Reform UK Gains 339 Seats as Keir Starmer’s Labour Loses 208 Councillors in England

Early results in Britain’s local elections showed Keir Starmer’s Labour Party bracing for heavy defeats as Reform UK made gains across the country, with Reform UK gaining 339 seats by 12:45pm local time (11:45 GMT) while Labour lost more than 208 councillors.

Starmer said he would take responsibility for the outcome but would not step down, telling GB News, “Days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised,” during a speech in West London on Friday morning.

Al Jazeera

The BBC reported that Reform UK had been the big winner in results declared so far, “picking up hundreds of seats and control of three councils in elections around England,” while Labour had lost hundreds of councillors and control of more than 10 councils.

The BBC also said there were “more than 5,000 councillors up for election across 136 councils in England on Thursday,” as counting continued into Friday and into Saturday for remaining English council and mayoral contests.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage framed the early results as a political turning point, calling it “a truly historic shift in British politics” and saying Labour was being “wiped out by Reform in many of their traditional areas.”

Starmer, speaking at Kingsdown methodist church in Ealing, west London, said: “We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country, these are people who put so much into their communities, so much into our party.”

Arabi21

The Guardian reported that Starmer said the party must “reflect and respond,” while also noting that the statement did not set out how Labour would respond beyond acknowledging “huge challenges as a country.”

In the BBC’s account of the results, Professor Sir John Curtice said Labour had lost “around 20% of the council seats they were defending in the capital but 80% in the rest of England,” as Conservatives retook Westminster from Labour and Hackney elected a Green mayor.

The election results were presented as a test of Starmer’s leadership and a potential pressure point for the prime minister’s future, with NBC News saying the overall picture would “heap pressure on Starmer” as speculation about colleagues moving against him continued.

The BBC said counting in Scotland and Wales was under way, with the remaining English council and mayoral contests due throughout the rest of Friday and into Saturday, while the Welsh Parliament was expanding from 60 to 96 seats under a new electoral system.

In Wales, the BBC described the shift to proportional representation after boundaries changed, with “16 new constituencies, each electing six members,” and it said counting was under way for the Welsh Parliament as the system took effect.

In Scotland, the BBC said the largest party at Holyrood before the election was the Scottish National Party led by John Swinney, and it linked the next phase of results to how quickly parties could translate early council gains into devolved power.