Why the election results are bad for Starmer’s leadership rivals

Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting among senior Labour figures facing a fight to cling on to their own seats at the next general election Daily Telegraph 08/05/26 In the immediate aftermath of what is promising to be the worst set of local election results in Labour’s history, Sir Keir Starmer has vowed “not to walk away” from No 10. Whether Sir Keir gets to choose the timing or manner of his eventual departure remains to be seen, but the election results also contain portents of doom for his leadership rivals. The swing away from Labour to Reform in areas where Labour front-runners have their constituencies means they may well be facing a fight to cling on in their own seats at the next general election. In the interim, what any successor to Sir Keir is set to inherit is a depleted and demoralised Labour Party that has lost a large swathe of its activist base and will continue to fight on two flanks – Reform to the Right and the Greens to the Left

Angela Rayner Tameside In quick succession, Labour lost control of Hartlepool, Redditch, and Tamworth on Friday morning, but it was its defeat in Tameside that underlined the extent of the electoral upheaval taking place in Labour’s heartlands. With only a third of seats up for election, Labour lost 16 of the 17 seats it was defending. Tameside had been in Labour control for 47 years. Going into these local elections, Labour councillors occupied more than two thirds of Tameside’s seats, a share that has now fallen to 44 per cent. From winning just one councillor when this set of elections was last fought in 2022, Reform now has 19 councillors in Tameside, a third of the total. The political direction of travel suggests Angela Rayner’s Ashton-under-Lyne seat could also be in peril – despite her comfortable 6,791 majority over the second-place Reform candidate. In 2024 she secured a 43.9 per cent vote share. The latest MRP, conducted by Electoral Calculus in April, suggested a loss to Reform at the next election by a margin of nine points. Andy Burnham Greater Manchester Sir Keir Starmer and his allies on Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee blocked Andy Burnham from standing in February’s Gorton and Denton by-election. At the time, they argued it would be difficult to find a successful candidate to run for Mr Burnham’s vacated role as Mayor of Greater Manchester. Labour went on to lose Gorton and Denton to the Green Party but data from Thursday’s local election results suggest that argument may prove right. Manchester city council itself was due to declare on Friday lunchtime but the eight authorities that surround the city show Labour has real cause for alarm. Just under two thirds of councillors across those areas were Labour going into this election, 64 per cent, but that fell by 20 percentage points overnight. Mr Burnham is thought to be eyeing a seat around Manchester to stage a Westminster comeback. Based on these results, he may want to cast his net wider Wes Streeting Ilford North, Redbridge Results in Redbridge, the London borough that includes Wes Streeting’s Ilford North constituency, were expected on Friday evening. The borough is one of Reform’s key targets as Nigel Farage looks to extend his party’s grip on outer-London councils, while the Green Party makes major gains in inner-city London areas. While Labour was set to lose its majority in Redbridge, it is not Reform that poses the greatest threat to the Health Secretary in his own constituency. Mr Streeting famously clung on to his seat, which has a large Muslim population, with a majority of 528 over Leanne Mohamad, an independent candidate. The increasingly potent pro-Palestine force in British politics suggests he may not be so lucky next time round. Ed Miliband Doncaster There were elections in 136 English councils on Thursday night, but Doncaster, the constituency home to Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, was not one of them. In 2025, Reform took 37 of the council’s 55 councillors, ending 16 years of Labour control and giving the party its worst result in the city for 50 years. Results across surrounding Yorkshire councils which were voting on Thursday delivered a dire night for Labour. Many of these councils were last fought in 2022 when Labour was riding high in the aftermath of the Boris Johnson party-gate scandal. In Hull, which was returning a third of its seats, Labour saw its worst performance since 1973, losing 11 councillors. In North East Lincolnshire, Reform became the largest party, chiefly taking seats from the Tories, with Labour losing four councillors overnight. Other Labour-controlled councils set to fall either to Reform or no overall control on Friday included Barnsley and Bradford – where Labour councillors were losing votes to independent candidates. By the end of the day, Labour, which used to dominate West and South Yorkshire, could be left as the largest party only in Wakefield. Shabana Mahmood Birmingham Ladywood Labour has controlled Birmingham, England’s second city, for more than a decade, but anger over local government failures and a backlash against the Government’s support for Israel in Gaza could combine to cost the party control. The Green Party, which urged voters to “punish Labour for Gaza” in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, will be hoping to squeeze Labour votes, but it is the 40 independent candidates that pose the greatest threat to Shabana Mahmood. Almost half of Ms Mahmood’s constituents (49 per cent) are Muslim, as is the Home Secretary herself. Anger over Gaza cut Ms Mahmood’s majority to just 3,421 at the last general election. National polling has Greens projected to take 38 per cent of the vote at the next election with Labour and independents on 21 per cent. While 80 per cent of Muslims voted for the Labour Party at the 2019 election, that had changed by 2024. In seats where Muslims make up at least a tenth of the population, Labour suffered a 10 per cent drop in vote share, compared with 1.6 per cent in constituencies overall.