Despite Reform UK’s spectacular success in the local elections, this wasn’t exactly VE (Victory in England) Day. Not yet, anyway.

To deploy another wartime metaphor, it was more like the Battle of Britain, where against the odds a plucky, determined Few defeated a formidable enemy.

When the RAF saw off the Luftwaffe in 1940, the war in Europe still had more than four years to run, almost as long as today’s hopelessly incompetent and vindictive Labour Government has left to dig in until it must face a General Election. But it was a significant milestone on the long, hard road to eventual victory.

So too, may Reform’s triumph over Labour and the Conservatives last Thursday prove to be a lasting political turning point. Yet if that was the Battle of Britain, the Battle for Britain is only just beginning and promises to be ugly and bitterly fought.

Many mistakenly hoped the Leave vote in the referendum nine years ago was a VE (Victory in Europe) moment. But the entrenched political Establishment fought furiously to overturn the result, using every weapon at their disposal.

Yes, we did eventually break free, up to a point, thanks to Nigel Farage’s magnanimous decision to stand down his candidates at the 2019 General Election so that Boris could Get Brexit Done, however imperfectly – a legacy the Tories squandered shamefully.

Today, a Labour Government, under Remainer-in-Chief Surkeir Starmer and elected by just 20 per cent of those eligible to vote, is hell-bent in dragging us back into the EU by stealth – negotiating a ‘reset’ which will surrender our fishing waters to the French, bring back freedom of movement for ‘youths’ under 30 and restore the jurisdiction of the European courts in key areas.

There is now, though, a glimmer of hope this disgraceful betrayal is merely the long-overdue death rattle of a cynical political hegemony which has repeatedly ignored the views of ordinary voters.

Reform, led by Nigel Farage, is celebrating winning an historic by-election, a couple of mayoralties and preparing to take control of a swathe of councils

Reform is celebrating winning an historic by-election, a couple of mayoralties and preparing to take control of a swathe of councils.

The scale of victory could have been even greater had

Deputy PM Ginge Rayner not conveniently cancelled elections in nine other counties because of yet another costly and utterly pointless reorganisation of local government.

Reform would have been nailed on to take at least four, building on the four million votes it secured at the last election.

There are already excited predictions that Reform could form a government next time around, with Farage as PM. Still, he will be under no illusion as to the ferocity of the resistance he will face in trying to implement his party’s policies, from cutting waste to tackling immigration, legal and illegal.

Reform may have momentum and the support of millions of voters, but will come up against the Government, His Majesty’s Official Opposition, the Westminster Bubble, the Whitehall Blob, the Law, the unions, the broadcast media, the charity sector, the quangocracy and the EU. All will move heaven and earth to crush the Faragistas.

Hundreds of newbie Reform councillors will report for duty this week, determined to deliver value for money for local taxpayers. For decades, councils have been run for the benefit of those who work for them, not the people who pay their wages.

With their pretentious ‘Cabinets’ and bloated departments devoted to everything from climate change to diversity and nuclear disarmament, they are ripe for Elon Musk-style cost-cutting.

But Reform councillors who attempt to find savings will inevitably be obstructed at every turn by vested interests. Moves to end the WFH culture and make DEI staff redundant will be resisted by strikes and legal challenges.

So will any plans to reintroduce weekly rubbish collections, scrap deserted cycle lanes and hated Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Reform councillors will be told there is no money to fill in potholes or repair pavements.

Reform’s chairman Zia Yusef has promised the party will seize ‘every instrument of power available’ _– including judicial reviews and planning laws – to prevent asylum seekers being billeted in hotels against the wishes of local residents.

That will be welcome news to those communities which have been used as dumping grounds for thousands of young, foreign men. Yet such moves will be met with injunctions from the Home Office, the unions and asylum charities. The police will probably get involved, too, arresting councillors for hate crimes.

Attempts to prevent Miliband’s Net Zero madness littering our green and pleasant with hideous windmills, pylons and solar farms will either be overruled in Parliament or the courts.

Look, I’m not trying to rain on Farage’s parade. Far from it. The election results were a magnificent cry of: ‘We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more.’

Hundreds of newbie Reform councillors will report for duty this week, determined to deliver value for money for local taxpayers (Pictured: Farage celebrating his party winning the Runcorn by-election by six votes)

As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, I’d have voted Reform if there had been elections in London. I’m just trying to point out the magnitude of the task ahead if the cosy, contemptuous Labour/Tory – and to a lesser extent Monster Raving Liberal Party – cartel is to be smashed once and for all.

If there’s one man who won’t be daunted by the task it’s Farage, who has proved his mettle time and again over the 25 years I’ve known him, from facing down attempts to ‘debank’ him to taking on – single-handed in the beginning – the tyranny of the EU.

In the words of the late, great Tom Petty: You can stand him up at the Gates of Hell but he won’t back down.

Time will tell if he succeeds. But to paraphrase another wartime quote: ‘This may not be the end. But it is, with any luck, the beginning of the end for the arrogant, entitled political class who have created the mess we’re in today.’