First election results are in!

[Twiglets1]

First seat result of the night: Reform beat Conservatives in Brentwood.
(remember this is just one seat - not the result of the council).

Second result: Reform have taken a seat from Labour in Chorley.

Too awful. Bedtime for me. I am hoping not to dream of Nigel Farage.

Re Chorley, only a third of council seats are up for grabs.

So Chorley will be a Labour hold regardless of whether or not seats are taken by other parties in this local election.

lol don’t blame you 😂

Green is up 1 where is that?

In Basildon, a senior Tory tells BBC reporter that Reform could take all 14 seats and that turnout has been close to General Election levels.

Labour is bracing itself for losses in Lincoln.

The council has been Labour controlled for the last 15 years. According to the BBC however, a councillor who has been watching the counting at one station has already called it for Reform, “by a mile”

In Halton, Cheshire, Reform have won 11 seats so far while Labour have held 1.

It’s a council of 54 seats and only a third were up for election. As Labour had 47 seats overall, it was always going to hold the council.

Greens have got one seat so far but not sure where it is.

Ahhhh, another opportunity for the public to demonstrate how utterly stupid it is. Goody.

First key ward declared in Peterborough:

A Liberal Democrat Gain from the Conservatives in Hampton Vale.

From Patrick Maguire, chief political commentator at The Times

'Ukip never managed anything like this. The SDP couldn’t win Warrington. Reform are going to win places even Boris Johnson couldn’t win against Corbyn. This is going to be qualitatively and quantitatively different to any insurgency that’s come before.'
https://x.com/patrickkmaguire/status/2052541436759793900?s=20

What has happened in the early hours?

Labour has lost control of five English councils, while Reform has gained more than 250 seats.

However, most councils won't declare their results until later on Friday.

So far in the overnight results, Labour has lost 58% of the seats it has been trying to defend.

According to Polling expert Sir John Curtice, if that rate of loss were to continue to the end of tomorrow, Labour could be looking at losses of nearly 1500 seats - though much depends on what happens in London, where a large proportion of the seats it's defending are located.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1428pev1n0t

Lib Dems hold two councils, while Labour keeps Reading

• Richmond-upon-Thames stays Lib Dem. All of the council's 54 seats were up for election. The Lib Dems gained six seats, while the Greens lost five and the Tories lost one
• Sutton also remains a Lib Dems majority. All of its 55 seats were up for election. Votes are still being counted, but the Lib Dems will keep its majority
• Labour maintains control of Reading, although it loses four seats. Three of those go to Greens while the Conservatives also gain a seat
• Oldham remains a no party majority. A third of its 60 seats are up for grabs, and so far Reform has taken four, Labour two, and independent candidates two
• Oxford also keeps its no party majority. Half of its 48 seats are up for election
• And it's a no party majority in Colchester. A third of its 51 seats are up for grabs. So far, five have gone to Reform, four to Conservatives, and one each for Greens, Labour and Lib Dems

• Wigan, Greater Manchester: With only a third of seats contested, Labour's majority was unassailable. But, nine seats have been declared so far - including Reform taking eight seats from Labour
• Salford, Greater Manchester: Similarly to Wigan, Labour holds onto Salford because only a third of seats are up for election, and Labour has an unassailable lead. So far, Reform has taken two seats from Labour, the Greens have taken one from Lib Dem and Labour has held a seat

The 5 councils Labour has lost so far are Redditch (now no party majority), Hartlepool, (no party majority), Tamworth (no party majority), Exeter (no party majority) and Tameside, Greater Manchester.

The council has 57 seats and a third were up for election, with 29 required for a majority. Labour started with 41 seats, but lost 16, meaning they lost their majority. The Conservatives also lost two seats.

Reform gained 18 seats and are now the second largest party in the council, going from 1 to 19 seats.

Part of the Gorton and Denton constituency - where the Greens pushed out Labour in a by-election earlier this year - is in Tameside.

Summary of the situation so far:

33 out of 136 English councils have declared their local election results, for a total of 820 out of 5,036 seats.

It's been a night of gains for Reform - they've picked up 267 seats so far. Those seats have mainly come from Labour and Tory losses, who are down 191 and 103 seats respectively.

But while Reform have gained councillors, they've not achieved control of a council - mainly because in most places, not all seats have been up for election.

The Lib Dems have won their first council, in Stockport, where they reached the 32 seats needed for a majority. They've also held onto four* *more councils.

And the Greens have picked up 21 extra councillors.

The Lib Dems have gained control of a second council, taking Portsmouth from no overall control, and have won every seat on Richmond council.

The leader of the Labour group on Hull City Council has called for Sir Keir Starmer to resign.

Labour lost seven seats on the council overnight as gains for Reform hurt the party while also causing the Liberal Democrats to lose overall control of the council.

Conservatives hold Harlow.

Oxford has remained under no overall control but Labour has lost five seats, with the Greens gaining five.

Labour loses Wandsworth to no overall control (Labour took it from the Conservatives during the 2022 elections).

Labour has also lost Southampton. Alex Winning, who was the Labour leader of the council, lost his seat to Rebecca McCreanor, a Liberal Democrat.

Conservative gain Westminster City Council from Labour 😀😀😀

Reform has gained its first council of the election, taking Newcastle-under-Lyme from the Conservatives.

It seemed strange when Westminster switched from Conservative to Labour at the last election as it's such a Tory area.

That was a protest vote - now the electorate are protesting against Labour and back to Conservative!

😂

I think that in some cases, the national headlines overlook what is going on at a more granular level, eg which party is winning a particular seat against which party was defending it.

I live in a very multicultural city (at the time of the 2021 Census, around 28% of the inhabitants of this city had been born abroad and immigrated to this country) which is also a very marginal parliamentary seat - the MP has regularly swapped backwards and forwards between Labour and Conservatives.

A third of the seats were up for election.

Overall, the Conservatives had the most gains, but they also had the most losses.

The Conservatives won six seats (two from Independents, two from Labour and one each from the LibDems and Greens) but also lost three seats to Reform and one to the LibDems.

Reform won four seats (the other one being from an Independent) but didn't win in any Labour seats.

Labour held two seats but lost two to the Conservatives and one to the Greens.

The LibDems held two seats. They also won a seat from the Conservatives and lost a different seat to them.

The Greens won two seats (from Labour and an Independent) but lost one seat to the Conservatives.

.

Overall, a very mixed bag of results.

Starmer says he “takes responsibility” for early Labour losses in English council results. Meanwhile, counting is due to begin in Scotland and Wales from 9am …

Reform take their first London council - Havering.

I heard someone say that Labour did well because they held on to Wigan Council.

Labour lost every single seat in Wigan but because only a third of the seats were up for grabs they were able to cling on!