Millions cast their votes on Thursday in the first major electoral test for Tory leader Kemi Badenoch and Keir Starmer since the PM won power last year
Millions cast their votes today in the first major electoral test for Keir Starmer since winning power.
Voting closed at 10pm in local elections held across England with over 1,600 council seats up for grabs alongside six mayoral contests. There was also a key by-election in Runcorn and Helsby – triggered after the ex-MP Mike Amesbury quit the Commons after an assault conviction.
Labour activists and MPs poured into the seat on Thursday where the party is hoping it can cling on in a closely fought battle with Reform UK. At last year’s General Election, Labour won 53% of the vote in the constituency. But Nigel Farage’s right-wing party is hoping to translate its lead in the polls and steal the seat in what would be a major upset for the PM.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is also bracing for an electoral bloodbath. Polling experts have suggested the Conservatives will lose hundreds of councillors to both Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats as the party slides further into irrelevance.
Reform UK could see a win in the Greater Lincolnshire mayoral contest if turnout at the ballot boxes ends up being low, polling experts have predicted. Boris Johnson’s former pal and ex-Tory MP Andrea Jenkyns is running for Farage’s party.
Leave campaigner and former Ukip donor Arron Banks is also in the West of England contest – a race described as too close to call by experts. And in Hull & East Yorkshire the Reform candidate, Luke Campbell, a former boxer and Olympic medallist, is narrowly ahead according to a recent poll.
Mr Farage is also hoping to make gains in Lincolnshire where the Conservatives have a majority in the council. The Local Government Information Unit points out that Farage’s former party Ukip once performed well in the area in the mid-2010s.
Ms Badenoch has already ruled out quitting if the losses are disastrous. Speaking earlier this week, the Tory chief said: “Anyone who thinks that this is an overnight task and that changing leader yet again is the solution is not paying attention. The public are quite tired of watching us change leader.”
After polls closed at 10pm, Labour Party Chair Ellie Reeves 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.”
Bracing for some potentially tough results, she continued: “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.”
