Tough election results hurt but don't weaken my resolve, says PM

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said Labour's "tough" local election results in England "hurt" but insisted that "days like this don't weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised".

Labour has lost hundreds of council seats and faces further difficult results as counting continues in elections across England, Scotland and Wales.

Reform UK has been the big winner in England so far, picking up hundreds of seats and taking control of councils in areas where Labour and the Conservatives have been historically dominant.

The Greens have also done well, winning dozens of councillors and the Hackney mayoralty in London, while the Liberal Democrats have made some gains too.

Counting is under way in Scotland and Wales for seats in their devolved parliaments.

The SNP's leader John Swinney says his party "will emerge as the largest" party, and early results include the party winning Shetland, an area the Liberal Democrats, and its predecessor the Liberal Party, has represented since 1950.

Reform came close to winning in Banffshire and Buchan Coast from the SNP, but lost out by a few hundred votes.

In Wales, Labour is expected to lose control of the Senedd, ending its 27 year-long rule.

Sources have told the BBC Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan is expected to lose her seat in the Ceredigion Penfro constituency.

The party's poor showing in the elections will further fuel questions about Sir Keir's leadership, which have been growing for months.

As the first election results came in, Labour MPs Jon Trickett and Jonathan Brash renewed their call for the PM to go, but so far their parliamentary colleagues have not joined them.

Sharon Hoffman - the only remaining Labour councillor in Hull after Reform won 10 seats on the council - said the national Labour government had "done us a lot of damage".

"People on the door when we were knocking were saying: 'We think you're a great councillor, we really support you, but we cannot support Labour'.

"People mentioned that they would not vote for Keir Starmer or for anybody that represented Keir Starmer."

Speaking in Ealing, west London, Sir Keir said: "The results are tough, they are very tough, and there's no sugar-coating it.

"We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country, these are people who put so much into their communities, so much into our party.

"And that hurts, and it should hurt, and I take responsibility."

Asked if he would step down, he said: "I'm not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos."

Defence Secretary John Healey said he believed the prime minister could "still turn this around" while Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper warned against a "knee-jerk reaction" to the results.

Communities Secretary Steve Reed also warned against changing leader, telling the BBC: "Doomscrolling through prime minister's doesn't resolve the problem."

Some Labour MPs are hoping Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham might return to Westminster as an MP in order to challenge Sir Keir for the party leadership.

Earlier this year Burnham was blocked from standing as an MP but some of the mayor's supporters hope the Labour's ruling body, the NEC, might lift its opposition.

Therefore some MPs who are privately critical of the prime minister may chose not to call for him to resign immediately, preferring instead to hold off until Burnham is in a position to launch a leadership contest.

Nigel Farage said the results marked a "truly historic shift in British politics".

Speaking in Havering, the Reform leader said people were used to thinking about politics in terms of left and right but that his party had been able to win in both traditionally Conservative and Labour areas.

He said Reform's successes could no longer be viewed as "a fluke or a protest vote".

Asked how Reform would perform in local government he said: "We all know the finances of local councils are severely stretched - we are not promising miracles but we are promising value for money."

On Sir Keir's future, he joked: "Personally I would be very sad to see the prime minister go - he is the greatest asset we have got."

Like Labour, the Conservatives also lost councillors, with Reform taking former strongholds such as Brentwood, Tamworth and North East Lincolnshire.

In one significant result, Reform has taken control of Essex County Council from the Conservatives, who suffered huge losses in an area that covers the constituencies of several senior Tory MPs, including party leader Kemi Badenoch.

However, the party had some success in London, regaining control of Westminster from Labour and becoming the largest party in Wandsworth.

Visiting Westminster, Badenoch said her party was "the only serious alternative to Labour".

"People voted for change and they got change for the worse with Labour," she said.

She argued that Reform "talk a good game" but "people who experience Reform don't like it".

"We are the only ones who do any work."

The Liberal Democrats won control of Stockport and Portsmouth, but lost control of Hull council.

Speaking in Portsmouth, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said Labour and the Conservatives had "let the country down" and the voters were tempted by "extreme" parties such as Reform and the Greens.

"Their message of change is quite destructive - it is 'burn it all down' change, he said, adding: "The Liberal Democrats offer different change which is 'build up' change."

Asked whether the prime minister should step down, he said: "I personally think he hasn't delivered the change Labour promised and he should get out the way."

The Green Party of England and Wales has won a much larger share of the vote than it did in 2022.

The party has gained dozens of councillors so far, and won the mayoralty in Hackney - but will be hoping to pick up more gains when areas in London declare results.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski said the results showed two-party politics was dead and voters had rejected the prime minister.

He said the new politics was "Greens versus Reform", pointing to his party's vote share is rising "right across the country".

"We had 14 years of Conservative austerity," Polanski said.

"Keir Starmer was voted in on a promise of change and, actually, what we've seen is very little change, and in many ways things have got worse."

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