Tories lose 15 councils amid Reform’s local elections surge

Reform was the main beneficiary of the Conservative collapse, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 local authorities.

Nigel Farage cheers with Reform UK supporters — Reform UK is now in control of eight councils, while the Tories lost all 15 local authorities it controlled going into Thursday’s local elections. (Jacob King/PA)

The Conservative Party has lost every council it was defending in Thursday’s local elections after it found itself squeezed between Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.

Kemi Badenoch’s party began Thursday holding 15 of the councils up for election, but by Friday evening had lost control of every single one of them.

Reform was the main beneficiary of the Conservative collapse, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 local authorities stretching from Kent to Co Durham.

Nigel Farage’s party also managed to topple a 14,000-strong Labour majority in the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby, and win mayoral contests in Greater Lincolnshire and Hull and East Yorkshire.

Mr Farage himself said his party had “the Labour Party for lunch” and “wiped out” the Conservatives in parts of England as he declared the results “the end of two-party politics”.

Kemi Badenoch lifts a mug of tea — Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives suffered a heavy defeat on Thursday, losing hundreds of councillors and control of 15 councils (Jacob King/PA)

But even in areas where Reform was less successful, the Tories found themselves struggling against the Lib Dems, who won control of Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire and Shropshire and became the largest party in Devon, Wiltshire, Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Sir Ed Davey said the results showed the Lib Dems were now “the party of middle England”.

The one bright spot for the Tories came in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, where former MP Paul Bristow won the mayoralty as Labour fell to third place behind Reform.

Ed Davey, with clenched fists, celebrates the local election results — Sir Ed Davey said the Lib Dems were now ‘the party of middle England’. (Gareth Fuller/PA)

Conservative figures sought to deny that the results were “existential” for the party, while Mrs Badenoch insisted the Tories were still Labour’s main opposition.

But, apologising to defeated Tory councillors, she conceded her party still had “a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public”.

She said: “That’s the job the Conservative Party has given me and I am going to make sure that we get ourselves back to the place where we are seen as the credible alternative to Labour.”

Sir Keir Starmer talks to members of staff at a defence contractor's offices — Sir Keir Starmer said his party would ‘go further and faster’ in response to the local election results (Henry Nicholls/PA)

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged that the results were “disappointing”, while one of his top ministers, Pat McFadden, said the party would have to “take that on the chin”.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Bedfordshire on Friday following the result, Sir Keir said: “What I want to say is, my response is we get it.

“We were elected in last year to bring about change.”

He said that his party has “started that work”, such as bringing in measures to cut NHS waiting lists, adding: “I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see.”

But figures within his party have publicly called on the Government to change course, including backbench MPs Diane Abbott, Brian Leishman and Emma Lewell.

“The first 10 months haven’t been good enough or what the people want and if we don’t improve people’s living standards, then the next government will be an extreme right-wing one,” Mr Leishman, who was first elected last year, said.