UK local elections: Keir Starmer under pressure as Labour suffers heavy losses

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK has gained its first council of this year’s local elections

Votes are being counted in local elections as initial results pointed towards Reform UK gains (Joe Giddens/PA)

British prime minister Keir Starmer finds himself under pressure following disastrous local election results as Nigel Farage claimed Reform UK is on course to win the next general election.

Early results saw Labour haemorrhage hundreds of councillors and eight local authorities across England while Reform, the Greens and Liberal Democrats all made gains.

The British PM faces further heavy losses as vote counting continues throughout Friday in both English local elections and contests for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd.

In Wales, Labour is expected to lose the national vote for the first time in more than a century while the SNP appears likely to remain the largest party in Scotland after 19 years in power.

Mr Starmer has already faced speculation about his leadership, with the Times reporting energy secretary Ed Miliband had urged him to set out a timetable for his departure.

But deputy prime minister David Lammy urged his party not to play “pass the parcel” with the leadership in response to the election results.

Labour sources pointed to poor local election results under previous prime ministers, including Tony Blair who lost 1,100 councillors in 1999 but went on to win re-election in a landslide in 2001.

Reform UK gains its first council 

Meanwhile, Reform UK has gained its first council of this year’s local elections, taking Newcastle-under-Lyme from the Conservatives.

Reform leader Nigel Farage hailed early results from Thursday’s local election as a sign his party was on course for victory at a general election that is still up to three years away.

A jubilant Mr Farage heralded a “historic change in British politics,” telling reporters “there is no more left-right” as his outfit was “scoring stunning percentages in traditional old Labour areas”.

He compared the substantial gains to clearing Becher’s Brook, a famously difficult jump in the Grand National.

“If we cleared Becher’s Brook and landed well, we go on to win the Grand National.

“What is very clear to me is that our voters will stick with us now all the way through.” 

With 38 of the 136 councils declaring their full results in the early hours of Friday, Reform’s gains exceeded 230 seats while Labour had lost more than 170.

Mr Farage’s party also took control of its first council of this set of contests, nabbing Newcastle-under-Lyme from the Conservatives.

Other key results 

– Reform UK won all 12 seats on offer in Hartlepool, pushing the formerly Labour-held council into no overall control;

– Labour lost control of seven other authorities including Wandsworth, Westminster and Tameside, which includes Angela Rayner’s Greater Manchester constituency;

– The Liberal Democrats appeared on course to record an eighth consecutive year of council gains, taking control of Stockport and Portsmouth, and becoming the only party on Richmond upon Thames Council, but lost their slender majority in Hull;

– The Conservatives suffered yet more losses, but enjoyed some bright points, managing to regain Westminster from Labour and hold onto Harlow in Essex and Broxbourne in Hertfordshire;

– The Green Party made modest gains in the early hours, but expected to improve significantly over the course of Friday as the party’s target councils in London declared their results.

Polling guru John Curtice said the results confirmed “the fracturing of British politics”, telling the BBC that Reform was clearly ahead but still “probably not quite at 30% of the vote” while other parties were “just a little bit below 20%”.

He suggested the results may not be as bad for Labour as some had predicted, saying the party could lose less than 1,500 seats.

- Press Association