What does 2025 hold for North East politics?

For all parties, there’s an additional – and growing – force to be reckoned with in elections: Reform UK.

In the 2024 general election it came second in 15 of the 20 seats in the Tyne and Wear region, but fell short of claiming any victories.

It’s been a tricky start to the year for Nigel Farage.

After some very public positioning, the leader’s courtship of US tech billionaire Elon Musk was abruptly halted after he said on his social media site X Farage “doesn’t have what it takes” to lead the party.

This was rejected by the party’s Sunderland organiser.

Farage is part of the Reform package, according to Chris Eynon.

“I’m a 100% team Nigel, as are all of our members.

“We saw an amazing shot in the arm when Nigel became leader. For every seat that is up for grabs in 2025 we will do our best to be there and contest it.”

The Greens remain in contention too. They’ve made consistent gains in South Tyneside and broke through with two seats on Newcastle City Council for the first time in 2024.

For Green Party campaigners, the challenge comes in the fact that these local authorities don’t have elections this year.

They’ll be working hard to both expand their geographic reach – they do have one seat to defend in Durham – while maintaining momentum in their strongholds.

Let’s also not forget the large number of independent candidates across our region – their individual local battles can often cause significant problems for what we might consider the big players.