Keir Starmer's Labour suffers crushing election losses as Nigel Farage's Reform surges across Britain

The UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party suffered major losses in local elections across Britain on Friday as Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK made sweeping gains.

Early results showed Reform winning hundreds of council seats in England, including in former Labour strongholds such as Hartlepool.

Farage described the outcome as “a truly historic shift in British politics” and claimed Labour was being “wiped out by Reform in many of their traditional areas.”

Speaking on Friday, Starmer admitted the results were damaging: “The results are tough, they are very tough, and there’s no sugarcoating it.”

However, the prime minister rejected calls to resign.

“Tough days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised,” Starmer added, while acknowledging voters were frustrated with “the pace of change” under Labour.

The elections involved more than 5,000 local government seats across England, alongside mayoral races and parliamentary votes in Wales and Scotland.

The results also suggested continuing struggles for the Conservative Party, while smaller parties including the Greens and nationalist groups in Scotland and Wales made gains.

Green Party politician Zack Polanski posted on X: “Two party politics isn’t dying. It’s dead and it’s buried.”