Farage Racks Up UK Election Gains as Voters Punish Starmer

Votes are counted during the Havering local council election in Romford, on May 8. Photo by Dan Kitwood /Photographer: Dan Kitwood/Getty

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(Bloomberg) — Nigel Farage’s Reform UK racked up sweeping gains in the first counts in local elections, with British voters continuing to turn away from Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour Party.

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With counts completed in more than a quarter of English councils, Reform had posted a net gain of 270 new seats, while Labour’s tally was down by 202. The governing party have lost almost half of the seats they were defending, although that’s below the pace of some of the worst-case predictions. 

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Labour retained control of 10 councils — but lost the helm in eight. Reform wrested control of the council in Newcastle-Under-Lyme from the Conservatives.

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The results reaffirm a splintering of British politics that’s seen the insurgent Reform and Green parties make up ground on the right and left against the Tory-Labour duopoly that’s dominated British politics for more than a century. They also threaten to deepen rumblings within Labour about Starmer’s leadership, with potential rivals Angela Rayner, Starmer’s former deputy, and Health Secretary Wes Streeting weighing a challenge.

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“It’s a really soul-destroying night,” Rebecca Long-Bailey, the left-wing Labour Member of Parliament who was runner-up to Starmer in the 2020 leadership race, told BBC radio on Friday. “We’ve lost a large number of really good Labour councilors and candidates. And it’s quite clear that we’ve been squeezed both from Reform and the Greens.”

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Another left-winger, the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, told BBC radio that his party should have a “conversation” about Starmer’s future, with the Labour government approaching the middle of its five-year term. But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy said now wasn’t the time for the party to descend into leadership chaos.

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“You don’t change the pilot during the flight,” Lammy said. “You carry on, and you recognize, too, that governments sometimes, particularly incumbent governments, have it hard.”

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The pound edged higher, showing little sign of concern as investors digested the initial trickle of results. The gilt market may be a more telling barometer of market opinion when it opens at 8 a.m. local time.

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Britain’s long-term borrowing costs hit a 28-year high earlier this week, amid renewed worries about political instability. One concern for investors is that the results could prompt Labour to adopt a looser fiscal policy than the one so far maintained by Starmer and his chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.

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Adding to the swirl of leadership speculation, the Times newspaper reported that Energy Secretary Ed Miliband privately urged Starmer to consider setting out a timeline for his resignation to avoid party strife. Miliband, himself a former leader of the Labour Party, made the suggestion in a meeting around two weeks ago, sources told the Times.

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A spokesperson for Miliband said they would not comment on private conversations but did not accept the Times’ account, while refusing to comment on any specifics of the story. The spokesperson said Miliband has always supported the prime minister and continues to do so, declining to deny that Miliband had suggested Starmer set a departure timetable.