Reform take 280 seats on horrific night for Keir Starmer

John McDonnell, the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington, has said a Party leadership change ‘must be on the agenda’ if Labour suffers a ‘nightmare’ across the local, Senedd, and Holyrood elections.

Asked whether he believed Sir Keir Starmer had to go, the former shadow chancellor said: ‘We will have to see when results are in and Wales and Scotland results may be more influential than council seats in England in shaping the party’s attitude to the future.

‘If it is the nightmare as we are worried it will be, then there should be no precipitous coup.’

He added: ‘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.’

Labour has held onto Ealing council – albeit with a reduced majority.

The Party saw 46 of its councillors elected, a drop from 59 in 2022.

The Lib Dems won 13, up from seven since the last local election, while the Greens also made gains winning five seats.

The Conservatives won five and one independent candidate was elected.

Labour also held onto Hammersmith and Fulham.

Richmond-upon-Thames in London was held by the Liberal Democrats alongside Sutton, although Ed Davey’s party failed to win Merton from Labour.

The Liberal Democrats won all 59 seats in Richmond, as the Greens lost their five seats.

The Lib Dems celebrated winning 51 of 55 council seats after gaining 23 in Sutton, where the Tories lost all 20 of their councillors.

A party source said: ‘This is a catastrophic result for Kemi Badenoch and a brilliant night for the Liberal Democrats.

‘She promised to change the Conservative Party, instead they are facing a total wipeout.’

The Conservatives have taken Westminster City Council from Labour, which has now lost control of eight local authorities.

The Tories had been hoping to regain control in the council after having leadership of the seat since the council began in 1965.

The last time the Conservative had control was in 2022, when Labour took control.

Labour lost the key London council of Wandsworth last night to the Conservative Party.

The Tory flagship was Margaret Thatcher’s favourite council. It was held by the Conservatives for 44 years before turning to Labour – and the Tories have ended up once more with the most seats in the 2026 local elections.

Wandsworth council has no overall control, however, as there is no party majority.

It was a disappointing result for Labour, who were battling with their traditional opponent, the Conservatives, for the council.

Nigel Farage’s Party has gained its first council of this year’s local elections, taking Newcastle-under-Lyme from the Conservatives.

The council in Staffordshire, the West Midlands, was taken by Reform UK.

The Prime Minister had a nightmare overnight as his Party took a battering in traditional Labour heartlands from Reform.

Nigel Farage even suggested Reform UK was on course for a general election victory after taking council seats from Labour in early local election results.

While Reform’s gains exceeded 180 seats when results were in from 26 of the 136 councils in the early hours of Friday, Labour lost more than 130, including in its traditional northern heartlands.

Keir Starmer’s Party lost key London council Wandsworth to no party majority after shedding six seats, leaving it with 28.

Sir Keir’s party went into Thursday’s local elections expected to lose up to 1,850 councillors, with senior figures describing the contest as ‘tough’.

Initial results painted a bleak picture for the Prime Minister.

Although Labour’s starting position means it retains control of Halton Council, the shift in vote share combined with losses elsewhere in the north west kicked off a difficult night for Sir Keir.

Those results included losses to Reform in Chorley, in Lancashire, and Wigan, in Greater Manchester.

A national drubbing is likely to reignite speculation about Sir Keir’s leadership of the party and the country.

Before polls closed, The Times reported that Energy Secretary and former Labour leader Ed Miliband had privately urged the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his departure after the elections.

Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, whose wife Pamela Hargreaves lost her seat in Reform’s clean sweep, said Sir Keir should go.

He said: ‘It’s clear to me that the Prime Minister should take this opportunity to set out a timetable for his own departure, and then allow for the widest possible leadership election that includes all the talents of our party.’

But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy urged his party not to play ‘pass the parcel’ with the leadership in response to the election results.

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’.

Labour sources also pointed to the heavy defeat suffered by the party in 1999 before Sir Tony Blair went on to win re-election by a landslide in 2001.

There were some bright spots for Labour as it clung on in Lincoln, Reading and Salford.

Nigel Farage’s Reform UK Party won 280 seats overnight, as the leader heralded a ‘historic change in British politics’.

He told reporters there was ‘no more left-right’ as his Party was ‘scoring stunning percentages in traditional old Labour areas’.

The Reform leader compared the substantial gains to clearing Becher’s Brook, a famously difficult jump in the Grand National.

He said: ‘If we cleared Becher’s Brook and landed well, we go on to win the Grand National.

‘What is very clear to me is that our voters will stick with us now all the way through.’

In Halton, in Cheshire, Labour held two of the 17 seats it was defending as Reform UK gained 15 councillors in the first council to complete its count on Friday morning.

In some wards, Reform won with more than 50% of the vote in an area where last year Mr Farage’s party won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by just six votes.

In Hartlepool, Reform won all 12 seats on offer, pushing the previously Labour-held council into no overall control, while Labour also lost control of Redditch, Tamworth and Exeter.

In Tameside, a council in Angela Rayner’s Greater Manchester constituency, Labour lost its majority to no overall control as Reform took 18 of the 19 seats up for election.

Mr Farage’s Reform UK is set to make significant gains today, building on last year’s local elections that saw the party pick up almost 700 councillors and take control of 10 authorities.

Pointing to the fragmentation of the traditional two-party duopoly, Reform’s Zia Yusuf said he expected to see ‘a turquoise wave’ across Labour’s traditional heartlands, with Labour and the Tories struggling ‘to get 40 per cent between them’.

Early results also showed Reform success further south, with the party picking up seats in Brentwood, in Essex.