British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Friday that he would not resign after early results from England’s local elections showed Labour losing support while Reform UK made major gains, News.Az reports, citing Anadolu.
“I’m not going to walk away and plunge the country into chaos,” Starmer told reporters as vote counts continued.
Referring to Labour’s victory in the July 2024 general election, Starmer said voters had given him a five-year mandate to govern.
“That is a five-year mandate to change the country,” he said.
When asked whether he planned to contest the next general election, Starmer replied: “Yes. It was a five-year term I was elected to do, I intend to see that through.”
He acknowledged that the election results had been disappointing for Labour and said the party would need to “reflect” and “respond.”
With most ballots still being counted, Reform UK was leading with 398 seats.
The Conservative Party and Labour Party were nearly tied, holding 256 and 253 seats respectively, while the Liberal Democrats followed with 249 seats.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage described the early outcome as a “truly historic shift in British politics,” according to Sky News.
“We have been so used to thinking about politics in terms of left and right, and yet what Reform is able to do is win in areas that have always been Conservative,” Farage said.
Around 5,000 seats across 136 local councils are being contested throughout England. Six mayoral races are also taking place in Watford and five London boroughs: Croydon, Hackney, Lewisham, Newham, and Tower Hamlets.
Most councils only began counting votes on Friday, with final results expected by Saturday.
Voters in Scotland and Wales also cast ballots in parliamentary elections, although vote counting had not yet started.
In Scotland, all 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, known as Holyrood, are being contested, including 73 constituency seats and 56 regional seats.
In Wales, voters are electing a new Welsh government and members of the Senedd in what has been described as the most significant change to the parliament since powers began being devolved to Wales in 1999.
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