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.

Labour has lost Barnet, leaving the council with no overall majority.

The party won 31 seats, a fall of 10 since the last election, while the Conservatives also won 31 seats, up nine. The Green Party has secured one seat on the council.

The Green Party has won a majority on Hackney council, usually a Labour stronghold.

By 8.30pm, 37 Green councillors had been elected out of 57 seats, ousting Labour for the first time since 2002 when the council had no overall control.

Labour has so far held onto just eight seats of 43 it had held.

Councillor Anna Lynch, who held onto her Labour seat in Homerton, said: ‘We’ve got experienced councillors, fire in our belly and the fightback starts now.’

A party linked to Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain has won nine seats in Norfolk’s local elections, with Reform becoming the biggest party on the council overall.

Nigel Farage’s party were victorious in the east of England on Friday, as they gained 38 seats on Norfolk County Council, taking their total up to 40.

However, this falls short of the 43 seats needed for a majority.

Following the elections on Thursday, the Liberal Democrats have 13 seats, the Green Party 12, and Mr Lowe’s Great Yarmouth First have nine.

Restore Britain was established by Great Yarmouth MP Mr Lowe after his fractious exit from Reform UK.

It acts as an umbrella political party, with locally based political parties such as Great Yarmouth First as its partners.

In a post on X, Mr Lowe wrote: ‘History made. We won ten out of ten seats, with overwhelming majorities in every single one.

‘Great Yarmouth First, then we Restore Britain.

‘A very special day.’

Labour lost seven seats on the council, retaining one seat in Hethersett.

Meanwhile the Conservatives lost 44 seats and retained eight.

Independent Alexandra Kemp held on to her Clenchwarton and Kings Lynn South seat by just 12 votes.

Unions affiliated to Labour have called for a leadership election following the party’s disastrous results.

Transport Salaried Staffs Association general secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said: ‘Unions like the TSSA will not stand by in the wake of this electoral disaster and let Keir Starmer pave the way for a hard-Right government led by Nigel Farage.

‘People voted for meaningful change they could actually feel in their lives.

‘That’s why Labour urgently needs a leadership election to allow members to pick a candidate who is much more responsive to the needs of working people and who can stop the very real danger of a far-Right government coming to power in this country.’

Fire Brigades Union (FBU) general secretary Steve Wright said: ‘The leadership’s response to this electoral meltdown so far has simply not been good enough.

‘Making vague promises about hope while failing to deliver for ordinary people on a day-to-day basis, when Nigel Farage’s hard-Right party is poised to take power in many parts of the country, is a dereliction of duty.’

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: ‘The writing is on the wall for this Labour government and it could be the beginning of the end for the party itself.

‘Only fundamental, irreversible change will stem the tide. If the party does not shift decisively towards the working class it is finished.

‘It is change or die. Now or never.’

Meanwhile, Unison general secretary Andrea Egan said Labour faced ‘political oblivion’ because it was not delivering for the majority of people.

Britain’s second city has been thrown into uncertainty after Labour lost Birmingham in the local elections to no overall control.

The crisis-stricken city council is now hopelessly split, with Reform, the Conservatives, Greens and Muslim sectarian independents all picking up seats.

Long-running bin strikes and financial troubles are being blamed for the ousting of Labour after 14 years.

The party has lost 29 seats, Reform UK has gained 17 and the Greens have gained seven.

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.