Keir Starmer insisted he will fight on today despite Labour suffering a nightmare battering from voters in local elections.
Calls are already emerging for the PM to go with results overnight showing a bloodbath for the party across English councils. A meltdown is also looming in the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Senedd later.
A jubilant Nigel Farage boasted of an ‘historic’ shift in politics and said he is heading for No10, as Reform plundered seats in previous Labour strongholds in the North and Midlands. It also seized Newcastle-under-Lyme council from the Tories.
Sir Keir said he would not ‘sugarcoat’ the ‘tough’ situation and it ‘hurt’. But he added: ”Days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised.’
Labour has lost control of Redditch, Hartlepool, Tamworth, Exeter and Tameside councils – the latter after 47 years – following major swings to Reform.
It shipped 15 of 16 seats it was defending on Halton Council in Cheshire to Reform, although it retained overall control.
It was a similar situation in Wigan as Mr Farage’s insurgents scooped all but one of the 25 seats available, including 20 from Labour.
Classic ‘Red Wall’ seats in Chorley, Lancashire, Salford in Greater Manchester and Merseyside also dramatically switched. Things were little better in the South, with Labour booted out of control in Southampton and Wandsworth.
Results are currently on track to be dire – although perhaps slightly short of the most extreme predictions. There were claims overnight that Ed Miliband has told the premier he should consider setting a departure timetable.
Loyalist Cabinet ministers were attempting to circle the wagons round Sir Keir this morning, with Defence Secretary John Healey insisting he remains the right leader to ‘turn this round’.
In a crumb of comfort for the PM, there is limited evidence so far of a Green wave sweeping through urban heartlands. Zack Polanski’s Left-wingers lost five seats to the Lib Dems in Richmond.
Labour also clung on in Hammersmith & Fulham, as the Greens were prised out of two wards. Sian Berry, one of the party’s MPs, admitted Mr Polanski’s criticism of the police over the Golders Green attacks had been damaging on the doorstep.
However, one senior Labour source warned that Mr Polanski’s vote share was up and his main target boroughs had yet to count.
‘You can see a big move of voters from Labour to Green,’ the source told the Daily Mail.
The Tories had some bright spots to cling to despite a dire night overall, securing all 11 seats up for grabs on Harlow district council. They have taken control of Westminster from Labour.
A Labour MP who saw his wife lose her council seat as Reform surged in Hartlepool repeated his call for Sir Keir to step down.
Jonathan Brash said: ‘I’m looking for change at the top of the Labour Party.’
Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell said a leadership challenge ‘must be on the table’ if the disastrous showing continues.
The Labour group leader in Hull also demanded the PM heads for the exit door.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy urged his party not to play ‘pass the parcel’ with the leadership, amid alarm that an emotional response to the electoral disaster could force change at the top.
He told the BBC there were ‘questions that we have to answer’ but there were ‘no circumstances in which the answer to the questions that the British people are raising is to change the leader yet again’.
‘You don’t change the pilot during the flight,’ he added.
Mr Healey told Times Radio: ‘Keir Starmer won the mandate for five years from the public. We’re not even halfway through that Parliament. I think he can still deliver, he can still turn it round.’
Asked whether Sir Keir was the man to lead that change, Mr Healey said: ‘He is.’
He continued: ‘I’m not dismissing how bad these results look set to be, but we have had difficult nights before, and we have worked our way back.’
Former deputy PM Angela Rayner, Health Secretary Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester are all regarded as ‘on manoeuvres’ to mount a challenge.
However, Ms Rayner is still haggling with HM Revenue & Customs over her unpaid stamp duty, and Mr Burnham is not currently an MP.
Ms Rayner also appears to be facing a fight to hold her own Commons seat of Ashton-under-Lyne. It includes Tameside, where Reform had huge success overnight.
Reports suggest Mr Miliband has urged the PM to set a timetable for stepping down, although aides have insisted the Net Zero Secretary still backs Sir Keir.
With full results in from 39 of the 136 councils, Reform UK had gained 257 seats, with Labour losing 194.
The Conservatives had lost 59 seats, with the Greens up 23 and the Liberal Democrats 32.
Reform has had some success in Tory Essex, securing 11 out of 14 available councillor posts in Basildon. And on the county council Reform had picked up 28 out of 43 when counting stopped for the night.
Mr Farage told reporters at the party’s Millbank headquarters: ‘I think what you’re witnessing is an historic change in British politics. Forget left-right, there is no more left-right. It is gone, it is out of the window, it’s finished.’
The most extreme predictions had been for Sir Keir’s party to lose over 1,800 council seats across England. The current rate of defeats looks slightly below that – with election experts John Curtice and Michael Thrasher both estimating a final toll of around 1,200 losses.
Labour’s 27-year grip on power in Wales is widely expected to slip later as it is overtaken by Plaid and Reform in the Senedd contest.
In Scotland Labour is on course to remain the third party at Holyrood as the SNP retains power.
But a strong night of results for Reform could see it become the main opposition north of the border and in Cardiff.
The Greens have been eying seizing control of in Hackney, which is counting later. That would be a seismic change in a borough Labour has dominated for decades.
Ms Berry, who was co-leader before Mr Polanski too charge, admitted his swipe at the way the police detained the Golders Green suspect had been damaging.
‘There have been questions on the doorstep, and people have been working hard to make sure that everybody knows that we are working hard in their local area and that doesn’t necessarily represent us,’ he said.
Labour activists have been given astonishing advice to avoid being seen crying on television as results trickle in through Friday and into Saturday.
Sir Keir is expected to front up the results this morning, with allies suggesting he will not hide from the scale of the setback.
Government sources said the premier is planning to give a major speech on Monday, where he could try to appease mutinous MPs by pledging to go further in unwinding Brexit.
Reform UK councillors react after winning seats in all of the 12 contested wards in Hartlepool
Nigel Farage boasted at a campaign rally in St Helens, Merseyside, that Labour would be ‘wiped out’ in Red Wall areas in the North and the Midlands
If results are as bad as expected for Labour it will increase the pressure on Sir Keir, and also on those senior Labour figures linked with a run to replace him
Ballot papers are verified at the Brierton Sports Centre in Hartlepool after polls closed
There is also ongoing wrangling within Downing Street over whether to launch a reshuffle on Saturday, potentially before the final results are even in.
One aide told the Daily Mail the idea was getting a ‘lot of traction’ and any overhaul would need to be complete before Sir Keir’s speech.
But they suggested the PM was too weak to make any big moves, and Ms Rayner’s tax issues mean she cannot be brought back yet.
‘What’s the point of a reshuffle if you’re just going to sack Liz Kendall and Peter Kyle,’ they said. ‘It doesn’t move the dial.’
The PM’s rivals have been holding fire to see the scale of the meltdown.
A More in Common poll has suggested the party will be ousted from its Birmingham City Council bastion by Reform.
Many suspect the outpouring of emotion will be great enough to sweep Sir Keir out of power – even though there is no consensus around a successor.
Almost 25,000 candidates are fighting to be elected to more than 5,000 seats on 136 councils across England.
In Scotland, all 129 seats are up for election at Holyrood while voters in Wales will choose 96 members of the Senedd.
Mr Brash said: ‘As you can imagine, I’m really angry about tonight, because Labour politicians are delivering really big things, but we need a leadership of the party that is on the side of the British people.
‘I think we’ve been too timid. We’ve got a huge majority. We can do absolutely anything we want to transform this country and make people’s lives better. We’ve done some great things so far, but it’s not enough.
‘We have to be bolder, and we have to go further. And quite frankly, we need new leadership in order to achieve that.’
He added: ‘The results are terrible. It’s devastating for Hartlepool. It’s a terrible night.
‘I don’t think Keir Starmer should survive these results.’
Mr McDonnell said: ‘The party needs to consider why we are in this situation and that discussion should be at all levels of the party and consider all the issues, including why there have been so many policy mistakes alienating our support, but the leadership question has inevitably to be on the agenda.
‘If there is to be a leadership change, it has to be an orderly transition, not a coup.’
Tory frontbencher James Cleverly said: ‘Well, as predicted. It’s been a tough night for us, but we’ve made some real gains, against expectations.
‘I’ve just heard we’ve taken control of Westminster Council. We held Fareham in Hampshire, Harlow in Essex, Broxbourne in Hertfordshire, and so we have got real pockets of good news in what we always knew was going to be a tough night.
‘I think Labour have had a disastrous night, and we can see why, with the terrible situation they’ve created at a national level.’
Mr Polanski said Sir Keir should ‘listen to the people and go’.
Insisting he is bullish about the Greens’ prospects in London boroughs to be counted later, the party leader said: ‘These first Green gains confirm what I’ve heard as I criss-crossed England and Wales during the campaign.
‘Voters are backing the only party taking the cost-of-living crisis seriously. We are the only party with real plans to cut bills, reduce rents and provide genuinely affordable homes.
‘I’ve made it clear that we are here not just to be disappointed by Labour, but to replace them. These early results indicate that voters want to see that change too. That is why Keir Starmer has to listen to the people and go.’
