We are closing this blog now but you can follow all the results and reactions on our new blog.
A summary of today's developments
The polls for the local elections in England will be closing at 10pm. Voters will decide who will run services in 230 local councils with around 8,000 councillors’ seats. Four local mayoral posts are also up for grabs in Bedford, Leicester, Mansfield and Middlesbrough.
A local election vote was suspended due to the death of a candidate after the polls opened. Graham Galton, a Conservative councillor running for the Coxford ward in Southampton, Hampshire, died on Thursday.
Campaigners said there were “countless examples” of would-be voters being turned away from polling stations in the first elections where photo identification is mandatory. The Electoral Reform Society, which has strongly opposed the introduction, urged ministers to rethink the new law. But the Association of Electoral Administrators said the polls were “running as smoothly as usual”.
Away from local election news, RMT members have voted overwhelmingly to continue their rail dispute with a mandate given for industrial action over the next six months.
The government said there is no “quick fix” to meet the prime minister’s promise to stop the small boats crossing the Channel. The prime minister’s official spokesman said it would require a “combination of a number of different approaches from the government” to “solve this long-standing problem”. Those measures included “the partnership with Rwanda” and the illegal migration bill.
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