Boris Johnson
Conservative Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2019 to 2022.
Reform UK's projected advance into Sunderland and Wakefield, forecast by PollCheck on 13 April 2026, targets the northern Labour heartland that switched to Boris Johnson's Conservatives in December 2019, when the Brexit Party stood aside in every seat his party already held.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026
Timeline for Boris Johnson
Mentioned in: Labour takes Hirst and Amble from Reform
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: Lib Dems take Almondbury off Reform
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: Burnham builds a cabinet of his own
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: Standards probe opens on Farage £5m gift
UK Local Elections 2026Mentioned in: PollCheck puts Reform in Labour's north
UK Local Elections 2026Background
Boris Johnson served as Conservative Prime Minister from July 2019 until September 2022. Before Downing Street he ran London as mayor between 2008 and 2016, then served as Foreign Secretary until 2018. He quit the Commons in June 2023, giving up the Uxbridge and South Ruislip seat.
Taking over mid-term in July 2019, he dismissed most of Theresa May's cabinet in a single day. His December 2019 majority depended on a united right: the Brexit Party withdrew from every seat the Conservatives had taken in 2017, then took just over 2% of the vote as his party absorbed much of its programme. On that Brexit mandate, northern constituencies Labour had held for generations went Conservative.
Restore Britain's candidates against Reform UK work the 2019 arrangement backwards. On 1 October 2026 the split cost the right two Northumberland Council seats, Hirst and Amble, both won by Labour.
His 2019 northern gains face Reform
PollCheck's model on 13 April 2026 extended Reform UK's projected council control into Sunderland and Wakefield, giving it 38 of Wakefield's 63 seats, and had Labour losing Wigan and Barnsley as well. That map overlaps the northern seats Labour had held for generations until they went Conservative under Johnson in December 2019, Blyth Valley, Bishop Auckland and Don Valley among them.
Johnson won those voters on a specific Brexit mandate, after the Brexit Party withdrew from every seat his party had taken in 2017 and the right's vote pooled behind him. In 2026 the same electorate faces a right split between Reform and, from the autumn, Restore Britain, which leaves his Coalition without an obvious heir.