Starmer says results 'very tough,' but he won't resign

UK Labour dealt blow as far-right Reform surges, Greens gain in local elections

PM Starmer’s party loses control of at least eight councils, 200+ seats in total; Reform’s Farage hails ‘historic change’ in UK politics

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party was facing heavy losses as results began to come in from local elections across the country on Friday morning, showing the far-right Reform UK party surging and the far-left, anti-Israel Green Party registering gains.

Most results from the election on Thursday were expected to come in later in the day. But as of late Friday morning, Labour had already lost control of eight local councils out of 41 that had declared results, and lost more than 250 seats in total.

The anti-immigrant Reform, meanwhile, had gained more than 350 seats across the local councils.

The Greens had more modest gains, picking up 23 seats by 10 a.m. local time (noon Israel time).

Both parties face accusations of antisemitism and bigotry, at a time when Jews in the UK are under increasing threat.

Starmer acknowledged the results on Friday morning, saying: “The results are tough, they are very tough, and there’s no sugarcoating it.”

“We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country,” said the beleaguered prime minister, in remarks at a church in west London. “And that hurts, and it should hurt, and I take responsibility.”

Still, he said he would not resign and expects he will still be the party’s leader at the next general election, scheduled for 2029.

“The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved. I was elected to meet those challenges but I’m not going to walk away from those challenges,” he told British media.

Starmer was expected to make further remarks later in the morning.

“The picture has been pretty much as bad as anyone expected for Labour, or worse,” said John Curtice, Britain’s most respected pollster.

The elections for 136 local councils in England, alongside the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales, represent the most significant test of public opinion before the next general election due in 2029.

Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage, and the Greens, led by self-described eco-populist Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, are expected to be the main beneficiaries of widespread disillusionment.

Tories also expected to lose ground, Lib Dems gain

The Conservative Party was also losing ground, with the centrist Liberal Democrats making some gains.

The results reflect a fragmentation of British politics after decades of domination by Labour and the Conservatives, and make the outcome of the country’s next national election hard to predict.

Curtice, the pollster, said Britain is entering a new political era where “none of the parties are very big.

“Even Reform are probably not quite at 30% of the vote, so the fracturing of British politics is underlined by these results,” he told the BBC.

Reform’s Nigel Farage hailed the preliminary results, saying the elections were “exceeding anything that I thought.”

“I think what you’re witnessing is an historic change in British politics. Forget Left-Right, there is no more Left-Right. It is gone, it is out of the window, it’s finished,” he told reporters, according to The Telegraph.

The Green Party has surged in recent polls, as its leader focused much of his campaign on opposition to Israel and accused Starmer of being on a “Zionist” payroll.

Last week, Polanski faced backlash — and later apologized — after retweeting a post that criticized police for the manner in which they subdued an attacker who had just stabbed and seriously wounded two Jewish men in an antisemitic attack in London.

This week, UK media reported that the Green party was investigating more than 30 local council candidates for alleged antisemitism, including at least ten who downplayed or justified violence against Jews.

While the party said that some candidates have already been suspended, it dismissed the problematic members as only a small minority of those running.

The head of London’s Metropolitan Police said Sunday that British Jews are facing their greatest-ever threat, which he called an “epidemic” of antisemitism.

In recent months, in addition to the stabbing, two synagogues and one former synagogue have been targeted for arson, and four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity were burned down, amid other incidents.

Monitoring groups have reported an upsurge in antisemitic incidents in Britain, particularly since the start of the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s terror onslaught in Israel on October 7, 2023.