Party and Conservatives in terms of organic reach and impressions on Facebook.

"People were annoyed at the Conservatives and went to Reform as a protest vote. Reform did do well with older voters and those with lower levels of education, but it is more nuanced than that.”

While Dr McLoughlin waits for the results of the British Election Study he says it is too early to make any full conclusions as to why Reform did so well in Greater Manchester, and indeed across England.

In Rochdale the borough has two parliamentary seats - Rochdale, and Heywood and Middleton North.

In Heywood and Middleton North, Reform candidate Steve Potter came second with 8,987 votes compared to Labour candidate Elsie Blundell’s 15,069 votes.

Speaking about coming second, Mr Potter described this as: “a huge achievement not only for me but for the party itself.”

He said: “The people of Heywood and Middleton North constituency and the rest of the country want change. People are fed up with the Conservatives and Labour.

“If we had proportional representation, The Reform Party would have had 94 MPs.”

Mr Potter says Reform are planning to stand candidates in every ward in the next local elections in Heywood and Middleton North and around the country.

The Reform party were also the second most popular candidate in the seats of Bolton South and Walkden, and Oldham East and Saddleworth, coming third in the remaining six seats of Oldham, Rochdale, Bolton and Bury.

While Reform placed third in both Bury seats - Bury North and South, they held 16% of the vote share in each seat.

Dr McLoughlin believes social media played a large part in people’s voting choice, particularly amongst those which academics call ‘low information voters’ - simply those who do not regularly engage with politics and the news agenda. 

He said: “Some people just don’t care, they want to make sure that their potholes are filled and local services are running, that trains run on time, and that mortgage rates don’t go too high.

“Getting people more engaged in politics, noone has quite come up with a solution to that yet other than posting a few funny memes.

“You have to question what’s happening in British politics if people are voting on what’s funny rather than the policies.”