Labour backlash over PM’s election catastrophe grows : Live updates

Bell Ribeiro-Addy MP, the Labour MP for Clapham and Brixton, has said ‘change cannot come soon enough’ after her party received a thrashing in the most recent local elections.

While congratulating all the Lambeth Labour candidates who were elected, she described the recent set of results as a ‘disaster for our party on both a local and national level’.

The government’s current strategy is holding the door open for a Reform government and electoral oblivion in Labour heartlands up and down the country.

Change cannot come soon enough”

Her recent statement came just minutes after fellow Labour MP, Catherine West called on cabinet members to challenge Sir Keir’s leadership.

Catherine West, the Labour MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, said if cabinet ministers do not challenge Sir Keir as party leader by Monday, she will throw down the gauntlet for the party’s top role.

She told BBC Radio 4 that while she would prefer for cabinet to ‘reorganise themselves’ and replace the Prime Minister with their ‘best communicator’.

However, West has put cabinet ministers ‘on notice’, saying she would ask for her peers’ support to trigger a leadership contest if it is not done by Monday.

For a leadership contest to be triggered, 20 per cent of the party’s MPs, would have to back a single contender.

West has insisted she has ten colleagues ready to support her bid for leadership.

She said:

My preferred option is for the cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there’s plenty of talent, and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role.

Then for others to come to the fore who can communicate the message, who are very able, so we can have minimum fuss.”

Catherine West, the Labour MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet, said if cabinet ministers do not challenge Sir Keir as party leader by Monday, she will throw down the gauntlet for the party’s top role.

Voters in London and Havering, where Reform won control of the council, have given their reaction to the disastrous night for Labour in the local elections.

And whether Sir Keir Starmer can carry on as Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage plans for the future.

By Jason Groves

Keir Starmer was fighting for his political survival last night after Labour was thrashed in the local elections.

MPs, ministers and unions lined up to call on Sir Keir to set out a timetable for his departure following humiliating defeats across England, Scotland and Wales.

Allies of Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham told the Daily Mail he was ready to throw down the gauntlet to Sir Keir as soon as next week.

Nigel Farage hailed a ‘historic’ result last night as Reform smashed through Labour’s Red Wall strongholds in the North and Midlands.

Meanwhile, Labour lost control of Wales for the first time in a century, with leader Eluned Morgan losing her seat.

And the party was also crushed in Scotland, where it had hoped to finally dislodge the SNP.

Sir Keir said he took ‘responsibility’ for the electoral disaster but insisted he would not ‘walk away’.

However, furious Labour figures blamed the PM directly, with one MP saying he was ‘detested on the doorstep’.

Immigration minister Mike Tapp told the BBC

When those within your own walls begin dismantling the gate, the enemy no longer needs a battering ram.

Reform are loving it. Awful from Catherine West and she should know better.”

The First Minister of Scotland took aim at Farage and his Reform UK party today after they won their first seats in the Scottish Parliament.

He called for Holyrood to be ‘fully Farage-proofed’ ahead of the next general election.

His comments came the day after the SNP won 58 seats at Holyrood in what was the party’s fifth consecutive election victory.

With elections elsewhere in the UK putting Plaid Cymru ahead in Wales, and with a Sinn Fein first minister in place in Northern Ireland, Mr Swinney also took the opportunity to warn Westminster of the growing ‘significance’ of the so-called ‘Celtic fringe’.

His comments came the day after the SNP won 58 seats at Holyrood in what was the party’s fifth consecutive election victory there.

However, the SNP fell short of the overall majority Mr Swinney had fought for in a bid to try to force a second independence referendum.

Speaking to supporters in Edinburgh on Saturday – including some of his new MSPs – Mr Swinney noted ‘there are now set to be first ministers in Wales, Northern Ireland and in Scotland all committed to fundamental constitutional change”.

He added: ‘If Westminster has not yet grasped the significance of this moment, then it certainly will come to appreciate it in the weeks and months ahead, believe me.

‘Because the direction of travel is clear – what people in London like to refer to rather patronisingly as the Celtic fringe is very much about to become centre stage.’

Earlier in the day, Mr Swinney had posed for photographs with the new SNP group of MSPs, who celebrated the result at the top of Edinburgh’s Calton Hill.

The First Minister pointed out that the 58 SNP MSPs, combined with the record 15 Scottish Green MSPs, meant there are “now more pro-independence MSPs than at any time in the history of the Scottish Parliament”.

He insisted Holyrood be given powers over a referendum – saying the “way forward on this must be made in Scotland”.

With Reform UK having made gains in England in council elections, the SNP leader added: ‘The results across the UK made clear why the need for independence is so urgent.

‘Nigel Farage is now galloping towards Downing Street and the prospect of a Reform-led government is more likely than not.”

That, he said, gave rise to the prospect of the UK having a ‘prime minister who is openly hostile to minority groups, who has called for the privatisation of the NHS and the abolition of the Scottish Parliament’.

The First Minister added: “It is vital we unite in Scotland to ensure our Parliament is fully Farage-proofed.

‘That means having the power before 2029 to decide our own constitutional future without Farage being able to block us.’

The First Minister insisted that having the Reform UK leader in Downing Street would be an ‘absolutely disastrous scenario’, claiming Mr Farage would be a ‘catastrophic’ prime minister.

‘I think the very real threat exists of that,’ Mr Swinney warned, adding that this was why he believes Scots “need to have the protection of being an independent country’.

Sir Sadiq Khan has not called for the Prime Minister’s resignation; however, he has said change is needed.

The London mayor forewarned ‘business as usual could lead to the future of the Labour Party being seriously questioned’.

Khan said the most recent results mean Labour is faced with a ‘similar threat’ to when the party lost the general election in 2019.

He said:

I’m not calling for a change in leadership.

I’m calling for a change in the direction of travel of this government.”

Aspire has won the Tower Hamlets council election to secure an overall majority in the only London borough where it stands.

The party secured 23 of the first 31 seats to be declared, enough to take back control.

Aspire won 24 seats in the last council election in 2022, but later lost two to defections.

Labour has won four seats, the Greens two and the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives one each.

Aspire leader Lutfur Rahman was re-elected as Tower Hamlets mayor on Friday with almost 39% of the vote

Nick Thomas-Symonds, who is a cabinet minister, warned against Catherine West’s calls for Labour MPs to push Starmer out.

He said he would ‘caution colleagues’ against Ms West’s calls to replace Sir Keir as the leader of the Labour Party.

He told Radio 4:

We’ve seen over the past 10 years now what happens when a party in government just starts chopping and changing leaders.

It just generates instability and it militates against a focus on delivery.

I’m confident going forward that Keir Starmer is the best prime minister for our country.”

Donald Trump has congratulated John Swinney on his re-election in Scotland and praised him for winning whisky tariff relief – after the First Minister was ruthlessly mocked for taking the credit.

The SNP will remain Scotland’s largest party after winning 58 seats on Friday, a drop from the 64 MSPs elected for the party in 2021.

Mr Swinney had set his goal at winning an overall majority at Holyrood, saying that would provide a renewed mandate for a push for Scottish independence.

In a post on Truth Social, the US President described Mr Swinney as a ‘good man’ who deserved this ‘big election victory’.

Trump added that the First Minister had worked very hard, along with King Charles and Queen Camilla, to secure the removal of tariffs on ‘great Scottish whisky’ during the royal couple’s visit to the US earlier this month.

Previously, Trump had given credit for the move to Charles and Camilla, who he said had ‘got me to do something that nobody else was able to do, without hardly even asking’.

However, the SNP subsequently claimed the removal of whisky tariffs was evidence of the First Minister ‘delivering’ for Scotland, saying: ‘John Swinney fought for Scotch whisky. And he delivered.’