British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised he will “listen to voters” after his Labour party received a historic drubbing in local and regional elections.
After a disillusioned electorate backed hard-right and nationalist parties in May 8’s ballots, Starmer’s cabinet colleagues appeared to be rallying around, but two lawmakers urged them to take decisive action on his leadership.
In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader John Swinney predicted that the anti-immigration Reform U.K. party would likely win the next general election.
He called for the chance to hold another independence referendum to shield Scotland from any future Reform government.
May 8’s polls were Starmer’s biggest electoral test since Labour ousted the Conservatives in 2024.
“The right lesson is to listen to voters” but it “doesn’t mean tacking right or left”, Starmer, who has faced calls to resign, wrote in The Guardian newspaper in response to the ballot box pummeling.
Reform, led by populist politician Nigel Farage, made gains across England, Scotland and Wales, though Scottish and Welsh parties took the biggest share of seats in those elections.
With almost all votes tallied, the results were grim for Labour.
“I think there’s now a responsibility on the cabinet to talk to Keir and to recognize, as they obviously are picking up on the doorstep, that this can’t carry on forever,” Labour MP Clive Betts told BBC radio.
“There has to be a timetable. There has to be a way to actually bring in a new leader in a proper and constructive manner in the next few months.”
Betts is among numerous Labour lawmakers to publicly suggest he ought to resign or set out a plan for doing so.
A second lawmaker, Catherine West, told the BBC that if a cabinet minister did not challenge Starmer by today, she would try to trigger a leadership contest herself, a move that could open the door to others.
