Reform surges across Britain as Labour suffers historic election losses

The clearest warning for Keir Starmer came from Wales, where Labour lost control of the Senedd for the first time since devolution in 1999, ending 27 years of dominance and exposing how quickly the party’s coalition has frayed. Under a new closed proportional list system, the Welsh parliament expanded to 96 members from 60, with voters aged 16 and over taking part for the first time, and the result left Plaid Cymru as the largest party while Reform UK surged into second place in some tallies.

That defeat gave the night its sharpest symbolic edge, but it was not an isolated setback. Across England, voters elected councillors in 172 local authorities, including 32 London boroughs, and Reform made major breakthroughs in areas that have long been part of Labour and Conservative territory. The party’s gains pointed to a powerful anti-incumbent mood and to a right-wing protest vote that is now eating into the two parties that have shaped British politics for decades.

Scotland added another layer of pressure. The Scottish Parliament election, held on Thursday 7 May, returned 129 MSPs to Holyrood, with the Scottish National Party projected to secure a fifth term but fall short of a majority. Labour, meanwhile, was headed for one of its weakest performances in the chamber, while Reform was set to make a significant breakthrough that would deepen the party’s reach beyond England.

For Starmer, the pattern matters as much as the individual outcomes. His Labour Party won a landslide general election in July 2024, but these results suggested that support is leaking in several directions at once: to Reform on the right, and to the Greens and nationalists elsewhere. That fragmentation is especially damaging in Wales and Scotland, where Labour’s standing carries not just electoral weight but a claim to governing competence across the union.

Starmer said on 8 May that he would not resign and would stay on to deliver change, even as opponents, including Nigel Farage, cast the results as a historic shift in British politics. For now, the message from Cardiff, England’s town halls and Holyrood is the same: Labour’s governing coalition is under strain, and what looked like a local protest vote is starting to look like an early warning for the next general election.