May elections: Badenoch rows back on Reform pacts as millions cast their votes – as it happened

Conservative party leader Kemi Badenoch and her husband Hamish arrive to cast their votes in the local elections in Saffron Walden, Essex, on Thursday Photograph: Joe Giddens/PA

5.05pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Voters in England, Scotland and Wales have been voting in elections likely to have a transformative effect on British politics. (See 3.21pm.) The polls close at 10pm, and there will be full cover of the results, and the reaction to them, overnight and tomorrow at the Guardian here.

• Kemi Badenoch has pulled back from her suggestion that she would be happy to see Conservative and Reform UK councillors in coalition together in local government. (See 10.23am.)

• Police investigating the theft of a phone belonging to Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney have arrested a man.

• Progressive voters have been driven away from Labour by a lack of argument and vision from Keir Starmer, according to a report using research from a senior pollster to Tony Blair and Bill Clinton.

• Coverage of Scotland’s election counts by STV, the commercial broadcaster, is expected to be heavily hit by strike action in an escalating dispute over pay.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

4.55pm BST

Polly Toynbee says Labour needs to embrace PR. Here is her column.

And here is an extract.

I have no crystal ball to show me what Labour will do in its paroxysms of misery when the results pour in. But if at some point, in some mode, [Keir] Starmer leaves Downing Street, sooner or later contestants for his post are all likely to promise the electoral reform the Labour party membership wants. Andy Burnham, a very long-time reformer, has set the pace and other contenders will have to follow. (If they dare continue blocking Burnham, his voice as king of the north would still overshadow the winner, forcing this and other policies to the fore.)

Of course, Labour doesn’t need to wait for a new leader. Starmer himself could set up a national constitutional commission to report well ahead of the next election, for Labour to put electoral reform into its next manifesto, with no need for a referendum (after Brexit, please, never again). Get out on the front foot, since the next election may result in a situation whereby to keep out Farage and the Tories, Labour needs to be part of a grouping of progressive parties, with all the others committed to PR as the absolute sine qua non of cooperation; they know the lesson of Nick Clegg’s failure to change the course of history.

Whatever the results today, it’s a solid-gold bet that first past the post will do even worse damage to trust in democracy.