Becky Morton
Political reporter

Labour MP Catherine West says if a cabinet minister does not put themselves forward to challenge Keir Starmer as party leader by Monday, she will attempt to trigger a leadership contest herself.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet tells Radio 4’s PM programme her preferred option would be for the cabinet to “reorganise themselves” and put forward their “best communicator” to replace the PM, avoiding a leadership election.

However, West says she was putting the cabinet “on notice” and if she does not hear from a leadership hopeful by Monday she would ask Labour MPs to back her to trigger a contest.

For a leadership election to be set in motion, 20% of Labour MPs - 81 people - would have to back a single challenger.

West, a former junior Foreign Office minister, says she currently has 10 people prepared to back her in a leadership bid but she is “confident” enough people would come forward to trigger a contest.

“My preferred option is for the cabinet to do a reshuffle within itself, where there's plenty of talent, and for Keir to be given a different role, which he might enjoy, perhaps an international role,” she says.

“Then for others to come to the fore who can communicate the message, who are very able, so we can have minimum fuss.”

Croydon Council has announced its results, with no party taking control of the authority.

That's the same result as the last election, where neither Labour nor the Conservatives were able to achieve a majority.

We've now had results from 134 councils in England, with two more - Lewisham and Tower Hamlets - expected to declare by this evening.

Image source, PA Media

Among the headlines of Friday's election results was the news that Welsh First Minister Eluned Morgan had lost her seat.

After meetings of the party’s Executive Committee and the Welsh Labour group, Member of the Senedd (MS) Ken Skates has been announced as the party's new interim leader.

He was first elected in 2011 and has held several Welsh Government roles including transport secretary and economy and infrastructure secretary. He was re-elected to the Senedd for Fflint Wrecsam yesterday.

Praising Morgan for "her role in history as the first woman to lead our Party and country is an achievement second to none", Skates says today is "just the beginning of a process that will help us to understand what we got wrong".

The PM has thanked Skates for "stepping up", adding that he will "do a fantastic job bringing Welsh Labour together" and holding the new Welsh Government "to account for working people".

Skates will serve as leader until a timetable is set for a full leadership election in line with Welsh Labour rules.

Joshua Nevett
Political reporter

The electoral map is a messy patchwork of colours after this bumper set of elections in England.

This picture reflects the fragmentation of British politics, the breakdown of the dominance long enjoyed by Labour and the Conservatives, and the rise of the Greens and Reform UK.

In practice, that means many more councils not controlled by any one party and in some cases, a grudging acceptance that sharing power is necessary.

So far, 63 councils are in no overall control (NOC) following these elections, an increase of 24.

So what happens next?

The approach will differ depending on the make-up of each council.

If one party is close to a majority, it may attempt to run the council as a minority administration.

But sometimes, the largest party is unable to form a minority administration because a coalition of smaller parties has banded together to make up a majority.

In other places, two, three, four or more parties, or independents, may team up to govern the council as a coalition.

Some councils in NOC can work well together in the spirit of compromise, while others struggle to overcome sharp political differences.

Back in England, Labour has lost Bradford council to no overall control.

It means just three councils are left to declare their results.

Image source, PA Media

Plaid Cymru will seek to form a minority government in Wales, after securing 43 of 96 available seats in the Welsh Senedd, six short of a majority.

That's according to party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth, who says Plaid will seek to govern alone in Wales without a coalition after it won the largest bloc in the Senedd from Labour.

Speaking to reporters, ap Iorwerth says that during the election campaign he "made it clear that my desire, were we able to, would be to form a minority government”.

Now, he says it is "clear now we are in that position”.

Earlier on, Wales Green Party's leader Anthony Slaughter suggested his party would be "open to having conversations" about forming the next government.

Colette Hume
BBC Wales reporter

Let's turn back to Wales, where stories are emerging from frantic election counts as Labour lost its grip across the country...

Joshua Kim won the sixth seat at Blaenau Gwent Caerffili Rhymni for Reform but missed the count because he was doing a shift as a supply teacher.

Kim tells the BBC he was "shellshocked" and "did not think for one minute" he would be elected, appearing "distraught, utterly shocked and confused".

The supply teacher says he hadn’t told his pupils about his candidacy and wasn’t at the count because it would have meant losing a day’s pay.

The returning officer spent a few minutes trying to find him and couldn't quite believe he wasn't in the hall. He turned up about 45 minutes after as the hall was being reset for a football match.

Now that Lambeth has declared a Labour loss, there are only four more count results to come from English councils:

• Croydon
• Lewisham
• Tower Hamlets
• Bradford

As a reminder, all the counts in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments have finished. The SNP and Plaid Cymru fell just short of securing majorities in Holyrood and the Senedd respectively.

Labour has lost control of Lambeth in south London, with no party winning an outright majority.

The Greens are the largest party, with 29 seats, and Labour are second with 26.

Labour has controlled Lambeth since 2006. After the 2022 elections, Labour had 54 seats with the Greens and Lib Dems both on four.

The council is where Starmer's former right-hand man, Morgan McSweeney, helped run a successful Labour campaign to retake it in 2006.

McSweeney resigned as Starmer's chief of staff in February over the appointment of Lord Mandelson as US ambassador.

Labour MPs have put Starmer on notice - can he turn it round?published at 15:15 BST 9 May

15:15 BST 9 May

Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

"Over to you Keir," says a senior minister, not mincing his words.

Not everyone in the Labour Party wants there to be a challenge to the leadership, but even Sir Keir Starmer's most loyal ministers are pushing him to change - and fast.

The prime minister is nothing if not a determined man. But can he show he can turn it round?

Millions of voters have told him they aren't impressed with what he's been doing in 22 months of government - and, as each hour passes, more of his colleagues are going public to say, neither are they.

The powerful unions, who still pay the party's bills, have put the prime minister on notice, too. One of their leaders told me: "It's been a slow motion car crash – we need a concrete promise that things will change."

Labour has been battered at these elections - and it being expected makes it no less painful.

• You can read Laura Kuenssberg's analysis in full here

Image source, x/Keir Starmer

As we have been reporting, Keir Starmer has appointed two of Labour's most senior veterans as advisers following heavy election losses.

The prime minister appeared outside No 10 alongside Harriet Harman on Saturday morning before also being pictured alongside former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

A video has now been shared on Starmer's social media accounts showing him meeting the two Labour heavyweights at Downing Street.

At one point Starmer and Brown can be seen sharing a joke with Chancellor Rachel Reeves while at another point in the clip the prime minister can be seen having a hot drink with Baroness Harman.

The appointments have been met with bafflement and anger by Labour MPs, writes our chief political correspondent, with one Labour politician describing how retreating to figures from the past was "insulting".

Image source, X/Keir Starmer

Image source, Reuters

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown's appointment as a special envoy on global finance is a "future-looking" role, according to Keir Starmer.

But as our political correspondent reports, there is confusion among MPs on how employing a Labour figure from the past signifies change.

Here's some more reaction to today's news as Starmer shapes Labour's response to its local election losses:

• "An unpopular Prime Minister who lost a general election is now seen by Starmer as being the saviour," Reform UK leader Nigel Farage says
• Labour MP Luke Charters defended Brown's record, writing: "Gordon Brown has dedicated his life to fighting child poverty"
• Meanwhile Charters' Labour colleague MP John Slinger says Brown's appointment is "Keir Starmer getting on with the day job" and calls him "a serious" figure "doing serious work"
• "Gordon Brown sold the gold and caused a debt crisis," Conservative MP Nick Timothy responds, referring to Brown's decision to sell tonnes of the UK's gold reserves between 1999 and 2002 when he was chancellor

While the overall picture in England has been clear for some time now - dramatic gains for Reform and losses for Labour - we're still waiting for results in five English councils.

Four of the five are in London:

• Croydon
• Lambeth
• Lewisham
• Tower Hamlets
• Bradford

In three of these councils, voters have also been electing new mayors: Labour lost their mayor in Lewisham to the Greens, while the Conservatives and Aspire have held on to Croydon and Tower Hamlets respectively.

We're expecting the full sweep by this evening.

Starmer's MPs want a better understanding of his plan to resolve their political predicamentpublished at 14:15 BST 9 May

14:15 BST 9 May

Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent

Image source, PA Media

It’s clearly bad news for the prime minister to have so many Labour MPs calling for his departure.

But there are crucial elements of a political coup which have not materialised, at least so far.

Lucy Powell, the deputy leader elected in defiance of Sir Keir and his allies, has remained loyal. The cabinet has stayed on board - although some of their statements are strikingly carefully phrased. No junior ministers have quit.

Against that surprisingly calm backdrop, though, the appointments of Gordon Brown and Baroness Harman appear to have made things worse - prompting an outpouring of bafflement and anger.

One normally loyal minister says: “It’s a joke. There is no question to which bringing these two back is the answer.”

Another Labour MP says retreating to figures from the past was “insulting”.

The stakes for Sir Keir’s speech on Monday are unimaginably high. The prime minister says he wants to give the country a better understanding of the values that animate him.

His MPs crave a better understanding of his plan to solve their political predicament.

More now from the Scottish first minister, who says there has "been a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament for four elections in a row".

This mandate has been ignored by successive prime ministers, he says, adding that he hopes an SNP majority could break the pattern.

"Although we were very close to achieving this, it hasn't been accomplished," he says as he notes the party now has "more pro-independence MSPs than ever before".

• As a reminder, the SNP won 58 seats, with 65 needed for a majority

Swinney says the results across the UK show why the need for independence is "so urgent", with Reform UK's Nigel Farage "galloping towards Downing Street".

Image source, PA Media

In Edinburgh, First Minister John Swinney has been reacting to the SNP's election victory yesterday.

He tells a press conference that the party has won "emphatically", adding that the people voted "on a landslide" for a pro-independence government that's "on Scotland's side".

The significance of this "cannot be understated", he adds, saying the party was previously on course to lose the election.

"We won a higher share of the vote than Keir Starmer did across the UK in 2024 - an election widely described as a landslide," he says.

He attributes the result to three things: the efforts of SNP candidates and activists, public service improvements and cost-of-living action, and experienced leadership in uncertain times.

Growing number of Labour MPs losing hope Starmer is the person to turn things aroundpublished at 13:31 BST 9 May

13:31 BST 9 May

Chris Mason
Political editor

The Prime Minister chose the home of AFC Wimbledon in south-west London to meet Labour activists this morning.

I was there as what is known as the pool broadcast reporter, gathering with our team pictures and an interview that would be shared with all the broadcasters. We take it in turns to do this.

The local authority, Merton, was a spot for Labour cheers in the English local elections - the party actually made a gain, winning one more seat than they held before.

Sir Keir Starmer worked the room at the Cherry Red Records Stadium, joining groups of activists at circular tables for a chat and photos.

It was the first time he had appeared in front of the cameras since the full scale of the horror show the electorate delivered on Labour in parts of England, Scotland and Wales became apparent.

He used the same form of words he’d used yesterday, when he said he was “not going to sugarcoat” the result.

He is hoping a widely trailed speech on Monday, where he will talk about a closer relationship with the European Union among other things, will help reassure his own MPs that he has a plan to try to revive Labour’s fortunes.

Starmer acknowledged too that things had been too gloomy in his time in government so far."The hope wasn’t there enough in the first two years of this government,” he said.

The challenge he faces is a growing number of his MPs have lost hope that he is the person to turn things around.

Worse than that for him, many think he is making things worse for them.

Image source, Pool

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey says the party in Scotland is "buzzing with our best result for nearly 20 years". They gained six seats taking their total to 10.

"It’s really critical that we stop the SNP getting a majority; many of the commentators are agreeing that but for the Liberal Democrats... the SNP would be celebrating a majority, and would be talking about another referendum," he says. "That’s the last thing Scotland needs."

The Lib Dems took four constituencies from the SNP in Thursday's elections, and lost one to the party.

Image source, Pool

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is "not calling for a change in leadership" but does want the government to change its "direction of travel" after "bitterly disappointing" results.

This "starts with the top", he tells broadcasters in comments made before we just heard from Starmer.

The government needs to "recognise why we’ve done so badly in London", he says, adding that he repeatedly heard "anger, disillusionment and disappointment" on the doorstep.

On Thursday 21 of London's 32 boroughs were run by Labour, but the map now looks very different with the red blanket having disappeared.

Labour lost Waltham Forest and Hackney to the Greens, and Westminster to the Conservatives. They also lost their control of Barnet, Brent, Enfield, Haringey, Newham, Southwark and Wandsworth, where no parties now have outright majorities. Four London councils are yet to declare - two of those were previously Labour.

Labour also lost out in mayoral races in Hackney and Lewisham, where the Greens secured their first directly-elected mayors.

"The promises made in July 2024 haven’t been delivered," Khan says, before calling for an "acceleration in terms of delivery".