POLL: Should Keir Starmer step down after thumping by-election loss? | Politics | News | EUROtoday

After struggling a bruising battle towards Reform UK on the poll field maybe it was becoming that the Prime Minister was visiting a British defence trade agency as we speak. Sir Keir Starmer visited Leonardo UK in Luton, Beds, the place he trumpeted the agency’s contributing to the brand new £19 million RAF StormShroud radar jamming system.

But there was no escaping the truth that on the poll field Sir Keir’s Labour Party had simply been blitzed by political new children on the block, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. Mr Farage declared the “end of two-party politics” as Reform received scores of council seats from each Labour and the Tories. Reform additionally received the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, with new MP Sarah Pochin beating her Labour rival by an astonishing six votes.

Speaking as we speak, Sir Keir tried to guarantee voters his get together “get it” and the end in Runcorn was “disappointing”. But there are already rumblings within the Labour Party that the PM is on the mistaken observe, with MPs akin to Diane Abbott and Brian Leishman each publicly calling for motion.

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Mr Leishman, who was first elected final 12 months, stated: “The first 10 months haven’t been good enough or what the people want and if we don’t improve people’s living standards then the next government will be an extreme right-wing one.”

Reform UK chief Mr Farage stated the outcome was an indication that the Prime Minister had “alienated so much of his traditional base, it’s just extraordinary”.

He stated: “For the movement, for the party, it’s a very, very big moment indeed, absolutely, no question, and it’s happening right across England.”

Speaking in County Durham on Friday afternoon, Mr Farage stated the outcomes marked the “beginning of the end of the Conservative Party” and “the end of two-party politics”. He stated Reform had had “the Labour Party for lunch” and “wiped out” the Conservatives in components of England.

Despite the losses, Conservative chief Kemi Badenoch insisted that the “renewal” of the Conservatives has “only just begun” as she thanked those that had campaigned.

In a submit on X, she stated: “These were always going to be a very difficult set of elections coming off the high of 2021, and our historic defeat last year – and so it’s proving.

“The renewal of our get together has solely simply begun and I’m decided to win again the belief of the general public and the seats we have misplaced, within the years to return.”

The Runcorn and Helsby contest ran alongside local elections across England, having been triggered when former Labour MP Mike Amesbury quit after admitting to punching a constituent.

Amesbury won 53% of the vote less than a year ago at the general election, and the defeat, along with Reform gains in other Labour heartlands, will cause unease in Downing Street.

Labour said by-elections are “all the time tough for the get together in authorities”, and the events surrounding the Runcorn and Helsby vote made it “even tougher”.