Chances of Starmer remaining in No 10 appear to be diminishing as about 40 Labour MPs call on him to quit
Keir Starmer faces a fight for his political life in the next 24 hours as potential Labour leadership rivals from Wes Streeting to Angela Rayner began to position themselves for a contest.
Starmer is hoping to save his job on Monday with a speech promising to “face up to the big challenges” for the country on growth, energy, defence and Europe.
Continue reading...Tyrone Scott, who didn’t think he had a hope in the election, wants to help the Greens rebuild ‘community cohesion’ in Hackney
You would expect most political candidates who pull off a shock win to celebrate their victory, maybe with a glass of bubbly and excitement for the challenges of elected office ahead. But on Friday, as thousands of new councillors celebrated their triumphs, some surprise victors were less than pleased.
Green party handlers apologised to one newly elected councillor in Finsbury Park, north London, put down as a “paper candidate”, who pulled off an unexpected win. “You’re going to be great, we’ll support you,” they said, according to the Islington Tribune.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is preferred choice of new leader for 42% of those surveyed
The majority of Labour members say they do not believe Keir Starmer can turn around the party’s fortunes, while 45% say the prime minister should step down.
The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, was the first preference for 42% of members, who were asked to rank their preferred successor.
Continue reading...Party has success in Labour and Tory heartland areas but one pollster says results suggest Reform may have peaked
Nigel Farage hailed sweeping election wins for Reform UK as a “historic shift in British politics” on a day when the populist party made gains at the expense of Labour and the Conservatives.
Reform made advances in heartland areas of both parties, clocking up substantial early results in the English local elections by taking control of Essex county council, Havering – its first London local authority – and Sunderland city council.
Continue reading...Results are undoubtedly bad but expectations had been set even lower, and any potential challengers are quiet for now
As the local elections results rolled in, a trickle of voices were calling for Keir Starmer to quit – a couple of MPs, a trade union leader, and a Labour peer.
The numbers are undoubtedly bad for Labour, with Reform making sweeping gains across pro-Brexit heartlands in the north and Midlands. These could even be the party’s worst losses for 50 years, with more than 1,000 councillors gone and the potential loss of control of the Welsh parliament.
Continue reading...The Reform UK leader said Labour is being ‘wiped out by Reform in many of their traditional areas’ as results paint a bleak picture for the prime minister
We’re getting statements from some of the political parties now as we wait for results.
For the Conservatives, party chairman Kevin Hollinrake said:
We have run an energetic and positive campaign, showcasing that we have a clear plan to get Britain working again and that we have the team to deliver it... We know that so soon after a historic general election defeat and contesting wards won during the Party’s polling highs, that this will be a difficult set of elections for us. But we will continue to rebuild and to show the public that we have changed, to demonstrate that only this new Conservative party is a credible alternative.
People are deeply disappointed with a Labour government that has been too timid to fix the country, but they are also appalled by the rise of Reform and Nigel Farage’s Trump-style politics. While those on the extremes of the right and the left want to burn everything down, Liberal Democrats want to fix what’s broken. Every Liberal Democrat local champion elected today will fight tirelessly for the communities they serve.
I’ve travelled across England and Wales and I’m hearing the same everywhere I go – confidence that we will win more councillors than ever before. The news from the doorstep is that we will be taking seats from not just Labour but the Tories and Lib Dems too, from all across the country. Voters are responding to the fact that Greens are the only party taking the cost-of-living crisis seriously, with real plans to cut bills, reduce rents and provide genuinely affordable homes, as well as tackling the climate and nature crisis.
Throughout this election, we have heard a clear appetite for change. People want a government that will stand up for Wales and focus relentlessly on the key issues affecting their lives. People have told us they have been inspired by Rhun ap Iorwerth’s leadership and driven by a desire for a positive alternative to Reform UK’s chaos and division.
Continue reading...As Labour faces record-breaking losses in Thursday’s local elections, prime minister says rivals are unfit to lead
Labour is braced for record-breaking losses in Thursday’s local elections in England, which could be decisive for Keir Starmer’s future as prime minister.
In a message to voters on Thursday, Starmer said Reform’s Nigel Farage and the Greens’ Zack Polanski were “not fit to meet this moment of great global instability” and that only Labour was putting the national interest first.
Continue reading...Party leader says vote for Labour or Greens in closely run seats will result in Reform victory at local elections
Voters in the home counties will “regret it for a long time” if they do not back the Liberal Democrats and wake up to a Reform-led council, Ed Davey has said.
The Lib Dems leader has identified five councils – East Surrey, West Surrey, Hampshire, West Sussex and Huntingdonshire – where his party could win overall control, as well as swathes of the former “blue wall” where Davey said it was a “straight fight” between his party and Reform at the English local elections.
Continue reading...Nigel Farage’s party proposed to place detention centres in places that vote for Green council leaders or MPs
Keir Starmer has said that Europe has to face up to the fact that its alliance with the US is under strain.
He made the remark in public comments during the plenary session at the European Political Community summit in Yerevan in Armenia.
And both of those are impacting all of us in a very material way.
In the United Kingdom, if you look at the economic forecast now and compare it to the economic forecast just three or four months ago, they are in materially different places, and this is going to play out with our electorates in all of our countries.
Reform are now openly threatening voters and not only that they’re threatening them with a power they don’t actually have. This is absolutely pathetic. People across Scotland are proud of the fact that this is a welcoming country that shows solidarity to people who need it.
Reform are essentially saying ‘If you don’t vote the way we want you to, we will punish you’. I think the people of Scotland and voters across the UK are not going to take kindly to that kind of Donald Trumpesque threat.
Reform know that absolutely bombed last week. The only thing they’ve got to move on to are open threats, not against the Greens but against voters across the country. It’s really quite sinister. This is exactly the kind of politics you see in Donald Trump’s America. People across Scotland are going to reject that on Thursday.
Continue reading...Hope Not Hate campaign identifies election hopefuls calling for a ‘white Britain’ and complaining of ‘kowtowing to the black community’
A Reform UK candidate who called for a “white Britain” and said Keir Starmer should be shot is among a number of contenders fuelling doubts about the party’s claim to have tightened up its vetting.
The past comments of Linda McFarlane and other political hopefuls have been unearthed ahead of the 7 May elections, including one who complained about “constant kowtowing to the black community” and others who endorsed the far-right activist Tommy Robinson.
Continue reading...Savitha Prakash, a first-generation immigrant running in local elections in Harrow, says Reform UK aims to ‘put Britain first’
Savitha Prakash, an NHS doctor living in the London borough of Harrow, believes there are similarities between the Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, and India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. “He’s [Modi] one of those people, like Nigel, he walks the talk. He made [a] difference to the country,” said Prakash, who chairs Reform UK’s branch in Harrow.
In particular, the 47-year-old said Farage and Modi – who have each been accused by their critics of scapegoating marginalised communities – were focused on putting the needs of the majority first.
Continue reading...Jonathan Brash says ‘own goals’ are distracting from Labour’s achievements
UK inflation accelerated to 3.3% in March after the Iran war triggered the biggest jump in fuel prices for more than three years, Richard Partington reports.
Today the Liberal Democrats staged a photocall to publicise their line about this being “Trumpflation”. Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader and Treasury spokesperson, said:
People across our country have been struggling for years with a devastating cost-of-living crisis and Donald Trump’s idiotic war in Iran has added to it. The cost of fuel is soaring, mortgage rates are rising and fixed energy deals are already going up by hundreds of pounds.
But what is utterly inexcusable is that there are politicians in this country - Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch - who are happy to cheerlead Donald Trump as he hikes people’s bills. All the while this Labour government promised to fix the country but instead we’ve got political Groundhog Day: yet more sleaze and scandal.
Continue reading...Labour calls on Nigel Farage to sack candidates and says his party’s checks ‘clearly not fit for purpose’
Reform UK’s checks on candidates are “clearly not fit for purpose”, Labour has said after two more candidates in May’s local elections were accused of making offensive or potentially racist social media posts.
Meanwhile, it emerged that Restore Britain, the party set up by the MP Rupert Lowe after he left Reform, appeared to have accepted a donation from someone who has called publicly on social media for “another Hitler” to come to power.
Continue reading...Tory leader criticises Farage for saying that holding another independence vote ‘probably quite reasonable’
Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the Conservative party, has accused Nigel Farage of being an opportunist who does not believe in unionism after he urged Scottish nationalists to back Reform.
Farage said earlier this week he believed “genuine nationalists” would not support the Scottish National party’s bid to rejoin the EU, and urged them to vote Reform in the Holyrood election on 7 May.
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