His allies have turned on him, at last.
It’s less than two years since Keir Starmer became British Prime Minister after a landslide victory for his Labour party.
Since then, his popularity only diminished, and he became a hated political figure like few in recent history.
And this week’s local elections may have been the final straw, as rightwing Reform UK gained 1,244 new seats in local councils, while Labour lost 1,022.
That catastrophic result has led to his Labour MPs and even union bosses to break ranks and demand Starmer’s resignation, after what turned into the party’s worst local elections defeat in history.
Some Labour members of parliament even warned that he could ‘end the Labour Party’ if he did not stand down.
‘The jeopardy is far from over’
Political correspondent Harry Farley told #BBCBreakfast more than 20 Labour MPs have called for Keir Starmer to resign as Prime Minister after the party suffered heavy losses in the elections in England, Scotland and Waleshttps://t.co/e7EzbFfVgI pic.twitter.com/sgFqIiwzTW
— BBC Breakfast (@BBCBreakfast) May 9, 2026
The Telegraph reported:
“Critics lined up to call for a new leader after Sir Keir was blamed for Labour’s historic defeats across England, Scotland and Wales, losing councils that had never been run by another party and giving up control in Wales for the first time since devolution.
MPs said he should immediately announce an orderly timeline for his departure, allowing leadership challengers to set out their pitch this summer. They were followed by the leaders of Unison, the public services union, and TSSA, its transport equivalent, who called for the Prime Minister to quit.”
‘Grow up! If you think he is the wrong person for the job…get rid of him!’
Former political advisor Oscar Reddrop analyses the local election results and calls on Labour MPs to push out Keir Starmer from Number 10. pic.twitter.com/Amtz50lcvG
— 🇬🇧British and Proud🇬🇧 (@unionjackspirit) May 9, 2026
“Labour lost hundreds of English council seats to Reform UK and saw the collapse of stronghold councils including Tameside, Blackburn, Gateshead and Sunderland, which fell to Nigel Farage’s party after 50 years of Labour rule. Baroness Morgan of Ely, the Welsh First Minister, lost her seat in a disastrous performance for Labour at the Senedd that paved the way for an administration led by Plaid Cymru for the first time.”
Multiple Labour party members of parliament and allied unions are calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign.
“This won’t be fixed by another speech or a shuffle of cabinet ministers.” pic.twitter.com/vXZtD9IFTm
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) May 8, 2026
“Sir Keir has resisted calls to resign, insisting he would not ‘walk away and plunge the country into chaos’, although he has not explicitly ruled out a managed transition to another leader.”
Watch: Starmer refuses to resign.
UK PM Starmer refuses to resign after crushing local elections loss, though the internal pressure has increased too much pic.twitter.com/ZjEUpn2133
— Finally Did it 💫 (@Finallydiditonx) May 9, 2026
Read more:
Ad block users: Some site features may not work correctly while an ad blocker is enabled, because they break scripts and content this website depends on. If you can’t see comments below, for example, please disable your ad blocker.
