First UK election results: Labour suffers defeat, Reform UK gains ground nationwide

Nigel Farage and supporters celebrate local victories. Photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Only the first results are known so far; counting continues in most municipalities. In particular, votes in Scotland and Wales have not yet been counted. However, preliminary results show a loss of ground for the ruling Labour Party and a triumph for Nigel Farage's right-wing populist Reform UK party, writes the BBC.

Political scientists call the voting in Scotland, Wales, and 136 English councils the biggest electoral test since the 2024 general election and an important check for Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

And although it will be at least several more hours until the final results are announced, the general trends are already clearly visible.

Reform UK is in the lead by a wide margin, and its success in the current elections did not come as a surprise. In last year's municipal elections, it also garnered the most votes.

However, Reform UK's impressive results show the extent of British voters' disappointment with traditional parties, which have failed to offer any meaningful opposition to its leader, Nigel Farage, over the past year.

Voters are dissatisfied with the inability of the two main and oldest British parties – Labour and Conservative – to bring order to key domestic issues: the economy and migration policy.

Following Reform UK is a dense group (at least at this stage) comprising Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and the Green Party of England and Wales.

And this is another interesting point, experts say. The increasing fragmentation of British politics has been discussed for a long time – and now it is particularly evident. No single party manages to achieve confident dominance, and votes are splintering in at least five different directions.

Reform UK gained an impressive number of mandates overnight from both Labour and the Conservatives. The defeat of the Labour Party in its traditional strongholds in the North of England and the Midlands, including Wigan, Bolton, Salford, and Halton, is particularly striking.

Moreover, the first local council that Reform UK managed to take during the night's count was previously controlled by the Conservatives – this is Newcastle-under-Lyme.

In most councils where counting began overnight, only a third of seats were re-elected, so Reform may have even more opportunities to take control of municipalities later in the day.

But even now, we can speak of a serious success for Farage's party: it is winning approximately a third of the mandates already allocated.

Labour, conversely, has already lost just under half of the seats they tried to hold – and they had the most mandates to defend in this electoral campaign.

The Labour Party's headquarters states that by-elections are traditionally difficult for ruling parties, and their outcomes usually cannot predict the result of the next general election.

This is true, experts say, but only to a certain extent. For example, in 2011, 2015, 2017, and 2021, the ruling party did not lose ground in terms of seats, whereas Labour is now losing them very significantly.

"I am not going to leave and plunge the country into chaos," Keir Starmer declared after the first results showed significant losses for the Labour Party.

He recalled Labour's landslide victory in the general election in July 2024: "I led our party to that victory, and that is a five-year mandate to change the country."

Starmer added that "in the coming days" he would lay out "further steps" that the Labour Party intends to take to regain voters' trust.

When asked if he would participate in the next general election, the Prime Minister replied: "Yes. I was elected for a five-year term, and I intend to see this work through."

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