The Conservatives have lost control of key London councils in English local elections, but Labour has so far made fairly modest gains elsewhere.
The Lib Dems have made progress in Tory areas and took Hull City Council from Labour, in a good night for the party.
With just under half the results in, the Tories are on track to lose about 250 seats across England, according to polling expert Sir John Curtice.
The counts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get underway later.
The full results of those elections, as well those for mayoral contests, will be announced later on Friday and Saturday.
Results so far include:
- Labour winning south London borough Wandsworth from the Tories, who have held it since 1978
- Labour taking Westminster, Barnet and Southampton councils from the Conservatives
- The Conservatives holding majorities with reduced seats on councils including those in northern England, as well as Redditch and Dudley
- Labour keeping control of councils with lower majorities, including Wolverhampton, Salford and Coventry, where its vote has been historically strong
- In a referendum, voters choose to ditch Bristol’s mayoral system and change the way the city council is run
Ahead of the elections, the Conservatives were braced for big losses in England,
As they faced attacks over the rising cost of living and the ongoing Party gate scandal, including the prime minister’s recent fine for breaking lockdown rules.
Conservative Party co-chairman Oliver Dowden told Breakfast voting had taken place against a “difficult backdrop” for the government, adding: “We’ve had some difficult results and we can see that in London.”
But the outcome so far did not “demonstrate that Labour has the momentum to form the next government”, he said.
With other councils in England set to start announcing results on Friday afternoon and evening, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer visited Barnet, in north London, to celebrate taking the borough from the Conservatives.
“This is a big turning point,” he called out to a crowd of supporters. “From the depths of the 2019 general election, we’re back on track.”
“We’ve sent a message to the prime minister: Britain deserves better,” he added.
But analysis of key wards by Sir John Curtice suggests Labour’s overall support is down by 0.2% since 2018 when most of the seats up for grabs this time were last contested and the party recorded its best local election performance under the previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.
Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey told that results so far for his party – particularly taking Hull back from Labour after 11 years – were “very promising”, adding: “There is now a real picture emerging across the country, particularly in areas held by the Conservatives, that the Lib Dems are the real challenges.”
The signs are not of a Conservative rout, even after more than a decade in government, even after the prime minister was fined for lockdown rule-breaking.
So far, this is not a set of results likely to push privately disgruntled Tory MPs to air their grievances in public or try to move against Boris Johnson.
Yet it is an important staging post for Labour, on course to take the biggest national share of the vote in an election since 2016.
The party has been able to take steps forward with some gains in important pockets of the country, not just piling upvotes in London.
But the margin is likely to be narrow, not convincing enough for the opposition to be confident they are set for No 10.
Conservative losses are not as bad as some in the party had been warning of, but there was still criticism of Boris Johnson from his side.
The Conservative leader of Carlisle City Council, John Mallinson, said the prime minister “bears a lot of the responsibility” for the results and was a “poor option” to lead the party into the next general election.
“I think if things remain the same, we’ll pay for it,” Radio 4’s Today programme, adding:
“The cost-of-living crisis is weighing very heavily on people’s minds, and I have to say that issues like Partygate made it increasingly difficult to focus people’s minds on local issues”.
Later on Friday, the focus will shift from results in England to those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, where no counting took place overnight.
All of Scotland’s 32 local authorities are up for election, as are all of Wales’s 22.
In Northern Ireland, all 90 members of the assembly were up for election on Thursday.
The result could herald a historic political shift if Sinn Féin – a nationalist party – becomes the largest party for the first time in Northern Ireland’s history.
All results in England, Scotland and Wales should be known by Friday evening, with those for Northern Ireland expected on Saturday.