The Readout

Allegra Stratton: Stumbling and Stuck, But Starmer Is Probably Staying

Stumbling and Stuck, but Starmer is Probably Staying

Workers counting votes at Hackney Town Hall following the local election in London, UK, on Friday, May 8, 2026. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had no plans to step aside as Labour leader after early results in local elections showed Nigel Farage’s populist Reform UK racking up sweeping gains over Britain’s governing party.Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

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By Allegra Stratton

May 8, 2026 at 4:33 PM UTC

This article is for subscribers only.

And so here we are - the much anticipated fragmentation of British politics. A rowdy gawdy tent has been erected in the middle of the UK political landscape.

Reform has taken its first London council alongside Tory strongholds like Essex Council (Conservative for a quarter of a century); the Greens have won their first elected mayoralty in Hackney and while it’s still early in declarations, Scotland sees the SNP trounce Labour once more. In Wales, just before we pressed send on this newsletter, Labour’s first minister lost her seat - an historic first. More humiliation is likely in a place where Labour, as our Joe Mayes writes, has “come out on top for more than a century”.