Labour suffers heavy local and devolved election losses as Starmer faces leadership pressure

# Labour suffers heavy local and devolved election losses as Starmer faces leadership pressure

IO Digest Desk

Britain’s election results on May 7, 2026 produced a rough night for Labour and a political opening for opponents across England, Scotland and Wales. BBC News reported sweeping gains for Reform UK in English councils, a strong Welsh result for Plaid Cymru, and the SNP winning the most seats in Holyrood while still falling short of a majority.

The BBC live coverage said voters had gone to the polls for seats in the Senedd, Holyrood, local councils and some mayoral contests in England. Counting stretched through the night, and by early Friday the scale of Labour’s losses was becoming clear. Labour lost control of its first council at 2:01 a.m. BST, and as results kept coming in the party was pushed out of position in a series of local races.

Reform UK emerged as the biggest beneficiary in England, with the BBC saying the party reached more than 1,400 councillors. The report also said Labour lost control of councils in places such as Leeds and Kirklees and that the result in Redditch had been an early sign of what was coming. In London, the Greens won control of Waltham Forest, Hackney and Lewisham, while Reform took Havering for the first time. The Conservatives also regained Westminster.

In Wales, the BBC forecast Plaid Cymru to become the largest party in the Senedd, and the report said the party ended up with 43 of the 96 seats available, six short of a majority. Welsh Labour leader and first minister Eluned Morgan was reported to have arrived at a count expecting to lose her seat, and she did. In Scotland, Labour conceded defeat as the SNP won the most seats but also missed an overall majority.

The political consequences for Keir Starmer were immediate. The BBC said he admitted Labour had made “unnecessary mistakes” but refused to quit. He also appointed Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman as advisers. Later, Labour MP Catherine West told cabinet ministers that if no one else challenged Starmer by Monday she would try to trigger a leadership contest herself. The BBC said she claimed to have 10 MPs ready to back her and needed 81 signatures to force a contest.

That pressure matters because it shows the local-election fallout spilling quickly into a national leadership test. The results themselves were about councils and devolved chambers; the reaction turned them into a question about Labour’s direction in government. West’s intervention did not mean a formal challenge was guaranteed, but it made the party’s internal tension public in a way that is hard to reverse.

For Starmer, the night was not just about bad arithmetic in local government. It was a warning that Labour’s grip on its coalition may be weaker than expected, and that opponents both inside and outside the party are prepared to use the results as leverage.