UK local elections results: Reform take 280 seats and are set to top 1,000 as Labour lose key London council to the Conservatives on horrific night for Keir Starmer
The Prime Minister suffered a nightmare overnight as his party suffered the blow of Reform at the traditional Labor heartland.
Nigel Farage even claimed Reform UK was heading for a general election victory after taking council seats from Labor in snap local election results.
When results came in from 26 of 136 councils early on Friday, Reform’s gains exceeded 180 seats, while Labor lost more than 130 seats, including in traditional northern areas.
Keir Starmer’s Party lost the key London council of Wandsworth to no party majority after losing six seats to fall behind with 28 seats.
Sir Keir’s party goes into Thursday’s local elections expected to lose up to 1,850 councillors, with senior figures describing the contest as ‘tough’.
Early results painted a bleak picture for the Prime Minister.
Although Labour’s starting position meant it retained control of Halton Council, the shift in vote share, combined with losses elsewhere in the north west, set off a difficult night for Sir Keir.
These results included losses to Reform at Chorley in Lancashire and Wigan in Greater Manchester.
A national crackdown is likely to reignite speculation about Sir Keir’s leadership of the party and the country.
Before the polls closed, The Times reported that Energy Secretary and former Labor leader Ed Miliband had privately called on the Prime Minister to set a timetable for his departure after the election.
Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, whose wife Pamela Hargreaves lost her seat in the Reform clean sweep, said Sir Keir should go.
He said: ‘It is clear to me that the Prime Minister should take this opportunity to set a timetable for his own departure and then allow for the broadest possible leadership election involving the full range of our party’s talents.’
But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy urged his party not to play a ‘packet-dealing’ game with the leadership in response to the election results.
He told the BBC that there were “questions we need to answer” but that “there are no circumstances in which the answer to the questions the British people are asking would be to change the leader again”.
Labor sources also highlighted the party’s heavy defeat in 1999 before Sir Tony Blair was re-elected by a landslide in 2001.
There were some bright spots where Labor held on in Lincoln, Reading and Salford.
