It wasn’t supposed to go like this. Keir Starmer came into Downing Street less than a year ago on a wave of relief and cautious optimism, and now he’s watching his party haemorrhage support in nearly every direction at once.
Thursday’s local and devolved elections delivered a brutal verdict. Labour lost control of Wales, a country it has governed since the very birth of devolution in 1999. That’s not a stumble; it’s a collapse of something that felt permanent. Eluned Morgan’s Welsh government has fallen, and with it, a quarter-century of Labour dominance in Cardiff Bay.
Reform UK were the story everywhere else. Nigel Farage’s party swept up councils across England, turning frustration with the two main parties into actual, counted votes. Reform aren’t just a protest movement anymore; they’re winning seats, running councils, and positioning themselves as the genuine opposition to Labour in parts of the country that used to be true-blue Conservative territory.
The Conservatives, for their part, had little to celebrate either. Kemi Badenoch’s party is still trying to find its footing after last July’s catastrophe, and Reform’s rise is eating directly into the base they need to rebuild.
Up in Scotland, the SNP secured a fifth consecutive term at Holyrood, which under any other circumstances would be the headline. John Swinney’s party defied predictions of a serious collapse, holding enough ground to govern again. It’s a remarkable run for a party that has faced relentless internal turbulence over the past two years.
Back in Westminster, the mood around Starmer is reportedly tense. Senior Labour figures are privately acknowledging that the government has struggled to land a coherent economic message, with households still feeling the squeeze from energy bills and mortgage costs that haven’t budged anywhere near enough. Voters, it seems, aren’t willing to wait.
“People are fed up and they’re using whatever’s available to say so,” one Labour councillor in the Midlands reportedly told colleagues after losing their seat.
The prime minister will insist there’s time to turn things around, and technically he’s right. There’s no general election due until 2029. But midterm pain at this scale has a habit of hardening into something more permanent.
The question now isn’t whether Labour is in trouble. It’s whether anyone inside the party has a convincing answer for how to get out of it.
