It was a disastrous day for Labour which has now lost more than 1,400 seats with the the Tories well over 500.
Reform has gained over 1,400, the Greens over 350, the Lib Dem’s are up by 150.
The party finished third in the elections for the Welsh assembly and failed to make any headway in Scotland
In Greater Manchester, it lost control of Oldham and Tameside councils and with some noteable exception, its candidates took a battering in almost every ward they stood in, only saved by the numbers that only third of the seats were up for grabs
Eyes will now be focusing on Andy Burnham and Angela Rayner
The latter whose own constituency in Tameside turned against her party is expected to make her first comments this weekend although it is forecast that it will be more for a change of direction for the party rather than any attack on the Prime Minister
Andy Burnham is not expected to put his head above the parapet over the weekend but tellingly Mainstream, the political grouping seen as the Greater Manchester Mayor’s backers are suggesting that there needs to be an ‘orderly transition’ to a new prime minister ahead of the next election
‘This crisis is the terminus of a failed political experiment at the top of the Labour Party that has put control, centralisation and factional advantage before the founding principles of our movement. It is, fundamentally, a crisis of purpose
‘Today it seems increasingly unlikely that our party’s current leadership will take us into the 2029 general election. If this is the case then there must be an orderly transition and a genuinely open, democratic debate about who and what comes next.’
One commentator claims that the majority of the soft-left have coalesced around a proposal to defer a leadership challenge and replace Keir Starmer with Andy Burnham over the next year. The play is ‘delay then Andy’. They prefer him to Angela Rayner
