Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by the narrowest of margins to deliver a huge blow to the Labour government and a warning to all parties.

Following a recount, Reform UK’s Sarah Pochin was declared the winner just after 6am by just six votes and a 17% swing from Labour.

The election was called following the resignation of Labour MP Mike Amesbury who stood down after his conviction for assaulting a constituent.

Ms Pochin described Mr Farage as a “great leader” who inspired her to “stand up for this country”

She said the people of Runcorn and Helsby have spoken, and said her victory would inspire the rest of the country. “Enough is enough,” was her verdict on the Labour government’s performance since last July’s general election.

Result:

Reform won 38.7% of the vote of last night’s vote, matching the highest share of the vote for any Eurosceptic party in a by-election ever, which was in Heywood and Middleton in 2014). In 2014 a defecting Tory MP won under the UKIP banner.

Mr Farage’s party had further cause for celebration after Reform UK candidate Dame Andrea Jenkyns won the Greater Lincolnshire mayoralty with 42% of the vote.

Better news for Labour was that Ros Jones held onto her role as mayor of Doncaster, but also with a small majority of 698 votes over Reform and says the result shows Keir Starmer’s government needs to listen to voters. Reform was also second in North Tyneside and the West of England.

Responding to the Runcorn and Helsby result, a Labour Party Spokesperson, said: “By-elections are always difficult for the party in government and the events which led to this one being called made it even harder. Voters are still rightly furious with the state of the country after 14 years of failure and clearly expect the Government to move faster with the Plan for Change.

“While Labour has suffered an extremely narrow defeat, the shock is that the Conservative vote has collapsed. Moderate voters are clearly appalled by the talk of a Tory-Reform pact.

“There are encouraging signs that our Plan for Change is working – NHS waiting lists, inflation and interest rates down with wages up – but we will go further and faster to deliver change with relentless focus on putting money back into people’s pockets.”

SNP Westminster Leader Stephen Flynn MP said: “Britain is broken. Let’s build something better as an independent nation.

“With Nigel Farage smashing his way through Labour Party strongholds in England, and the Tories cowering at his every word, it’s never been more vital for the Scottish public to show courage and take control of our own destiny.

“The UK political establishment told Scotland that Brexit would never happen, Boris Johnson would never be Prime Minister and the Labour Party would never deliver austerity cuts. Now they will tell us they can stop Farage holding power.

“The brutal reality is that Keir Starmer promised change but instead he has delivered a series of broken promises that have betrayed the hopes and expectations of voters in Scotland. Enough is enough.”

The previous narrowest by-election win was in the 1973 Berwick-upon-Tweed by-election, where the Liberals won by only 57 votes.