Tories lose 15 councils amid Reform’s local elections surge

The Conservative Party has lost every council it was defending in Thursday’s local elections after it found itself squeezed between Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats.

Kemi Badenoch’s party began Thursday holding 15 of the councils up for election, but by Friday evening had lost control of every single one of them.

Reform was the main beneficiary of the Conservative collapse, winning more than 600 seats and taking control of 10 local authorities stretching from Kent to Co Durham.

But even in areas where Reform was less successful, the Tories found themselves struggling against the Lib Dems, who won control of Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire and Shropshire and became the largest party in Devon, Wiltshire, Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Sir Ed Davey said the results showed the Lib Dems were now “the party of middle England”.

Conservative figures sought to deny that the results were “existential” for the party, while Mrs Badenoch insisted the Tories were still Labour’s main opposition.

But, apologising to defeated Tory councillors, she conceded her party still had “a big job to do to rebuild trust with the public”.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged that the results were “disappointing”, while one of his top ministers, Pat McFadden, said the party would have to “take that on the chin”.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Bedfordshire on Friday following the result, Sir Keir said: “What I want to say is, my response is we get it.

He said that his party has “started that work”, such as bringing in measures to cut NHS waiting lists, adding: “I am determined that we will go further and faster on the change that people want to see.”

“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,” Mr Leishman, who was first elected last year, said.