LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer vowed on Friday to stay in office to “deliver change” after his Labour Party suffered heavy losses in English local elections and parliamentary votes in Scotland and Wales, deepening doubts over his ability to govern.
Just under two years after winning a landslide national election, Starmer saw voters punish his Labour government, with support evaporating even in its traditional strongholds in London, former industrial regions in central and northern England, and in Wales.
The main beneficiary was the populist Reform UK party of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, which gained more than 1,000 council seats in England, and will likely form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales to the pro-independence Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.
Early results underscored the fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system, with the once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties losing votes not only to Reform, but to the left-wing Green Party at the other end of the political spectrum, and to nationalists in Scotland and Wales.
Despite the losses, Starmer’s allies signalled their support for a man whose popularity ratings have sunk to among the worst for any British leader.
“I am not going to walk away,” Starmer told reporters in Ealing, west London, a rare bright spot where Labour retained control of the council.
To Labour activists, he showed a moment of contrition when he said he took full responsibility for the losses and admitted his government had made some “unnecessary mistakes” including failing to offer hope to Britain when the party took power.
But he argued voters were more frustrated with the pace of change than with his government, and vowed to set out “the steps that we will take to deliver the change that they want and that they deserve”.
In what seemed to be a nod to the latest government reset, Starmer said he would double down on efforts to tackle a cost-of-living crisis compounded by conflicts in Ukraine and Iran.
That message seemed to cheer investors. Sterling strengthened against the US dollar and British government borrowing costs fell - outperforming against US and German debt.
But even for Starmer, there was no denying the scale of the terrible losses for Labour in elections for 136 local councils in England, and the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales - the most significant test of public opinion before the next general election due in 2029.
While an immediate challenge to his leadership looked unlikely, more than 20 Labour lawmakers publicly and privately called on Starmer to consider his position and set out a timetable for his departure.
“The prime minister cannot take our party into the next election,” Simon Opher, a Labour lawmaker from southwest England said in a statement.
Defence minister John Healey rejected this, saying the last thing voters wanted was “the potential chaos of a leadership election”.
“He’s not going to go, and he’s not going to set a timetable,” Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told BBC News.
