Closing summary
The Guardian’s live coverage of the UK’s local elections is coming to an end for today. Below is a round-up of the key events as the counts have come in.
Keir Starmer is facing pressure to step down from some of his MPs after Labour suffered poor results in the elections, losing over 1,000 councillors in England and historic loses in the Welsh Senedd election. Asked if he would stand as prime minister at the next election, Starmer replied: “Yes. There’s a five-year term I was elected to do. I intend to see that through.”
Richard Burgon, who is on the left of the Labour party and was a Jeremy Corbyn loyalist under his tenure as Labour leader, released a statement saying that Labour’s local election results have “Keir Starmer’s name written all over it”. A number of other Labour MPs called for Keir Starmer to go, or to set out a timetable for his departure. However, Starmer’s cabinet have remained loyal to the PM so far.
Speaking from Chelmsford, Essex, Nigel Farage said the election results have reflected a “truly historic shift in voting patterns” in the UK after his Reform party won more than 1,000 councillors and won control of at least seven councils. “The results in the ‘red wall’ are truly astonishing,” Farage said, celebrating Reform’s gains from Labour in the Midlands, the North East and the North West. He also laid into the Conservatives, saying “no one would forgive them” for the decisions they took while in power.
The Green party also made gains in these elections, winning hundreds of council seats and the mayoral race in Hackney and Lewisham. “Today, we start the fightback,” said the new Hackney mayor, Zoë Garbett. “Across London and the country, people have made it clear that they are desperate for an alternative to this failing Labour government. It is not old parties versus new parties, this is about a system of fear versus a movement of hope.”
Plaid Cymru won 43 seats in Wales’s Senedd election, putting the Welsh nationalists in a comfortable position to form a minority government and ending more than 100 years of Labour hegemony. Eluned Morgan, Wales’s Labour first minister, lost her seat in the Senedd elections, the first major indicator of an expected near-wipeout for the party that has led Cymru since devolution began in 1999.
John Swinney, the Scottish National party leader, challenged Keir Starmer to show “greater respect” to the Scottish government after winning the Holyrood elections by a comfortable margin. The Scottish National party secured a record fifth term in office on Friday after securing at least 57 of Holyrood’s 129 seats, with Labour and Reform vying for a distant second place.
With 129 of 136 results already declared from English councils, we won’t have full results tonight – or even tomorrow.
The Birmingham City Council poll count was halted with just two of 101 seats left to declare.
Returning officer Rob Connelly confirmed that the count in the remaining ward would resume on Monday. The undeclared ward – Glebe Farm and Tile Cross – is understood to have gone to several recounts.
With two seats remaining to be decided, Reform had won 22 seats, Green Party 19, Labour 17, Conservatives 16, independents 13 and Lib Dems 12.
