LIVE: Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan RESIGNS seat in shock result

Baroness Eluned Morgan has announced she will step down as leader of Welsh Labour after her party suffered heavy defeats.

‘Welsh Labour has today suffered a catastrophic result,’ she said.

‘It ends a century of Labour winning in Wales, and the party will need to take a really hard look at itself, and understand the depth of the challenge that we face.

‘I’ve lost my seat here in Ceredigion Penfro and I will be standing down as leader of Welsh Labour.

‘I take responsibility for the Labour result in Wales.’

Take a look at our live-updating maps and charts produced by the Daily Mail’s Deep Dive team for the latest election results across England, Wales and Scotland.

Ministers have rallied round Sir Keir Starmer to defend his premiership as backbench calls for a change of leader intensified following a disastrous set of local election results.

Efforts to shore up support for the Prime Minister were under way on Friday afternoon, including three former general secretaries of the party urging it not to ‘ook inward’ but ‘unite’ behind Sir Keir.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle said reversing Labour’s fortunes would require ‘a collective effort, not just blaming the boss’, while Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones called for the party to ‘come together’.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed warned against ‘navel-gazing’ and ‘backroom deals’ while Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told BBC News ‘he’s not going to go, he’s not going to set a timetable’.

In an op-ed for the Mirror, former Labour general secretaries David Evans, Iain McNicol and Ray Collins said the party must focus on its plan for the country, and to do otherwise ‘would only strengthen and embolden our opponents’.

‘This is therefore a moment not for fragmentation, but for coming together,’ they said.

Plaid Cymru is the biggest party in the Welsh Parliament following a catastrophic defeat for Labour, which saw First Minister Baroness Eluned Morgan lose her own seat.

Lady Morgan warned that Sir Keir Starmer’s Government needs to ‘change course’ after she resigned as leader of Welsh Labour on failing to be re-elected to the Senedd.

With all votes counted, Plaid have 43 seats, Reform UK 34, Labour nine, the Welsh Conservatives seven, Greens two and one Liberal Democrat.

Rhun ap Iorwerth, leader of Plaid Cymru, told a press conference that his party ‘stands ready to take the necessary steps to form the next Government of Wales’, having won the most seats.

The party did not win an overall majority, with Mr ap Iorwerth saying he intends to ‘reach out to others’ with urgency and put his name forward to be nominated as the next first minister.

John Swinney has said he is ‘certain’ his SNP will emerge as the largest party in Holyrood as his Scottish Labour rival Anas Sarwar effectively conceded defeat, saying his party was ‘hurting’ after it ‘didn’t win the argument’.

With the SNP having been in power since 2007 in Scotland, the party now seems set to win a record fifth consecutive term in government in Edinburgh – despite the defeat of a leading member of the Scottish cabinet.

Angus Robertson, who had been the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture Secretary in the Scottish Government, was defeated by the Scottish Greens, as the party claimed its first ever constituency seat in Holyrood’s history.

Lorna Slater – who was a minister in the Scottish Government as part the previous power sharing deal with the SNP – said her victory was ‘a big step for the Scottish Green Party’.

While all the party’s previous MSPs had been elected on the regional list, the Greens this time round claimed seats in both Edinburgh and Glasgow.

The SNP made gains from other parties in earlier results, perhaps most notably winning the Shetland seat which had been held by the Liberal Democrats since the start of devolution.

It also won the Eastwood constituency outside of Glasgow from the Scottish Tories – although here perhaps Mr Swinney’s party were helped by the rise of Reform.

The Conservative vote was down by more than 10%, with Reform picking up 9% of the vote, resulting in former SNP MP Kirsten Oswald being elected to Holyrood.

Zack Polanski has said two-party politics is ‘dead’ as the Greens won two mayoral contests in London and gained a swathe of council seats in local elections.

Hackney and Lewisham elected Green mayors, marking the first directly elected mayors for the party and ousting Labour in both London boroughs.

The Greens also took their first council of this year’s local elections in Norwich and won their first constituency seats in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.

Green Party leader Mr Polanski called it ‘a historic victory’ when Zoe Garbett ousted Labour from the Hackney mayoralty on Friday, a position it had held since it was created in 2002.

He said: ‘Two-party politics is not just dying, it is dead and it is buried.

‘And actually, whether it’s here that Labour have been rejected, or whether we’re seeing around the country, it’s very clear that the new politics is the Green Party versus Reform.’

Ms Garbett won with 35,720 votes to former Labour mayor Caroline Woodley’s 26,685.

Green candidate Liam Shrivastava won the mayoralty in Lewisham.

He received 35,265 votes as Labour’s Amanda De Ryk came second with 30,374 votes, with Reform UK’s Pete Newman third on 7,288.

Sir Keir Starmer said he was ‘not going to walk away’ from the challenges facing him, despite disastrous election results for his party.

Labour had lost hundreds of councillors by Friday morning, with later results from Scotland, Wales and local authorities in England expected to heap further pressure on the Prime Minister.

Speaking in Ealing, west London, where Labour retained control despite losing 10 seats, Sir Keir said: ‘The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved.

‘I was elected to meet those challenges but I’m not going to walk away from those challenges.’

The King’s Speech on Wednesday will offer a chance for a reset as he sets out the next steps for his premiership.

Sir Keir told Labour activists: ‘We’ve made some big calls, to stabilise our public finances, to invest in our public services, not to get dragged into a war in Iran.

‘But we’ve also made unnecessary mistakes, one of which was that although we were right to level with the public about the scale and depth of the challenges we face, we didn’t do enough to convince them that things will get better, that things will improve, the hope.

‘And that is why in the coming days I’m going to set out the steps that we will take to deliver the change that they want and that they deserve.’

He added: ‘These are tough results, but tough days like this, they don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised at the general election – they strengthen my resolve to do so.’

Reform UK has taken control of Barnsley’s council after more than 50 years of Labour rule.

Applause erupted at the count in Barnsley Metrodome as Reform took all three seats in the Stairfoot ward, meaning they had 32 councillors – enough to form a majority on the South Yorkshire local authortity.

The Labour candidates who lost did not stand on the stage when the results were announced.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, speaking of possible Labour defections to his party and its leader Sir Keir Starmer’s future, said: ‘We have been in talks with several former Labour MPs, and a couple who are sitting in the House of Commons right now.

‘There’s going to be a rebellion. There’s going to be a “Red Wall” rebellion against Starmer’s premiership.

‘I mean, we’ve just brought a campaign with our main slogan, “Vote Reform, Get Starmer out”.

‘I think that’s been quite effective, and even though these are local elections, we all know that national politics has a massive, massive impact on these things.

‘Look, my own belief is, he won’t be there by mid-summer.’

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Eluned Morgan as a ‘formidable First Minister and tireless champion for Wales’.

Lady Morgan failed to win a Senedd seat and announced her decision to resign as Welsh Labour leader.

Sir Keir said: ‘She broke barriers and has never stopped fighting for families in the communities she loves.

‘Together, we have worked to lift children out of poverty, cut hospital waiting lists, and create thousands of new jobs.

‘I want to thank Eluned Morgan for the over 30 years of service she has already given to our country and our party.

‘I have no doubt her contribution to Wales will endure.’

The Green Party has taken its first council of this year’s local elections by winning Norwich City Council.