Keir Starmer said Labour understood people’s frustrations and vowed to go ‘further and faster’ to bring about change after a bruising local election night saw Reform make gains
Keir Starmer has been urged to listen to voters after Reform UK seized control of a Labour stronghold in a dramatic by-election win.
Nigel Farage’s party won Runcorn and Helsby by just six votes after a recount, overturning Labour’s 14,696 majority to elect Sarah Pochin as their fifth MP.
The right-wing outfit also swept to victory in local elections across England, winning hundreds of seats off the Tories who saw their vote squeezed by Reform on the right and the Liberal Democrats on the left.
Reform also took control of Durham Council in a bitter blow to Labour’s hopes of winning back the local authority, which it lost control of in 2021 for the first time in a century.
The area, which elected six Labour MPs at the General Election, was at the centre of the Miners’ Strike of the 1980s and is home to the annual Miners’ Gala.
READ MORE: Local elections 2025: All the bombshells from Tory bloodbath to Reform’s victories
Labour held onto a trio of mayoralties in Doncaster, the West of England and North Tyneside. But Doncaster’s Labour Mayor Ros Jones – whose majority was slashed to just 698 after a battle with Reform – slammed the PM over cuts to the winter fuel allowance, rise in employers’ national insurance contributions and benefit cuts.
She said Labour “need to be listening to the man, woman and businesses on the street, and actually deliver for the people, with the people.”
The Prime Minister said Labour understood people’s frustrations and vowed to go “further and faster” to bring about change. He said: “What I want to say is, my response is we get it. We were elected last year to bring about change.”
He added Labour have “started that work” with changes such as reductions in NHS waiting lists. “I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see,” he added.
“The reason that we took the tough but right decisions in the budget was because we inherited a broken economy. 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.”
TUC leader Paul Nowak urged Mr Starmer not to respond to the results by swinging to the right. He told the Mirror: “Labour has nothing to gain from trying to out-Reform Reform.
“It will just bleed votes in both directions. But this Government will be rewarded if it delivers the change working people are crying out for.”
The results triggered a furious backlash from Labour MPs, who urged the Government to change course.
Ian Byrne, MP for Liverpool West Derby, said: “If we do not improve the situation that millions of working class people find themselves in after 14 yrs of austerity, we will be rolling the red carpet out to Reform at the next General Election.
“I urge the Labour leadership to now truly reflect and change course. If they do not, I genuinely fear the country will face the consequences of a far right government in four years’ time.
One senior Labour MP told The Mirror: “Welfare and winter fuel absolutely dominated and I’d say it proves the NHS wedge issue doesn’t work.”
Another backbencher said: “Runcorn is a warning we can’t ignore, doing nothing is not an option, we will end up with an extreme right wing government. The leadership needs to take their head out of the sand.”
And at the Trident Park shopping centre in Runcorn people spoke of their disappointment. Kerry Sutcliffe, 32, was visiting the shops after finishing the school run. She said: “It’s just been more of the same hasn’t it? I think people were expecting more from them, for them to make some strong decisions.
“But nothing’s changed. Bills are going up, everything is still really expensive. And they seem to be going after the easy targets. The winter fuel allowance cut made a lot of people very angry. Taking money from people who are struggling.”
Pensioner Kath Lee, 72, said: “The cut to the fuel allowance was a bad move. They need to listen to what people are saying. I feel worse off now than I did a year ago.”
“Labour is meant to be the party for all the people, but they just seem to be making more cuts. It’s just like the Tories, nothing’s changed. It’s always been Labour around here, this shows how disappointed everyone is.”
The biggest losers from Reform’s march were the Tories, who shed hundreds of seats and lost Staffordshire, Lincolnshire, Kent, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire councils to Mr Farage.
Mr Farage declared: “[These elections] mark the beginning of the end of the Conservative Party.”
Humiliated Tory leader Kemi Badenoch apologised to ousted councillors, saying: “We have a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public.” However there was one bright spot for the party as ex-MP Paul Bristow was elected mayor in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.
Elections expert Professor Sir John Curtice said Reform would have won 30% of the vote if the results were replicated in a general election. His projected vote share analysis for the BBC put Labour on 20%, the Liberal Democrats on 17% and the Tories languishing on 15%.
Lib Dem leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Lifelong Conservative voters have put their faith in the Liberal Democrats because they are appalled by the Conservatives lurching to the extremes and cosying up to Nigel Farage.
“Kemi Badenoch sneered at the Liberal Democrats for being the party that will fix your church roof. Today voters across the country have chosen our community politics over the Conservative Party’s neglect and disdain.”
Reform also elected its first two mayors with former boxer and Olympic medallist Luke Campbell winning the new Hull & East Yorkshire post and Tory defector Dame Andrea Jenkyns was victorious in Greater Lincolnshire.
Other candidates walked out of her victory speech as she said asylum seekers should be forced to live in tents.
Dame Andrea complained about being accused of being “parachuted in” to the seat by a rival with a South African accent – and then stormed out of a Sky News interview when asked why her opponent’s accent was relevant.
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