Starmer takes responsibility for ‘tough’ local election results as Labour haemorrhages seats

Defiant Sir Keir Starmer insisted he “won’t go” as pressure mounts for Labor to resign in the face of disastrous local election results.

He said he took responsibility for the results as the party was hemorrhaging seats across the country. But the prime minister vowed to continue the fight, saying: “Days like these do not weaken my resolve to deliver the change I have promised.”

Sir Keir said early results saw Labor losing hundreds of councilors and eight local authorities across England, while Reform, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats made gains.

The Prime Minister faces even heavier losses as vote counting continues on Friday in both English local elections and elections for the Scottish parliament and the Welsh Senedd.

Sir Keir was already facing speculation about his leadership. Times He reported that energy minister Ed Miliband had called on him to set a timetable for his departure.

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.

Asked if he was considering resigning, he told broadcasters: “Voters have sent a message about the pace of change and how they want their lives to improve.

“I was elected to face these challenges, but I will not walk away from them.”

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage claimed that results so far show Reform is on track to win the next general election.

Speaking at Kingsdown Methodist Church in West London on Friday morning in response to the disastrous consequences, Sir Keir said: “The consequences are tough, very tough and there is no glossing over it.

“We have lost brilliant representatives of the Labor Party across the country – people who gave so much to their communities and to our party.

“And it hurts, and it should hurt, and I take responsibility.”

He continued: “When voters send a message like this, we have to think and respond.

“I think the vast majority of people understand that we face huge challenges as a country.

“We have had a series of economic shocks in recent years and there is a very difficult international situation at the moment, they know that.

“But they still want their lives to improve, they still want to see the change we promised, they know the status quo is letting them down, and they’re frustrated, they don’t feel the changes.”

It comes as polling guru Sir John Curtice said results from local elections so far pointed to a “rupture in British politics”.

He explained that Reform UK, which was expected to be the big winner of the contest, “wasn’t going to get 30 per cent of the vote” and that “none of the parties were very big”; This marks a change from the two-party system that dominated politics in Britain.

Sir John told the BBC: “It may well be possible for Labor to lose fewer than 1,500 seats, which perhaps some would say is potentially the tipping point for attempts to unseat Keir Starmer.”

He said: “There is still a long way to go and it is clear that the big picture is that Reform is ahead, but neither party is very big, let’s be clear.

“Even reform probably doesn’t get exactly 30 per cent of the vote, so the fracture in British politics is highlighted and confirmed by these results.”

Nigel Farage, meanwhile, insisted the results showed a “truly historic shift in British politics”.

Speaking from Havering, where Reform took control of the London borough council for the first time, he added: “We are so used to thinking about politics in terms of left and right. But what Reform can do is win in areas that have always been Conservative.”

“But equally we are proving in a big way that we can win in areas that have been dominated by Labor since the end of the First World War.”

This is breaking news. Updates to follow…