Starmer takes responsibility after UK local election losses

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Friday said he takes responsibility for the “very tough” losses for the Labour Party in the local election, which threw up big wins for the anti-immigration Reform UK.

Speaking to reporters as the vote count for Thursday’s UK-wide polls for local councils and devolved Scottish and Welsh parliaments continues, Starmer said the outcome would not weaken his resolve to carry on tackling the challenges facing the country’s economy.

He is faced with calls to quit as party leader and prime minister after Labour lost its majorities in several key councils of Westminster, Southampton, Exeter, Redditch, Wandsworth, Hartlepool, Tamworth and Tameside.

“The results are tough, they are very tough, and there’s no sugarcoating it,” said Starmer. “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. “I’m not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos,” he said.

Asked if he would be the one leading the Labour Party into the next general election, expected in 2029, he replied: “Yes. It was a five-year term I was elected to do, I intend to see that through.”

However, the UK PM admitted that when voters “send a message like this”, the governing party “must reflect and respond”.

“They know the status quo is letting them down and they’re frustrated, they don’t feel the changes,” he said. Meanwhile, the Nigel Farage-led Reform UK is celebrating significant gains in councils across England even as the results continue to trickle in. The party has gained hundreds of councillors at the expense of both major parties, Labour and the Opposition Tories. “I think overall, what’s happened is a truly historic shift in British politics,” Farage told reporters at Havering, the party’s first major victory in a London borough. “We’ve been so used to thinking about politics in terms of Left and Right, and yet what Reform is able to do is to win in areas that have always been conservative. It’s a big, big day not just for our party but for a complete reshaping of British politics in every way,” he said.

In England, more than 4,500 councillors are being elected across 136 councils as well as some local borough mayors. In Scotland and Wales, where the count remains ongoing, voters are electing members of the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Senedd respectively.

The biggest country-wide poll this week since the 2024 general election was widely seen as a referendum on Starmer’s leadership and a verdict on the Labour Government’s policies.