Keir Starmer on the brink as he refuses to shift ‘left or right’ after local elections hammering: Live updates

Some of Keir Starmer‘s most senior Cabinet Ministers have been called out for failing to back Keir Starmer, as Labour MPs plot the Prime Minister’s downfall.

Last night Downing Street forced most of the Cabinet to post supportive messages backing Sir Keir on social media, but three prominent figures appeared unwilling to do so.

Ed Miliband, who reportedly told the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his departure recently, failed to back Sir Keir continuing in the role.

Next up the Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, appeared to scold the Prime Minister as she demanded: ‘Do better’.

And Wes Streeting, who reportedly already has enough MPs lined up to launch a coup, failed to post anything on social media last night.

Well I have listened to the BBC, and I have absorbed the teachings of Sir John Curtice – and frankly I have had about as much analysis of the local elections as I can take.

My conclusion, from the point of view of an ardent Conservative: there is still absolutely everything to play for.

We have three years until the next election must be called, and polls say we already have the most popular party leader. Kemi Badenoch had a good campaign. She seems fresher and more full of bounce and zap than her rivals.

Read Boris Johnson’s full column on Mail+ below:

Reform UK has ‘taken a big step towards winning the next general election’, according to a senior member of the party.

Zia Yusuf told Sky News: ‘It’s been an historic set of results for Reform. This is an historic moment.

‘No political party, no insurgent political party, has ever managed to, for example, defeat and demolish Labour in their heartlands in the Red wall, for example, while simultaneously demolishing the Tories in some of their heartlands, like Essex.’

Labour MP Connor Naismith, who has called for a change in leadership, dismissed suggestions that Andy Burnham would struggle to win a by-election to enter Parliament.

Greater Manchester Mayor Mr Burnham would need to win a Westminster seat if he is to challenge for the party leadership but Labour was hammered in local elections in the North West.

Crewe and Nantwich MP Mr Naismith said Mr Burnham would be able to defy that trend.

He said:

Andy is the most popular Labour politician in the country.

The suggestion that he wouldn’t be able to win in some of the seats Labour is currently struggling to win is just wrong.

Ironically, this is precisely why we need him back on the front line of national politics.

As someone who has been watching these elections from behind the sofa, in the manner of an especially frightening episode of Doctor Who in which an alien race – let’s call them ‘the Polanskis’ – hypnotise the nation into believing that not only can they make women’s breasts larger, they can also miraculously give them penises, I find myself slightly relieved with this week’s local election results.

They say there are no perfect solutions in politics, only least bad ones, and that pretty much sums it up for me.

I’m not really a fan of Reform but if it’s a choice between Nigel Farage and Zack Polanski, I’ll take the old, chain-smoking scourge of Brussels over a virtue-signalling charlatan any day of the week.

Read Sarah Vine’s full column below:

Both Labour and the Conservatives have seen their lowest number of members elected to the Scottish parliament.

The previous lows were 22 for Labour in 2021 and 15 for the Tories in 2011. This election saw the parties win 17 and 12 seats respectively.

By contrast, the Greens have beaten their previous record of eight members elected to the parliament in 2021, winning 15 seats this time.

The SNP have won the most number of seats of any party for the fifth election in a row and will remain the largest group in parliament for a 19th consecutive year and beyond.

Labour has been humiliated in Wales as Plaid Cymru became the largest party in the Senedd for the first time.

The Greens and Reform also won their first seats in the devolved parliament.

Labour had been the largest party in Wales for more than a century, winning the most MPs of any party at every general election since 1922 and securing the most seats in the Senedd since its creation in 1999.

First Minister Eluned Morgan was the highest profile casualty as she failed to win her seat yesterday.

She called for Sir Keir’s Government to ‘change course’ and ‘go back to being the party of the working class’.

Thursday’s elections were a watershed in British politics. They marked the formal demise of two-party politics in our country and the transition to a multi-party system.

This is not a temporary glitch or a minor setback to politics as we’ve known it for the past century. It is a rupture, a new start. As a leading pollster said to me yesterday: ‘It’s time to write the obituary of the two‑party system.’

The Labour and Tory duopoly has been in decline for quite some time. It’s long been extinct in Scotland and Wales – and never did exist in Northern Ireland. But it clung on tenaciously in England, which dominates Westminster. No longer.

Read Andrew Neil’s full column on Mail+ below:

By Liz Ivens, Mail on Sunday reporter

Labour veteran Clive Betts said the Cabinet should make it clear to Sir Keir Starmer he has to go ‘in the not too distant future’.

The Sheffield South East MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today:

I don’t think rebooting and refreshing and renewing, and all the words that have been thrown around, are going to make any difference, unfortunately.

I think there are three scenarios: one is that Keir carries on until the next election and we lose, and we lose badly.

Secondly, that in the end, Keir decides to stick it out, and there is a move to get rid of him, an internal battle, and then the public don’t like parties that fight amongst themselves, so that could lead to an election defeat.

Or in the end, Keir recognises, for the good of the country and the Government, he has to step down at some point in the not too distant future.

Reform UK gained a seventh council from Labour in the early hours this morning, winning 31 seats in Calderdale, West Yorkshire.

Labour, which previously had 26 seats on the council, lost 18, while the Conservatives were down 10 and the Liberal Democrats four.

Reform UK had already gained Gateshead, St Helens, Sandwell, Sunderland, Thurrock and Wakefield from Labour.

In England, a small number of councils are still yet to declare the results from Thursday’s local elections.

Reform has been the biggest winner up until now, picking up more than 1,400 councillors.

The Greens and Lib Dems have also made gains, while Labour has lost more than 1,300 seats and the Conservatives more than 500.

Check out all the latest results below:

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to listen to voters but refused to shift ‘left or right’ despite backbench calls for a new leader following Labour’s electoral mauling.

The Prime Minister said responding to ‘tough’ results, which saw Labour lose hundreds of councillors in England and suffer humiliation in Wales, would mean ‘being assertive in our values’ and ‘unifying rather than dividing’.

In a defiant op-ed for the Guardian, the Prime Minister wrote:

While we must respond to the message that voters have sent us, that doesn’t mean tacking right or left.

It means bringing together a broad political movement, being assertive about our values, bold in our vision and addressing people’s demands.

Unifying rather than dividing. That is the right approach for our party and, more importantly, it is the right approach for our country.”