Elections 2026 live: Labour suffers losses as
Reform UK surges in England
15m ago
13.50 BST
Labour has had 'worst results in Manchester for
60 years', and Starmer to blame, says Graham Stringer
The Labour MP Graham Stringer has said the party
is getting its worst results in Manchester for 60 years.
Speaking to reporters at the election count for
Manchester city council, Stringer, who represents Blackley and Middleton South
and who has been an MP since 1997, having previously served as city council
leader, told reporters:
They’re the worst results in Manchester for 60
years. This is a problem made in parliament by Keir Starmer and a cabinet who
have ignored the concerns of the traditional Labour voter.
They have effectively severed the connection with
people who have sustained the Labour party since its beginning. I don’t think
the prime minister gets it, I don’t think the cabinet gets it. They are pursing
policies that are interesting to them and their mates, and they are not
working.
Most of the cabinet, most of the PLP, have not
had any jobs outside the voluntary and public sector, they’ve been bag carriers
for MPs and ministers, and their experience of the real world, as we could call
it, is very limited indeed. They make sense in their world, they do not make
sense to the people I represent.
20m ago
13.44 BST
Steven Morris
Steven Morris is a Guardian correspondent
covering Wales.
The Plaid Cymru leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, has
arrived at the count in the seaside town of Llandudno. A larger than usual
media presence greeted him, a sign he may well be heading for power at Cardiff
Bay in the next few days.
He told the Guardian:
We’re hearing positive noises across Wales but
it’s very, very early and I’ve watched enough elections as a correspondent [he
was a political journalist] as well as a politician to know we hold back until
we have the big picture.
Asked if Wales was ready for change, he said:
I think that has been clear for some time. Our
job has been to encourage people to make the correct change.
Rhun ap Iorwerth arriving at his count in
Llandudno, Wales.
Rhun ap Iorwerth arriving at his count in
Llandudno, Wales. Photograph: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images
23m ago
08.41 EDT
Scottish results are starting to come in for
constituency seats. The first one to change hands was Shetland Islands, where
Hannah Mary Goodlad won the seat for the SNP from the Lib Dems. The SNP were up
5.6 percentage points, and the Lib Dems down 14.4 percentage points.
29m ago
13.35 BST
Reform UK has gained 10 seats in Burnley, but the
council remains under no overall control. Reform now has 12 seats, Labour 10
seats (down 3), independents 10 (down 1), Lib Dems 6 (down 1), Conservatives 4
(down 3) and the Greens 3 (down 2).
35m ago
13.30 BST
'Worse than bad' - Labour braced for terrible
result in Birmingham
A Labour source said they feared speculation that
it faced a “bin fire” in its battle to retain a significant number of seats on
Birmingham city council would prove to be accurate, the Press Association
reports. A year-long bin strike in the city is only just coming to an end. PA
says:
The source tipped Reform UK, Green and
independent candidates to prosper.
As the first three seats to declare resulted in a
Tory hold and Green and Reform UK gains, both from Labour, the Labour source
said: “Let’s just say I haven’t seen anyone looking even remotely happy. The
mood is worse than bad. It’s bleak.”
This is what Sam Freedman said about the contest
in Birmingham in his Comment is Freed Substack elections preview.
Birmingham, England’s largest council, will go
into no overall control with seats going everywhere: to Reform, independents,
Greens, Tories and Lib Dems. Labour will perhaps do even worse than national
polls would predict given deep unhappiness with the council and the likelihood
that independents will pick up a lot of inner city wards. It could end up with
a close to ungovernable mix, possibly with a minority administration made up of
Greens and independents, showing how messy a multi-party system can be when
areas don’t settle into a two-or-three party contest.
1h ago
13.00 BST
Plaid
Cymru confident as counting continues in Wales
Steven
Morris
Steven
Morris is a Guardian correspondent covering Wales.
The Plaid
Cymru leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, will be at Venue Cymru, Llandudno, later to see
how he has personally done in the new north-west Wales constituency of Bangor
Conwy Môn and how his party has fared across Wales – but his workers are in
optimistic mood.
Reflecting
on the party’s 100 years of campaigning and how near it is to power now, one
experienced party worker told the Guardian: “Politics is a game of
perseverance.”
Ap
Iorwerth will probably head to Cardiff later today where, if the results go his
party’s way, he will make a push to become Wales’ first minister.
Helen
Jenner, the deputy leader of Reform in Wales, is also standing in the seat. She
said she thought her party and Plaid were neck and neck here and in many places
across the country.
Jenner
may not be the archetypal Reform figure. She is local, a school teacher and a
Welsh speaker. “There’s just really a hunger for change and something
different,” she said.
Tory
candidate, Janet Finch-Saunders, is an experienced campaigner, having won four
town council seats, two county council seats and three Senedd seats here. She
said Plaid had done well to distance itself from Labour, when they had worked
together for large periods since devolution. “Plaid are equally culpable for
some of the failings we’re suffering.”
She went
on:
This is
my tenth election. For me the outstanding feature is how divisive it’s been.
There has been fear on the doorstep. But I think Wales is wanting change.
The lead
Green candidate in the constituency, Tomos Barlow, said the number of party
members in north-west Wales had shot up from 2-300 to 8-900. “A lot of people
are unsatisfied with the current establishment of the Conservatives and Labour.
The tide is definitely turning in this area.”
1h ago
12.54 BST
Labour
MPs who want Andy Burnham to stand for parliament so that he can replace Keir
Starmer assume a) that winning a byelection in a safe Labour seat in the
north-west would be straightforward and b) that, in an election to replace him
as mayor of Greater Manchester, Labour would have a decent chance of winning
that too.
Jennifer
Williams, northern correspondent at the Financial Times, says on Bluesky that,
given the scale of Labour losses in the north, those assumptions no longer
hold.
I haven’t
been posting as all my thoughts have been going into the blog but a) so far the
worst end of the fears here for Labour b) that includes in the sorts of places
Andy Burnham might stand. St Helens could flip Reform in one go.
Even in
Manchester - which can’t flip, but is fighting off both Greens and Reform -
there are big nerves. (NB Greens nibbled away at the vote in city centre
adjacent Salford seats last night.) if you see Mcr losses of 20+ they’re seeing
the worst of their fears play out
Obviously
local election results don’t translate directly into parliamentary by elections
and burnham reaches places other pols can’t. But it isn’t a risk free
endeavour. And the GM mayoral by election certainly wouldn’t be
There is
no such thing as a Labour heartland anymore! It was true during the Runcorn by
election, when a Labour spinner said “yeah but it’s not a heartland” and I said
“where’s your heartland then” and they couldn’t answer the q - but it’s
definitely true now
These
calculations matter because they have an impact on how Labour MPs will assess
the viability of a switch to a Burnham leadership.
1h ago
12.36 BST
Labour
loses control of Blackburn
Labour
has control of Blackburn council after Reform and Independents won enough seats
to take the authority into no overall control, PA reports.
This is
what the elections specialist Andrew Teale wrote about the situation in
Blackburn in one of his comprehensive local election previews. He said:
Blackburn
with Darwen is outside the Lancashire county council area and hasn’t seen any
polls since the 2024 general election, when the Blackburn constituency - which
covers most of this district - was narrowly gained from Labour by independent
candidate Adnan Hussain. This was after the May 2024 local elections had seen
independent candidates sweep the predominantly Muslim wards in Blackburn, and a
repeat of that result this time would see Labour lose six seats net and control
of the council. There are currently 27 Labour councillors here against 15
independents and 9 Conservatives.
2h ago
12.27 BST
Labour
concedes defeat in Wales
Bethan
McKernan
Bethan
McKernan
Bethan
McKernan is the Guardian’s Wales correspondent.
Welsh
Labour is not going to be able to form the next Welsh government, the party’s
deputy first minister has told BBC Wales.
No seats
have yet been called in Thursday’s Senedd election as counting began on Friday
morning. Plaid Cymru and Reform UK have led in the polls, vying to end Labour’s
dominance in Wales since devolution began in 1999.
When
asked if Welsh Labour were going to be in a position to form a government with
current leader Eluned Morgan as first minister, Huw Irranca-Davies replied:
I don’t
think we’re going to be in that situation.
We tried
to put forward a very positive manifesto.
I think
it has been a good manifesto, it really has, and we have tried to argue on
policies and also the next chapter for Wales.
But if it
hasn’t cut through to the people of Wales, we’re not going to be in that
position then to actually form the next government.
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