The party has finished the elections controlling ten councils, while the Liberal Democrats have control of three and the other ten are under no overall control.

Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservatives is not under threat despite the party’s council election woes, a shadow minister has said.

David Simmonds, the shadow housing minister, was asked by Sky News whether parliamentary colleagues were considering replacing Badenoch as leader. He said: “I’m not aware of any colleagues who do feel that.

“Certainly in the parliamentary party we have been working very closely together for a long time.”

He said the election results were not “existential” for the party, despite it losing every county council it had controlled.

“I think it’s very clear, as somebody who was a Conservative councillor for 24 years, that we have been at a much lower level in local government than is the case now,” Simmonds said.

The Conservatives have failed to win 39 of the 76 seats in West Northamptonshire county council.

Previously the Tories had 60 of the 93 seats on a council that had been reduced in size after boundary changes.

The ongoing count will determine whether the council has been won by Reform or will be under no overall control.

The result means the Conservative Party has lost control of each of the 15 councils it had held.

The Conservatives have failed to retain their majority in Buckinghamshire, leaving the county council under no overall control.

The party fell one seat short of the 49 councillors needed. It previously had 106 councillors of 147, with the number now reduced by boundary changes.

Boris Johnson is adamant that the Tories “can win again” despite the “horror of the election results”, but only because Labour is “so bad”.

The former prime minister admitted in a column in the Daily Mail that he had “averted my eyes from the full horror of the local election results”.

He noted that Labour “has taken a well-deserved knee in the groin” and added: “Look at the Tories. Can it possibly be true? Is the Conservative Party facing an extinction moment? Are we Blues going the way of the dodo?”

Johnson suggested the council election results “reveal the first and most important condition for a Tory victory, the extreme vulnerability of the Labour government.

“This Labour government is so bad … that in 2028, or whenever we have the next election, I think there is a real chance of a tipping point,” he said.

Reform UK has taken control of North Northamptonshire after winning 35 seats on a council which has two vacancies after elections were postponed in one ward because of the death of a candidate.

The two remaining councils to declare their counts are West Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire, both of which seem set to have no overall control.

Pat McFadden has admitted to Sky News that today’s local election results are “poor” for Labour.

The chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said he understood people’s “anger and frustration”.

“They want to see more and that’s what the prime minister meant today when he said ‘I get it’,” McFadden added.

“We have got to keep changing so we get living standards up and waiting lists down and ensure that people feel the benefit of what we are doing.”

Farage continues: “In the House of Commons the other day, Keir Starmer said ‘Nigel Farage will eat the Conservatives for breakfast’. I think he forgot — we’re going to eat the Labour Party for lunch as well. He’s got a real problem.”

He said: “I have been doing this game for about 30 years and in many ways what happened last night is without a doubt the most significant day in my political career.

“It is a seismic change in British politics. It is of a proportion nobody could even have dreamt of.”

Nigel Farage has suggested that Reform UK’s newly-elected councillors focus on fighting controversial projects as they take control of Staffordshire county council.

Speaking at Staffordshire County Showground, he said: “Why don’t we say no to the massive wind farm proposed at Staffordshire Moorlands? Why don’t we say no to the huge 120 football pitch solar farm proposed at Cheadle?

“And we must say no to spending £18,000 on giving asylum seekers driving lessons.”

He added: “I wish you all the luck in the world. It is an incredible opportunity.”

Reform has become the largest party on Cornwall council after winning 28 of the 87 seats declared. However, no single party has a majority.

The Liberal Democrats won 26 seats and independents took 16. The Conservatives lost 40 seats, finishing with seven. Labour won four and there were three each for the Greens and Mebyon Kernow.

Bruce Craze, who won the Four Lanes, Beacon and Troon for Reform, said he wanted the authority “to sort out the finances so people’s council tax is not going on debt payments but on actual services for them”.

By Lara Spirit

This week was Ellie Reeves’s first big test as Labour Party chair. And whatever the other results at the locals, the by-election in Runcorn & Helsby, Labour’s 49th-safest seat, would always be the best indicator of whether Reeves passed that test.

The result? A narrow but historic Labour defeat.

Labour MPs knew it would be close but in recent days they had been warming to the idea that there could be good news in Runcorn.

Reeves oversaw a strong local campaign, they said. Doorknockers were handed bespoke messages to chime with voters living on specific streets. And Labour’s 2022–23 by-election victories in the northwest, albeit in “safe” Chester, West Lancashire and Stretford, gave them confidence.

• Read in full: By-election campaign beset by Runcorn rumblings

Reform has won control of Doncaster council from Labour in a yet another blow to Sir Keir Starmer in his party’s traditional heartlands.

Reform took 29 seats, exceeding the threshold of 28 for a majority, with Labour on three and Conservatives two. Several results are yet to be declared.

Labour previously controlled the council with 41 seats, with Conservatives on 11 and independents having three.

Oxfordshire is a rare county where Reform has barely made any inroads in these elections.

Alongside Shropshire and Cambridgeshire, it is one of three councils that Ed Davey’s party have gained, taking many seats from the Conservatives.

There were whoops and cheers when the Liberal Democrats won control of Shropshire county council for the first time, the BBC reported.

The Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, which supports campaigners, said on X: “Liberal Democrats gain majority control of Shropshire council — with 10 more seats still to declare, the Liberal Democrats are up 25 to 38.”

The council had been run by the Conservatives since it became a unitary authority in 2009.

Before the election the Lib Dems were confident they would become the majority party, the Shropshire Star reported.

The council was previously under no overall control, with the Conservatives having 37 seats and the Lib Dems 18.

Emma Lewell said that certain Labour policies had “broken” trust

The government needs “a change of plan” to restore trust among the electorate, a Labour MP has warned.

Emma Lewell, who has represented South Shields in Tyne and Wear since 2013, said on X: “Trust matters. If you promise people that you will be focused on serving the public and then do not listen to them, do not expect them to vote for you.

“Withdrawal of winter fuel, denial of compensation for the Waspi women and proposed disability cuts have all broken that trust.

“What is needed is a change of plan.”

There has been a dramatic change in the affluent county of Hertfordshire, where the Conservatives have lost control of the council for the first time since 1999.

The Lib Dems were now the largest party, with 31 seats, while Conservatives have 22, Reform 14, Labour and Greens five each and one independent. Forty seats were needed for a majority.

Matt Adams, editor of the St Albans Times newspaper, said: “You reap what you sow.

“After arrogantly ploughing ahead with the sale of the rail freight international exchange site on green belt land, failing hundreds of Send [special education needs and disabilities] families for years, allowing our roads to deteriorate and all the while ignoring the views of the electorate, this result is not only inevitable, it’s also justified.”

The Liberal Democrats have won control of Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire county councils.

The party secured 36 seats in Oxfordshire, achieving the 35 needed for a majority, while in Cambridgeshire they won the 31 seats needed to take control.

Both councils were previously under no overall control, with the Lib Dems second to the Tories in Cambridgeshire and tied in Oxfordshire.

A Lib Dem spokesman said: “We have replaced the Conservatives as the party of middle England.

“Kemi Badenoch’s party have taken a pasting at these elections in a set of results that can only been described as a humiliation.”

Reform has gained 476 councillors as results are in from 16 of the 23 councils holding elections.

The Liberal Democrats are currently in second place with 237 seats, an increase of 86.

The Conservatives have won 199 seats, down 411, while Labour have 56 after losing 137 seats, leaving Sir Keir Starmer’s party one behind the Greens, who are up 29.

Only 55 independent councillors have been elected so far, a decrease of 61.

Kemi Badenoch has apologised to Tory candidates who were defeated in the local elections.

In a message to former councillors, the Conservative leader expressed “how sincerely sorry I am for your loss” but pledged that “we are going to win those seats back”.

While campaigning, she noted people were “fed up with the Labour government”.

“They were angry about winter fuel payments, they were angry about the jobs tax, but they are still not yet ready to trust us,” Badenoch said.

“We have a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public.”

Luke Campbell has been elected mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire, a combined authority created this year

RYAN JENKINSON/GETTY IMAGES

The former boxer and Olympic medallist Luke Campbell has been elected the first mayor of the Hull and East Yorkshire combined authority for Reform UK.

Campbell, 37, secured 48,491 votes, nearly 11,000 more than the Liberal Democrat candidate, who received 37,510, and about 27,000 more than the Conservative candidate, who received 21,393.

He told reporters upon his arrival at the count: “If we do get elected and people do vote me in, I’ll be very humbled by everyone’s response to me and will not let them down.”

Campbell had pledged to push for greater government investment in the region. Before the election he said: “We deserve more than £13.3 million a year.

“Hull and East Yorkshire have long been overlooked and underfunded. As your mayor, I’ll ask Keir Starmer to ensure our region gets its fair share to fund crucial services and infrastructure improvements.”

By Patrick Maguire

Remember the 2019 European parliament election? I think you’ll find that Nigel Farage won 22 per cent of the vote when these seats were up for election in 2013.

Governments always lose councillors at their first local elections. Even Tony Blair did! Anyway, it’ll all collapse on contact with reality anyway, just like Ukip in Thanet or the Greens in Brighton. The voters will come back. They always do.

Those are the consoling theories advanced by Labour and the Tories today, as the grim reality of the local elections and Runcorn by-election materialises at the lowest end of their expectations. And, as it happens, they are not all wrong.

The results we have seen thus far do not amount to the end of anything — not yet. But they do suggest that a new era in English politics is beginning. Conservatives in particular must wake up to what it means.

• Read in full: Reform surge is existential threat to the big two

Control of Wiltshire has changed for the first time in a generation, after the Conservatives lost for the first time in 25 years.

However, no party has secured overall power as 50 seats are needed to form a majority.

The Liberal Democrats have won 43 seats, a gain of 16 councillors, while the Tories have 37, down 24.

The Conservative councillor Richard Clewer, who was the leader of the previous council, said: “It’s quite a confused picture for Wiltshire. There’s a lot of work to do in the next few days.”

Reform-controlled councils will try to block government attempts to force them to accommodate asylum seekers in local hotels, Nigel Farage said.

He said that his party will “resist” having migrants placed “in these counties that we now control”.

In Co Durham he said he had spoken with people “in the north, just so enraged because they get up early in the morning, they go to work, they pay their taxes, and they see young men crossing the English Channel, being dumped into the north of England getting everything for free”.

He added: “It is unfair, it is irresponsible, it is wrong in every way.”

Reform has been performing better in areas where there are more voters with no qualifications, according to demographic research.

Will Jennings, professor of political science at the University of Southampton, told Sky News that Reform had performed better in locations where more residents did not have qualifications and there were fewer university graduates.

Katie, 39, said it was the “visibility and the availability” of Reform’s candidates and campaigners in Runcorn & Helsby that got her to shift her vote away from Labour.

“Reform seemed to be more available,” she said. “I spoke to Sarah [Pochin] last week and I told her I was undecided, I’ve always been a Labour voter but I’d lost faith in the past year. She was really good.”

Katie hoped the Reform leader would one day become prime minister. “If Nigel Farage ends up prime minister, then I think that’ll be good. A lot of politicians are all talk. He seems to stand firm on what he wants to do.”

For her, one of the biggest issues in Runcorn was immigration and the availability of social housing. “I live in that block there, and that’s down for regeneration. I’m on a waiting list for getting a new place. I’m down as priority but you’re never priority.”

The Reform MP won by six votes

ALAMY

Sarah Pochin has become Reform’s first female MP in a vote that led to the closest by-election race in modern history.

Reform’s newest member of the Commons was asked repeatedly throughout the campaign about her past as a Conservative councillor. Pochin was part of the Conservative Party as well as the mayor for Cheshire East.

Labour attempted to use photos of her with former Tory leaders to tie her to the party. She also stood for parliament for the Conservatives in Bolton South East in 2017.

• Read in full: Who is Reform’s first female MP?

Sir Ed Davey said the Liberal Democrats were “extremely happy about the results” and that “they’ve gone even better than we expected”.

Davey, the party leader, told Sky News he was expecting his “really confident” party to take control of “one or more councils from the Conservatives”.

He said the Tories were “in a real mess” and described their election results as “one of their worst in history”.

Davey also predicted that, despite Reform’s success, “I think people will increasingly reject them. It will be the Liberal Democrats left standing up for traditional British values, taking on the divisive populism of Nigel Farage and Reform.”

The Conservatives have lost control of Leicestershire to no overall control after losing 25 seats on the county council, while Reform gained 24.

The council sees Reform as the biggest party with 25 seats, with the Tories on 15, Liberal Democrats 11, Labour two, Green one and one independent.

Reform fell three seats short of the 28 required for a majority.

IAN FORSYTH/GETTY IMAGES

Nigel Farage said that Reform was “now the party of the working man and woman” and that two-party politics was “finished”.

In Durham, Farage celebrated his party winning Lancashire and Nottinghamshire councils and declared that Reform had had “the Labour Party for lunch”.

He added: “This marks the end of two-party politics as we’ve known it for over a century — it is over, it is finished, it is gone.”

Farage also said that the Conservatives “have been wiped out … next year we will clear them in the Welsh and Scottish parliaments.

“I believe we will win the next election.”

The Conservatives have lost control of Warwickshire county council.

Despite a Reform surge, no single party will have overall control of the council as no party has been able to win the 29 seats needed to secure a majority.

The prime minister said the government had “started” to deliver chnage

HENRY NICHOLLS/POOL PHOTO/AP

Sir Keir Starmer has vowed to “double down” to bring about faster change in the wake of today’s “disappointing” results.

The prime minister told ITV News: “My response is to say: I get it.

“We were elected into government at the general election last year to deliver change.

“We’ve started that work — waiting lists are coming down, wages are going up, interest rates are down — that’s all good for working people.

“But the message I take out of these results is that we need to go further and faster with change … we’re going to double down on that now.”

Results are now coming thick and fast with more and more English councils declaring their results in the past hour.

Things are going remarkably well for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party which has won almost half of the seats declared so far.

Reform has conquered Kent by taking 45 seats on the county council, well over the threshold of 41 needed for a majority.

Liberal Democrats had 11 seats, Labour two, Greens one and Conservatives one, in a council which the Tories previously controlled with 56 councillors.

James Cleverly has slammed the BBC for being “snide and contemptible” after describing Dame Andrea Jenkyns as an “ex-Greggs worker”.

The former Conservative minister was elected for Reform as the first Greater Lincolnshire mayor with a majority of almost 40,000 over her previous party.

BBC Politics posted on X that her victory marked a “return to politics for the former Greggs worker and Miss UK finalist”.

Cleverly, the former home secretary, criticised the broadcaster, pointing out that “she’s a former MP and minister … this is just snide, BBC Politics should delete and apologise.”

Nigel Farage celebrates the Reform victory in Durham county council

IAN FORSYTH/GETTY IMAGES

Final results from the county councils of Devon, Durham, Northumberland, Staffordshire and Worcestershire show that Reform has gained 175 seats, with the Conservatives losing 124 and Labour 72.

The Liberal Democrats were up 17 seats and the Greens up nine, while independent candidates were down 31.

The Conservatives have lost control of three of the five councils, with Reform now in a majority in two and the other three under no overall control.

Reform has taken control of Nottinghamshire after scooping the 34 seats needed for a majority on the county council.

Conservatives were previously the biggest party in the authority with 33 seats, alongside 17 independents and 13 Labour councillors.

Reform has also taken Derbyshire council, after winning more than the 33 seats needed for a majority.

Conservatives previously had 40 seats in Derbyshire, with Labour on 15.

Reform has taken control of Lancashire, winning the 43 seats needed for a majority on the county council.

The Conservatives previously controlled the council with 46 seats, ahead of Labour on 27, while Reform had just two.

The Conservatives have lost Gloucestershire county council, a traditional Tory stronghold, Sky News has reported.

The Liberal Democrats appear set to become the largest party in the area, as 47 of 55 seats have been counted and the results show the Lib Dems with 20, Reform with ten, the Greens with nine, while the Conservatives have just six (down 18).

Labour won one seat, and one independent candidate was also voted in.

The Conservatives have officially lost control of Nottinghamshire county council after nearly a decade in power.

Reform could be on course to take full control and are the only party that can do so, reported Nottinghamshire Live.

Sky News said that Reform is just five councillors away from running the council alone, with 14 seats left to declare.

Reform UK was on course to take control of Kent county council, after winning 29 of the first 42 seats on the council to be declared.

It meant the party needed another 13 seats to take control of the county where Nigel Farage was born, and which has 81 seats.

The Conservatives have hailed Paul Bristow’s mayoral victory in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough as a “significant win” after a “very difficult night”.

A party spokesman said: “Labour previously held this mayoralty and won two new MPs in the region last year, so for Paul to win today shows how Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives are already making inroads into the Labour vote.”

The Labour peer and former party adviser Baroness Hazarika has said that after Labour’s poor performance in the local elections, the party needs to “admit that some mistakes were made”.

“Labour’s potentially now going to be fighting on quite a few different fronts, a right-wing Reform party … but also fighting on the left against the Greens as well,” she said.

Speaking on her Times Radio show, Hazarika added: “The big message for Labour, of course, is that [it] has to deliver, but I think it’s more than just delivering. I think Labour has to tell a convincing, confident story about what it wants modern Britain to look at, and they need people to feel the change and maybe admit that some mistakes were made, like the winter fuel allowance.”

She said questions would be asked about the party’s ground operation, which appears to have failed in Runcorn.

Here is the state of play so far, with Reform making huge gains in local elections across the country.

Nigel Farage’s party has won control of Durham, Lincolnshire and Staffordshire councils.

The Conservatives have lost control of three councils they won in 2021 when Boris Johnson was at the peak of his popularity.

Paul Bristow has won the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough mayoral contest with a majority of more than 10,500 over Reform’s Ryan Coogan.

It means the Conservatives regain the post after Labour’s win four years ago.

Reform UK have taken control of a third council after its candidates won more than 50 seats at Durham county council, where Labour was previously the biggest party.

Farage is expected to be up in Durham later today.

The Conservative candidate Paul Bristow is close to winning the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough mayoralty, which Labour has held since 2021.

The former Peterborough MP was more than 8,000 votes ahead of Reform UK with results in from five of the six authorities in the region, with just Cambridge City to come.

Labour’s Nik Johnson won in 2021, but was not standing this time, and the party candidate Anna Smith was trailing in fourth place, behind the Liberal Democrats, with the final result to be declared.

Johnson was aided last time by Lib Dem second preference votes, but the Conservatives are being assisted by the new first-past-the-post system this year.

Reform has won control of Staffordshire county council by a huge margin. With seven seats left to declare, Nigel Farage’s party has won three quarters of the seats on the council.

The council surrounds but does not include the city of Stoke-on-Trent and includes Lichfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme and Tamworth.

Staffordshire has been a key swing area in recent elections, with Labour winning Tamworth on a huge swing from the Conservatives in a by-election in 2023, and holding the seat in the following year’s general election.

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JAMES GLOSSOP

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, said the “renewal of our party has only just begun” as she acknowledged a “very difficult set of elections” for the Conservatives.

She said on X: “My utmost thanks to every Conservative councillor and activist who helped get out our vote yesterday.

“Congratulations to those who have won their seats and my sincerest commiserations to those who have lost today.

“These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021, and our historic defeat last year — and so it’s proving.

“The renewal of our party has only just begun, and I’m determined to win back the trust of the public and the seats we’ve lost, in the years to come.”

Reform UK have taken control of a second council after winning further seats in Lincolnshire.

The party followed up its triumph in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election by taking enough seats to control the county council, which has 70 councillors.

With about 20 seats still to declare, Reform had won 36, with the Liberal Democrats on five, Conservatives four and Labour three.

The Conservatives had previously controlled the council with 54 seats, with six independents, four Labour, three Liberal Democrat and three Reform councillors.

Molly is 20, works in the creative industries and has lived in Runcorn her whole life. She didn’t vote in yesterday’s election, but now she wishes she had.

“I feel like a lot of young people don’t really want to vote or care enough about it because it feels like there’s no one that is working for young people or is really interested in them,” she said.

“It definitely had an impact on the result,” she continued. “I think it would have been very different. I think it would be nicer if young people had voted, but there’s just not the incentive there.

“I wish I had taken the time to vote and done a bit more research, and I know all it would take is a quick Google, but I work two jobs and it was easy to decide I was too busy.

“It just feels like you’re picking a bad person out of a bad bunch.”

Reform UK has taken control of Staffordshire county council from the Conservatives in a major win for Nigel Farage’s party.

While counting is still going on for some council seats, Reform has reached more than 32 seats so far — meaning it is now in control of the council.

The Conservatives previously controlled the council with 53 seats, with Labour on five and four independents.

In the run-up to the by-election on Thursday, our reporter Geri Scott went to the Cheshire constituency to ask voters why there was such an appetite for Reform in what had previously been a Labour stronghold.

Sir Keir Starmer criticised Reform’s immigration policy, and said the result in Runcorn & Helsby was “very close”.

Asked if Farage was right to claim that the contest was won thanks to Labour’s migration record, the prime minister told LBC: “We put forward legislation to give many more powers to law enforcement to deal with small boat crossings, with gangs that are running that. Reform came into parliament and voted against that bill.

“You can’t say on the one hand, you’re serious about dealing with the problem — and it is a serious problem — and on the other hand, vote down powers to get law enforcement the tools that they need to tackle [it].”

Sir Keir Starmer said that Labour inherited a “broken economy”

HENRY NICHOLLS/REUTERS

Starmer admitted that the loss of a safe Labour parliamentary seat to Reform was “disappointing”, but defended taking what he called the “tough but right” economic decisions.

“The reason that we took the tough but right decisions in the budget was because we inherited a broken economy,” he said.

“Maybe other prime ministers would have walked past that, pretended it wasn’t there … I took the choice to make sure our economy was stable.”

The surge in support for Reform is likely to have policy implications in Whitehall as ministers look to address the concerns that led voters to desert Labour less than a year after its election victory.

Top of the list is migration. The government is due to publish a white paper that will set out reforms to the points-based immigration system to ensure employers can hire foreign workers only if they are also training domestic workers. There could also be new restrictions on the length of time foreign students can remain in the country after graduating.

But the impact of Reform will go beyond that. Across a range of other policy areas including net zero, crime and benefits, ministers will be assessing their programme for government against how policies will play out among Labour’s general election voters who might be tempted to switch support to Reform.

Nigel Farage may still be a long way from Downing Street — but his political and policy agenda is front and centre.

Sir Keir Starmer in an anechoic chamber at the Luton aerospace company Leonardo on Friday

HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Sir Keir Starmer said that Labour would go “further and faster on the change that people want to see” after losing the Runcorn & Helsby by-election.

As the local election results started to come through, Starmer said: “My response is — we get it. We were elected in last year to bring about change.”

He added that his party had “started that work” with changes such as reductions in NHS waiting lists.

Ripley Fletcher, 53, said she was devastated by the result. “Six apathetic people made the difference,” she said. “I’m devastated and delighted, because at least it’s not the massive landslide they thought it would be.”

For her, it was Mike Amesbury who safely held this seat, not Labour. “Mike Amesbury is the best we’ve ever had. The most amazing person. I would have voted for him in a flash regardless of what happened. He’d have got it.”

Mike Amesbury leaving Chester crown court after his ten-week prison sentence for assault was suspended

PETER BYRNE/PA

Amesbury was the Runcorn & Helsby MP who punched a constituent and whose resignation triggered the by-election.

Fletcher, a local business owner who is actively pro-Labour on social media, said: “There wasn’t a single day that you didn’t see pictures of Mike in local businesses, going out every day and meeting people, going into cafés and shops and shouting about them and trying to help them.

There is one thing she can’t fault Nigel Farage for. “At least he turned up,” Fletcher said. “Keir Starmer didn’t get on a train.”

Nigel Farage and the new Reform UK MP, Sarah Pochin, celebrate the by-election result

PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS

Two happy voters putting up VE Day bunting outside their hat shop in Runcorn town centre said they voted for Reform UK because they “wanted it different”.

They said they would not vote for Labour because the local council and mayor of Liverpool, Steve Rotheram, had not helped with their application for planning permission to build a house by the Mersey. They pointed to a large commercial building site that was granted permission on the same stretch of riverbank.

“Our whole family voted Reform,” the couple, who did not want to be named, said. “All our family did because they refused us planning permission.

“We were the six who turned them over.”

Privately, Labour MPs are seething about last night’s by-election loss to Reform — with one, when asked for their view, telling The Times: “Nothing printable.”

One minister said that “the hope that was promised has evaporated because no one is seeing or hearing it exists, so they’re looking elsewhere”.

A second called it an “awful night” with “voters telling us exactly what we knew they would”. They added: “The challenge now is to hold together an already unhappy and agitated PLP [parliamentary Labour Party].”

A third senior MP warned of the march of Farage’s Reform UK: “If we don’t deliver change, people will vote for someone who will.”

Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, has called for a “return to a Labour economic plan” amid anger over the winter fuel allowance and welfare cuts after the Runcorn & Helsby by-election loss.

She told The Times: “As we saw in July last year, people are desperate to find hope in politics, and if Labour fails to provide and protect, then people will look in other places.

“Only Labour can secure the agenda that people need, but this means the current economic agenda has got to return to a Labour economic plan which redistributes wealth, protects the vulnerable and provides greater opportunity for all.”

The Conservatives have rejected claims that Reform UK is now the main opposition to Labour, but have admitted that winning back the trust of voters will take “a long time”.

Nigel Huddleston, the party’s co-chairman, said the party had the “humility” needed to communicate to the public and understood “why they lost trust and faith in us”.

He said that Kemi Badenoch had only been leader for six months. “We’re coming from a very, very difficult time period after the last election … we will continue to hold this disastrous Labour government to account,” he said.

“It’s going to take us a long time to build back that trust and confidence … Kemi has said this is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Although last night was a story of Reform seizing victory in the Runcorn by-election, today the focus will be on local council elections — for which, in many cases, the count has only just started.

Here the results are likely to be much worse for the Conservatives than for Labour as they are defending the lion’s share of the seats which they won during Boris Johnson’s peak period of popularity.

Kent, Lancashire and Lincolnshire (where Reform won the mayorality), expect to draw strong gains for Nigel Farage’s party.

Equally the Liberal Democrats are expected to do very well in Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Devon and Gloucestershire. They could even end the day controlling more councils than the Conservatives.

Here is a reminder of how the UK voted in the general election just ten months ago.

The local and mayoral elections are only taking place in some parts of the country, so cannot be neatly mapped on to the next general election, which is likely to take place in 2029.

But today’s results are worrying for Labour, and will make Nigel Farage’s Reform UK dream of replacing the Conservatives as the main force on the right.

Dan Carden, the Labour MP for Liverpool Walton and chairman of the Blue Labour grouping, has said that the government has a long way to go to restore trust after the winter fuel allowance cut.

It has an “even bigger challenge to persuade people it can fix our broken politics and begin the restoration of the country”, he added.

Nigel Farage has said there is “no question” that Reform is “the main opposition party to this government” after successes in local elections across England.

He said: “It’s been a big night for us, we’ve dug very deep into the Labour vote and in other parts of England we’ve dug deep into the Conservative vote.”

Richard Burgon, the left-wing Labour MP for Leeds East, has called the party’s defeat in Runcorn “entirely avoidable” and the “direct result of the party leadership’s political choices”.

Burgon blamed cuts to disability benefits and the winter fuel allowance for “letting Reform squeeze through”.

He added: “The Labour leadership must urgently change course and govern with real Labour values to deliver the change people are crying out for. If it fails to deliver that real change, things could get far worse, with Reform waiting in the wings.

“And the consequences of that would be horrific for those our party exists to represent.”

The result in Runcorn & Helsby came hours later than expected. The initial result showed Reform ahead by just four votes — after a full recount that increased to six votes.

Sarah Pochin, who becomes Reform UK’s first female MP, paid tribute to her “great leader”, Nigel Farage.

The only council which has declared is Northumberland, where Reform made huge gains. However, the council has remained under no overall control.

This map will fill up throughout the afternoon as more councils declare.

After the council results from Durham, expected at about 1pm, the results will turn from a story about Labour to one about the Conservatives, who face a pincer movement of results from Liberal Democrats and Reform.

Reform could win their second mayoral race in Hull & East Yorkshire, which will be declared at about 2.30pm. The pace will then pick up with a slew of results from historically Tory shires through until about 7pm.

Four of the six mayoral contests have been declared, along with one of the 23 councils up for election.

There will be a pause in the flow of results this morning as counting gets under way in the remaining councils and mayoral elections. The next full council result is expected around 1pm from Durham, where Labour is the largest party but does not have a majority.

Nigel Farage said this morning that the council will be an “acid test” for Reform success in traditional Labour areas.

A poll of voter intentions on Thursday showed a steep decline in support for Labour.

Brian Leishman, the Labour MP for Alloa & Grangemouth, has said on X that the party’s loss in Runcorn shows it “must change course”.

Earlier this week, Leishman criticised Labour’s response to the “industrial disaster” of the closure of the Petroineos oil refinery in his constituency.

Sarah Pochin, right, with Nigel Farage, overturned a Labour majority of 14,696

ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES

Sarah Pochin, 55, will become Reform’s first female MP after winning the by-election in Runcorn & Helsby by just six votes.

A self-professed “clean candidate”, she represents Nigel Farage’s attempt to rebrand and sanitise the party. Pochin was a magistrate for 20 years and had a career in sales and marketing, including time at Shell and the Midland Bank, now HSBC.

She was elected to Cheshire East council in 2019 as a Conservative councillor for the rural Bunbury ward but expelled from the Conservative group in 2020 for accepting the Cheshire East mayoralty against her party’s wishes.

In 2022, she was thrown out of the council’s independent group for rejoining the Conservative Party to vote in the leadership election.

In March, she was selected as the Reform candidate.

Nigel Farage with Sarah Pochin, left, the new Reform UK MP for Runcorn & Helsby

PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS

“Local government has gone under the radar for far too long … they’ve been allowed to go about their business, live their lives without much scrutiny,” Nigel Farage told the BBC.

“Waste, excess, work from home, low productivity. All of this has to change.

“If you’re a council tax payer, and your bills are going up 5 per cent every year, I think you deserve something better.”

Nigel Farage has said a new swathe of Reform councils will focus on cracking down on “waste” as his party gears up to take control of parts of local government for the first time.

Farage said that every county needs a Doge, in a reference to Elon Musk’s project to slash government spending in the Trump administration.

“We are deeply dissatisfied with the way that county councils and unitaries in Britain have been running their budgets”, Farage told the BBC.

“We look at money being spent on climate change, on areas that county councils frankly shouldn’t be getting involved in. So we want to get the auditors in.”

The Conservatives have lost ground in Northumberland county council but held on as the largest party after a Reform surge.

The final results keep the council in no overall control, with the Conservatives winning 26 of the 69 seats, down from 33. Reform won 23 seats, mostly from Labour, which dropped from 19 to 8 seats.

The results raise the prospect of a local coalition agreement between the Conservatives and Reform to form a majority on the council.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns used language from Sir Tony Blair and President Trump in her first speech as a Reform mayor.

She said: “Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new dawn in British politics. The rebuilding begins here. We’re going to have a Britain where we put British people first, where we put you and your families first. We will make sure that you are in front of the queue and you are at the heart of our policy decisions.

“The fight to save the heart and soul of our country has now begun,” Jenkyns added. “Inch by inch, Reform will reset Britain to its glorious past.”

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, centre, with the Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice, right, during the count at Grimsby Town Hall

JOE GIDDENS/PA

Dame Andrea Jenkyns has accused her opponents of “dirty tricks” in her acceptance speech after being elected as the Reform mayor of Greater Lincolnshire.

She said: “I’ve never experienced such negativity and soul-destroying campaigns against me like this one. The dirty tricks in US politics I believe have now been imported here into Britain.

“The Conservatives called the police on me and implied I’d slept with political friends. They contacted the mainstream media to smear me.” She said other candidates “undemocratically tried to remove me from the ballot,” referring to the case launched, and later dismissed, against Jenkyns, which alleged she broke electoral law.

The Liberal Democrats say they are on course for “big gains” across England, the party has claimed, as it aims to “replace the Conservatives as the party of middle England”.

Daisy Cooper, the deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said the party was on course for gains in Shropshire, Devon and Oxfordshire.

She added: “People have not forgiven the Conservatives for their shameful record but are disappointed that the Labour government has failed to deliver the change they promised.

“As the Conservatives lurch ever to the right, now is not the time for the Labour government to join them in playing to Nigel Farage’s tune. The Liberal Democrats will speak out for all those who want to see better public services, a tougher approach to Donald Trump and a closer relationship with Europe.”

Nigel Farage celebrates in Runcorn

PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS

Reform’s victory by six votes in Runcorn is the closest by-election win on record.

It is not the closest race ever though. Eight years ago, SNP MP Stephen Gethins held off a Liberal Democrat challenge by just two votes.

In 1997 the Liberal Democrats’ Mark Oaten won by the same margin in Winchester. Following a legal challenge there was another election and he won by 21,600 votes.

Reform has experienced a “phenomenal night”, Nigel Farage has said.

Farage has said the results show “a whole different politics” has come in Britain with Reform displacing the Conservatives as the party of opposition. “You’re witnessing the end of a party that’s been around since 1832, they are disappearing,” he said.

Asked why voters abandoned Labour in Runcorn, Farage told Sky News: “A sense that somehow in this very patriotic constituency the Labour party doesn’t really stand for those values any more.”

Nigel Farage and Reform’s victorious candidate Sarah Pochin

ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES

It was a by-election that on paper Reform should have had little chance of winning.

At the last election Labour won Runcorn and Helsby with 53 per cent of the vote, with Reform a distant second on 18 per cent.

This time, Reform surged to 38 per cent and Labour sunk to the same proportion. There has been a tectonic shift in British politics since the general election and, for all the drama of a full recount and a wafer-thin majority, this is an extraordinary victory.

The Tories said the Runcorn result was a “a damning verdict on Keir Starmer’s leadership which has led to Labour losing a safe seat”.

A party spokesman said: “Just ten months ago Labour won an enormous majority, including in this seat with 52 per cent of the vote, but their policies have been a punch in the face for the people of Runcorn.

“Keir Starmer promised change, but the change he’s delivered has been roundly rejected. Keir Starmer’s MPs will rightfully question his leadership and whether he is now on course to be a one term prime minister.”

A Labour spokesman said the “events which led to” the Runcorn by-election “made it even harder” to win.

The previous MP, Mike Amesbury, stood down after being sentenced for assault.

The spokesman said: “By-elections are always difficult for the party in government and the events which led to this one being called made it even harder. Voters are still rightly furious with the state of the country after 14 years of failure and clearly expect the government to move faster with the Plan for Change.

“While Labour has suffered an extremely narrow defeat, the shock is that the Conservative vote has collapsed. Moderate voters are clearly appalled by the talk of a Tory-Reform pact.”

Sarah Pochin

Sarah Pochin, the new Reform MP for Runcorn, has said she has “made history”.

Pochin said: “The people of Runcorn & Helsby have spoken. Enough is enough. Enough Tory failure, enough Labour lies. Every one of you who voted for change, every one of you who put your faith in […] Nigel Farage as the next prime minister of this great country.

“It will be an honour and a privilege to serve this community. A community of hardworking people who just want fairness.

“I will serve you, I will care for you and I will speak to you. I know our victory here in Runcorn and Helsby will inspire the rest of the country to believe that they too can stand up for fairness, for what is right and for our British values. We have made history here tonight.”

Reform has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by a margin of just six votes.

Sarah Pochin will become the party’s fifth MP after the first by-election victory for the party in one of Labour’s safest seats.

The Labour and Reform candidates in the West of England shake hands. The Conservatives came fourth in the contest

BEN BIRCHALL/PA

The Conservatives said the West of England mayoral result was “disappointing” for the party after it was pushed to fourth behind the Greens.

Labour won the race, followed by Reform.

A spokesman said: “This is a disappointing result — Steve Smith fought a great campaign.

“However, Labour’s result in this contest is also telling, with the party seeing a significant fall in its share of the vote despite winning a historic majority at the general election just ten months ago.

“Labour are going backwards, leaving serious questions about Keir Starmer’s leadership — and the future of this Labour government.”

Ros Jones making her victory speech in Doncaster

The newly re-elected Labour mayor of Doncaster has criticised Sir Keir Starmer for cuts to winter fuel and welfare and raising national insurance for businesses.

Ros Jones, who came just 700 votes ahead of Reform UK, told the BBC: “I think national government need to look and see what our people are saying … the results here tonight will demonstrate that they need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street and actually deliver for the people, with the people.”

Asked if Starmer was “listening so far”, Jones said: “Well, certainly on two or three occasions, I would say no they haven’t actually realised. Because the people of Doncaster know how hard life can be and it’s about delivering for them, for their children and their children’s children.”

Jones pointed to the cost of putting national insurance on small businesses and changes to disability benefits. Jones, 75, has been the Labour mayor of Doncaster since 2013.

Labour supporters celebrate the party’s victory in Doncaster

LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES

As far as Labour strategists are concerned, elections are all about winning. So the party’s victory in three mayoral elections — Doncaster, West of England and North Tyneside — will be seen as proof that the party can still win even after making unpopular decisions in government.

But in each of those three contests, Nigel Farage’s party were just a whisker behind. That is a brutal message to the Conservatives, who have lost their position as the main opposition to Labour in swathes of England.

But it is equally a warning for Sir Keir Starmer that Reform is snapping at his heels. The belief in Downing Street is that sticking to the plan, and trying to improve standards of living by 2029, is still the best way to keep them at bay.

Arron Banks came second in the West of England mayoral race

SIMON CHAPMAN/LNP

Arron Banks, the millionaire insurance tycoon and prominent Brexiteer, said his second place in the West of England mayoral election showed Reform was having an “epic night”.

The mayor leads the West of England Combined Authority (WECA), consisting of the local authorities of Bristol, South Gloucestershire, and Bath and North East Somerset, and deals with regional transport, housing and adult skills in the region.

“This was where we were least likely to win,” Banks said of the traditionally left-leaning region.

“I won my own area of South Gloucestershire by 7,000 votes. There is a tidal wave going on in the UK at the moment … we are going to take back our country.”

The Greens claim that it has been a “good night” despite dropping to third in the key West of England mayoral race.

Carla Denyer, the party’s co-leader and Bristol Central MP, said: “I’m pleased how well Greens did in this mayor contest. This result offers a great platform for more Green electoral success in the coming years — including at Westminster.

“Five-party politics in England is the new norm, it’s here to stay, and Greens are only just getting started.”

Labour has won the West of England mayoral election with 25 per cent of the vote after seeing off Reform and the Greens.

Helen Godwin received 51,197 votes, followed by Arron Banks on 45,252. The Greens came third with 41,094, with the Conservative and Liberal Democrats in fourth and fifth. It represents a swing of 15 per cent from Labour to Reform.

Labour sources highlighted that some polling last week showed a decisive victory for the Greens. The Conservative vote dropped 12 per cent.

Ros Jones is declared the winner of the Doncaster race

LEON NEAL/GETTY IMAGES

Labour has won the Doncaster mayoral election with a margin of less than 700 votes to Reform UK.

Ros Jones has won the contest with 23,805 votes to Alexander Jones’s 23,107. Nick Fletcher, the former Tory MP, received 18,982 votes.

The result represents a drop of 11 per cent in the Labour vote and a swing of 21 per cent from Labour to Reform UK.

Nigel Farage is trying to “delegitimise” the Runcorn by-election if Labour win after a recount, a cabinet minister has said.

Farage has claimed victory in the race despite a wafer-thin majority of four votes to Reform being sent to a full recount.

Peter Kyle, the science minister, said: “Clearly this is just to try and get a conversation, attract attention and also to delegitimise if it goes the other way. This is the kind of playbook we’ve been seeing in the past … our politics has been fragile at times. And it’s fragile when you get people with loud voices who seek to tell people what democracy is and isn’t when they are outside the formal process.”

Every single ballot in Runcorn & Helsby will be counted again

PHIL NOBLE/REUTERS

Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform UK, has said Labour demanded a recount in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election.

There were only four votes between Reform UK and Labour in the first count.

Yusuf claimed it was Labour, rather than the returning officer, who requested that votes were tallied again.

The recount is a dramatic development in a seat which Labour held with a majority of 14,696 in last year’s general election and came as Reform made gains in local contests across England.

Nigel Farage has said Reform is “very confident we have won” Runcorn & Helsby.

The Conservatives are on course to lose control of Staffordshire county council for the first time since 2009.

At present, 55 of the 62 councils are Tory, but this evening 24 seats have already switched directly to Reform UK. The Tories have kept on to the six other seats declared.

Kevin Hollinrake, the shadow communities secretary, told the BBC the results were “very disappointing”. He added: “There’s real people behind these headline figures and they’ll be devastated.”

Only four votes separate Reform and Labour in Runcorn & Helsby on the first version of the count.
Labour requested another look, and the returning officer has agreed to a full recount.

Every single ballot will be counted again in full view of every party. Decisions over which ballots to reject for being improperly marked will be reconsidered. The process is set to take at least an hour, and there could be more than one recount.

Since the Second World War, two constituencies have been won by two votes each, once by the Liberal Democrats in 1997, and another by the Scottish National Party in 2017. A margin of four votes would be the closest by-election by far.

By Max Kendix

Reform UK has its first hands on power. The question now is what will they do with it.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns becomes the first regional mayor elected from outside the two major parties.
Greater Lincolnshire is an area with 1.1 million people, and her role comes with a £720 million long-term investment budget and powers over skills and transport.

Jenkyns was previously a Tory MP and a skills minister, but defected to Reform in November. She has promised to install an Elon Musk-style Lincolnshire “Doge”, which her website boasted would keep council tax low by eliminating “woke wastage”.

Jenkyns’s record in office will be scrutinised closely in the run-up to the next general election, a fact Nigel Farage recognises.

“The biggest risk is succeeding, winning mayoralties, perhaps winning control of county councils and not delivering,” he told Sky News this week. “That is the trust that needs to be re-established in this country. People want us to represent change.”

Dame Andrea Jenkyns has won the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election for Reform UK, Sir John Curtice has said.

Curtice, the elections expert, told the BBC that Jenkyns’s margin in the first results is unassailable.
Jenkyns has more than double the votes than her Conservative rival.

ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES

A full recount is under way in Runcorn after Reform finished only four votes ahead of Labour in the by-election.

There may well be several recounts with such a margin. In Hendon, the closest parliamentary constituency in the general election last year, there were five recounts and a final result did not come in until after 5am.

The smallest majority in a by-election ever is 57 votes, in Berwick-upon-Tweed, Northumberland, in 1973.

JOE GIDDENS/PA

A third area within the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral authority has declared, with Dame Andrea Jenkyns almost certain to have won the election for Reform UK.

Results from North East Lincolnshire have been added to Boston and South Holland’s results. Jenkyns is on 47.7 per cent of the vote, followed by the Conservative candidate on only 24 per cent.

Many of the council results so far this evening have come from Northumberland, where Reform have already picked up 16 councillors at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives.

Northumberland council has been under Conservative control since 2017, but Labour won all the constituencies covering the area in last year’s general election.

Of the 69 seats on the council, just 30 have been declared so far. More rural areas are being counted later in the day and a final result is not expecting until about 7am.

Votes are counted at Grimsby Town Hall, Lincolnshire

JOE GIDDENS/PA

Dame Andrea Jenkyns appears on course for victory for Reform UK in Greater Lincolnshire after two of the region’s nine districts declared their results.

With a fifth of the votes in, Reform has 50.7 per cent of the vote. The Conservatives are second with only 25.6 per cent.

In Boston, covering some of the highest Leave voting communities in the country, Jenkyns won 55 per cent of the vote. Results from the neighbouring South Holland district have brought Jenkyns’s lead to 8,875 votes.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns is ahead in the race

JOE GIDDENS/PA

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, the Reform UK candidate, was ahead after the first declaration in the contest to become the first North Lincolnshire mayor.

Boston Borough Council, one of the nine authorities that make up the mayoral area, said Jenkyns had 7,285 votes, ahead of Conservatives (2,695), Lincolnshire Independents (1,193), Labour (897), Greens (774) and Liberal Democrats (513).

Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, earlier said the party was “absolutely smashing it” in the contest, where Jenkyns — a former Tory minister — is on course to win.

In the 2016 referendum, 75.6 per cent of people in Boston voted to leave the EU — the highest proportion in the UK.

Suspense is building at the Runcorn & Helsby by-election count as party staff have been told it is “incredibly close”.

Candidates have been told votes are being checked.

Staff appear to be checking ballots on a number of tables. Party agents are huddled around the tables watching tensely.

The result of the Runcorn & Helsby parliamentary by-election is expected imminently.

Mike Amesbury won a majority of 14,696 for Labour, but resigned after he was given a suspended prison sentence for punching a constituent.

Now, Reform have their sights set on the seat.

Nigel Farage with Sarah Pochin, who is Reform’s hope for Runcorn & Helsby

RYAN JENKINSON/GETTY IMAGES

The turnout for the Doncaster mayoral election was 32 per cent of registered voters. It is up from 2021, when turnout was 28 per cent.

All three local MPs are Labour, including Ed Miliband, the energy secretary. Labour’s Ros Jones is hoping for a fourth term in office, as Reform are also vying to win.

The result is expected at about 5am.

By Max Kendix

There was a reason North Tyneside was not on anyone’s list of a Reform gain from Labour today.

During the campaign, a local Labour source said while they were concerned about the threat of Nigel Farage’s party in Durham, there were “no worries” about winning this part of the northeast.

Labour have dominated here even through Boris Johnson’s rise — winning more than 50 per cent of the vote in every election since 2013. A Reform source said “[it was] never on the cards for us”.

Now, Labour sources insisted it was “far from a given”, pointing out that the incumbent didn’t stand, and adding that this area did vote for a Conservative mayor in three separate elections under the last Labour government.

Reacting to Labour holding North Tyneside, the science secretary Peter Kyle, said “a win is a win” and tried to turn the story to the Tories.

He told the BBC: “These are tough circumstances. We understand that these are parts of the country that have real desperate needs for change. We are early into our programme for change. There is a lot going on around the world that makes people feel insecure. This is a good result for Labour. It shows Labour is still in contention in areas where I spent the whole day being told that we don’t.

“The question here is why the party in opposition has flipped, it has changed. It is existential for the Tories now.”

Arron Banks, the millionaire Brexiteer and Reform candidate for the mayor of West of England, was confronted by a Green counting agent who told him “you’re using Russian money” to win the election.

ADRIAN SHERRATT FOR THE TIMES

Banks, an insurance tycoon who donated £8 million to the Leave campaign in 2016, was walking the floor of the election count at the University of Bath when the irate Green member lambasted him.

Banks told the Green member to “calm down” and joked that he was “saving that Russian money for the general election”.

The Green member said Banks was a “plastic fascist” and he was “disappointed so many are voting Reform, it’s their money”. “I have a feeling it’s a protest vote,” he said.

Banks told The Times that whether he wins or loses the mayoral election, he fancies standing for the Westminster seat of North East Somerset & Hanham, the old seat of Jacob Rees-Mogg, at the next election.

Labour has won the North Tyneside mayoral election by less than 500 votes after Reform outperformed expectations, it is understood.

Labour received 16,230 votes, and Reform received 15,786.

A recount had to take place in the region, which has always been Labour controlled and was one of Reform’s mayoral targets during the campaign.

Votes for six of Hertfordshire county council’s 78 seats were counted overnight by Broxbourne borough council, which is traditionally one of the earliest to announce general election results.

Conservatives won four of the seats and Reform UK the other two, on a turnout of 27.64 per cent.

The full results for Hertfordshire are not expected until late on Friday afternoon. The Conservatives previously controlled the council with 43 seats,

Reform’s chairman has claimed victory in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral election.

Richard Tice told Sky News he was “absolutely confident” that Dame Andrea Jenkyns would become the first Reform politician to win executive office, and the first elected mayor to a combined authority outside the two major parties.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns

MICHAEL POWELL FOR THE TIMES

“Here in Lincolnshire Reform is absolutely smashing, we are parking the Reform tanks on the traditionally Tory lawns of Lincolnshire,” he said. “I’m absolutely confident that Andrea Jenkyns has convincingly won the mayoral and things are looking very very good on the county council results.”

Tice added there was “no doubt in my mind” that Jenkyns had secured victory.

The West of England mayoral election looks to be a very close run race.

Jenny Vernon, the election agent for the Green candidate Mary Page, said it “looks like a tight five-way marginal” after watching ballots being counted in South Gloucestershire. “It’s very tight,” she added. “It’s all going to be on turnout, who gets their vote out.”

Turnout in the West of England mayor election is down 6 percentage points on 2021, with 30 per cent of the 682,951 registered voters casting a ballot.

“We have noticed our Green vote is higher in South Gloucestershire than last time, so that is quite interesting,” Vernon added.

She said it’s been a “good natured” campaign and joked with Arron Banks, the Reform candidate, as they stood in the South Gloucestershire election count, that their parties were “the rebel alliance” against the more established parties.

The leader of Staffordshire county council has lost his seat to a Reform candidate.

Alan White, a Tory, lost Lichfield Rural East to Tracey Dougherty.

The official turnout in the West of England mayoral election has been confirmed.

Some 30 per cent of the 682,951 registered voters turned up to vote in what is expected to be a race between Labour and the Greens, with strong showings from Reform, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.

The turnout is down from 36.1 per cent in 2021, and a result is expected within the next hour.

The first major result of the night is expected soon in North Tyneside. There, the result in the mayoral election should come in at about 2am.

The area is one of Labour’s northeast heartlands and Dame Norma Redfearn has been the Labour mayor since 2013, but she is not standing this time.

Labour’s candidate Karen Clark is favourite to win, though a low turnout could mean the result is closer than expected.

Karen Clark

As well as the main council and mayoral results this evening, there are 93 by-elections in individual council wards around the country where councillors have stood down or died.

So far, ten of those results are in — six of which were held by Labour, but it has now lost: five to Reform and one to the Greens.

Labour will listen and react to a potential loss of a by-election to Reform UK, a cabinet minister has said. Peter Kyle, the science secretary, said: “People like me are in politics to listen and to react.”

MARCIN NOWAK/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES

He told Sky News: “People are saying they want change to be sped up … we are hungry for those things too and we accept that people turned their back on 14 years of Tory misrule.”

Labour have won their first seat of the night in Northumberland.

The party held their seat in Ashington Central, with just six more votes than Reform.

Caroline Susan Ball was elected for Labour with 47.9 per cent of the vote.

Early results put Labour on course to make significant losses at the hands of Reform UK, Sir John Curtice has said.

RICH DYSON/ALAMY LIVE NEWS

Reform has gained four council wards in Northumberland so far — three from Labour and one from the Conservatives. Nigel Farage’s party has also won a council by-election from Labour in Hartlepool.

Curtice told the BBC that the results were “straws in the wind for Reform doing well not at the Conservatives’ expense particularly, either in terms of votes or seats, but hurting Labour at least as much”.

He added: “If this is typical at all, then maybe Runcorn is going to be difficult for Labour, maybe Doncaster is going to be difficult for Labour too.”

Counting has officially started in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election, with the number of votes cast officially verified.

The turnout has been confirmed as 46.33 per cent, with 32,470 votes. While far lower than the 58.7 per cent turnout in the general election, that is reasonably high for a by-election.

It is higher than when the Conservatives gained Hartlepool from Labour in 2021, for example — and higher than any of the by-election gains Labour made in the course of the last parliament.

Early results continue to trickle through with more councillors for Reform.

Reform gained a councillor from the Tories and one from Labour in the Ockendon council by-election in Thurrock.

Reform also gained from Labour in Balderstone & Kirkholt in Rochdale and in Thetford West in Norfolk.

The Greens have hailed a “huge win” with a gain from Labour in a council by-election. The Greens got 48.3 per cent of the vote, while Labour were down on 39.7 per cent.

Elsewhere, the party’s co-leader Carla Denyer told the BBC that it was “confident” it would make gains.

She said the West of England mayoralty was “too close to call”, but added: “Certainly we are going to increase the sizes on several county councils like Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire perhaps, and even the ones you might think of as less Green areas like Kent, Northumberland and Co Durham — we might see a bit of growth there too.”

The first ballot boxes coming through in the West of England mayoral race appeared to show Reform doing better than many expected, as well as a potential collapse in the Conservative vote.

A tight race between Labour, the Greens and Reform looked on the cards, according to seasoned counting agents speaking to The Times at the vote count at the University of Bath.

Two Green Party agents, watching ballots come in from the Lib Dem stronghold of Bath & North East Somerset, said: “There is a lot of Green and Labour and Reform are consistently surprising us in every ward, there was one box where Reform won it and we didn’t expect them to win any here. The Lib Dems don’t seem to be anywhere in the picture, coming fourth or fifth in the boxes we’re seeing, and the Conservative vote has collapsed.”

Votes are counted at Oasis Academy in Bristol for the mayor of the West of England

BEN BIRCHALL/PA

The Hull and East Yorkshire mayoral race is a two-horse race between the Lib Dems and Reform, according to the Lib Dems. The region is electing its first mayor of the new combined authority.

Sarah Olney, the Lib Dem MP for Richmond Park, told the BBC: “What Lib Dems are finding in Hull and East Yorkshire is it’s becoming a contest between the Lib Dems and Reform. The reason for that is there are a lot of people who don’t want a Reform mayor and they are lining up behind our candidate Mike Ross.”

Alex Wilson, the Reform London Assembly member, said if that was the case, it would be making “political history” and “be part of demonstrating [that] the breakdown of the traditional party structures is well under way”.

“No combined authority mayor has ever been elected from anything other than the Conservatives or Labour,” he said.

“We’re going to get a real battering”, Helen Whately, the shadow secretary for work and pensions, told Newsnight.

“We’ve got really good, hardworking county councillors, some of whom will probably find they won’t continue because we’re going to get a real battering in these elections because there was a high watermark before.”

The circumstances of the Runcorn & Helsby by-election were “very challenging” for Labour, Bridget Phillipson has admitted.

Counting is underway for the Runcorn & Helsby by-election at the DCBL Halton Stadium, in Widnes

OLI SCARFF/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

The education secretary told Newsnight: “I’m not going to call it but the circumstances that gave rise to the by-election — that I will not dwell on — obviously make it very challenging for us.”

Many of the councils up for election had been dominated by the Conservatives “for decades”, she added. “We know we need to go further and faster with our plan for change,” she said.

Reform also gained from Labour in Harlow, where they won the by-election in the Mark Hall ward with 32.1 per cent of the vote. Labour took 22.3 per cent, down by 19.4 points.

Reform has a new councillor — Amanda Elizabeth Napper was elected by the Throston ward of Hartlepool borough council in a by-election.

In the general election last year, Labour won 53 per cent of the vote in Runcorn & Helsby. Reform was a distant second on 18 per cent. It was Labour’s 49th safest seat. But in October, Mike Amesbury, the MP, punched a constituent in the street.

He was suspended from Labour after video emerged of the incident in Frodsham, Cheshire, which took place while Amesbury was waiting for a taxi at 2.15am. Paul Fellows was seen falling to the ground and Amesbury hit him at least five more times. Amesbury admitted assault and was handed a suspended ten-week prison sentence. In March, he announced his resignation.

In the nine months since the general election, Labour has fallen in the national polls while Reform has surged. Runcorn & Helsby is the first by-election test for Sir Keir Starmer — and Reform hopes to take the seat.

It is going to be a “historic night” for Reform, says Zia Yusuf, the party’s chairman. “I think we’re going to win hundreds of council seats, we stand a really good chance of taking control of some councils and we will win at least one, perhaps even two mayoral races,” he told BBC’s Newsnight. “I think it is going to be a historic night for Reform.”

Zia Yusuf is hoping for a “historic” night

TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL

The Runcorn & Helsby by-election marked the beginning of Reform UK’s path to power in 2029, he claimed. “Clearly we are on a path to delivering on that mission of 350 to 400 MPs and Nigel is our prime minister in 2029.”

A Reform UK win in Runcorn & Helsby would “end the stranglehold of the two party system dating back a century”, Yusuf said.

Professor Sir John Curtice said tonight’s results would show whether the British two party system was now on its “last legs”.

The polling expert told BBC’s Newsnight that Labour and the Conservatives had dominated politics since 1922 but had been in long-term decline since the postwar period. Then, more than 90 per cent of the electorate voted for them. Now, polls suggest only about 45 per cent would do so.

Curtice said: “What we’re looking for tonight is the evidence at the ballot boxes as to what the polls are suggesting about the challenge from Reform, the relative strength of the Greens and also the Lib Dems seemingly back in business — whether that message is correct or not.”

Sir Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, expects “big gains” against the Conservatives in their former Middle England heartlands.

Sir Ed Davey’s local election campaign involved a rollercoaster ride at the BIG Sheep, a theme park in Bideford, Devon

BEN BIRCHALL/PA

He said: “Last year the Liberal Democrats won a record number of MPs and became the largest third party in 100 years. Now we are on course for our seventh year of local election gains, making this our best ever winning streak.

“Voters have delivered their verdict on a Conservative Party that broke the country and a Labour government that is too timid to fix it. Every Liberal Democrat councillor elected will be a strong local champion fighting tirelessly to deliver the change that people are crying out for.”

Labour and the Tories are “more fearful” about the results than Reform, said Nigel Farage.

The Conservatives also dampened expectations. A spokesman said: “The Conservatives have started on the process of renewing our party under Kemi Badenoch’s leadership. But we also have always been clear that these would be tough elections for the party, defending an incredibly high watermark from 2021 when we took two-thirds of all seats.

“If the 2024 general election was replicated on today’s battleground, we would lose control of almost every single council.

“Labour won a historic supermajority last year in a large number of areas that are facing local elections tonight and it would be reasonable to expect a government with such a commanding presence in Westminster to make serious progress tonight. Anything less than this ought to raise serious questions about the direction Labour is taking this country, and about Keir Starmer’s own leadership.”

Labour was measured as polls closed. Ellie Reeves, the party chair, said: “These elections were always going to be a challenge, being held largely in areas dominated by the Conservatives, often for decades. That’s why Labour candidates stood on a promise to bring change right across our country.

“There are promising signs that the Labour government’s Plan for Change is already starting to turn around 14 years of Tory failure. But we know people aren’t yet fully feeling the benefit and we are just as impatient for change as the rest of the country.

“However the results turn out this evening, this Labour government will go further and faster in turning our country around and giving Britain the future it deserves.”

The first results are expected at 2am in two mayoral contests: North Tyneside and West of England. Labour are confident they will win North Tyneside, but West of England could be close between Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens.

At 3am, counting should be finished in the Runcorn & Helsby parliamentary by-election, which was triggered by the resignation of Labour MP Mike Amesbury after he was sentenced for punching a constituent. Labour won with a large majority last year, but Reform are eyeing up a fifth seat in the Commons.

At 3.30am, we should get the results for Greater Lincolnshire’s first directly elected mayor. That contest is expected to be a two-horse race between the Tories and Reform — the former MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns defected from the Tories to stand for Reform.

At 5am, the result of the Doncaster mayoral election is due. Labour’s Ros Jones is hoping for a fourth term, but Reform also has a chance.

These elections will be a litmus test for Sir Keir Starmer and Labour after nine months in government. Nigel Farage is hoping to increase Reform UK’s vote share and local Liberal Democrats are strong.

Voting in Runcorn

ANTHONY DEVLIN/GETTY IMAGES

The Tories are braced for huge losses: most of the council seats were last contested in May 2021 at the very peak of Boris Johnson’s electoral success.

• Gen up on the key battlegrounds and check all the timings in our guide to the action

The polls have closed — now counting will begin in the Runcorn & Helsby by-election and four of the six mayoral contests: Doncaster, Greater Lincolnshire, North Tyneside and West of England.

Four of the 23 local authorities holding elections will start counting: Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Northumberland and Staffordshire. Only one, Northumberland, is due to return all its results overnight. The other three will announce some results overnight, the rest being declared later on Friday.