In Sunderland, a city that had voted Labour for so long that locals struggled to remember anything else, the count finished and the colour of the council changed. So did Essex, held by the Conservatives for roughly twenty-five years. So did Havering, on the eastern fringe of London. By the time the last ballots were tallied from the local and devolved elections of 7 May 2026, Reform UK, a party that had held virtually no councillors a year earlier, controlled fourteen English councils and had gained more than 1,400 seats.
Nigel Farage, the party's leader, called it a truly historic shift in British politics. Across 136 English local authorities, roughly 5,000 council seats were on the line. The result was a near-collapse for the two parties that have shaped British politics for a century. Labour, just under two years after Sir Keir Starmer's landslide general-election victory, lost about 1,500 seats and control of 38 councils. The Conservatives shed more than 500 seats and six councils. The Liberal Democrats picked up over 150 seats. The Greens added more than 300.
In Thurrock, Reform took 45 of 49 seats. In Essex, where 428 candidates stood, turnout climbed to 43.6 percent, the highest in decades. Reform won 53 seats. It seized Sunderland, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Suffolk County Council, and Havering, its first London borough.
Wales delivered the night's most personal blow. Plaid Cymru emerged as the largest force in the Welsh Senedd, ending an era of Labour rule. Eluned Morgan, Labour's First Minister of Wales, lost her own seat. Roughly 30 Labour MPs publicly called on Starmer to resign, but he refused, framing his administration as a ten-year project of renewal.