Local elections live: Labour, Reform and Tories prepare for results as polls close and vote counting begins

The Runcorn and Helsby by-election was triggered when former Labour MP Mike Amesbury quit after admitting punching a constituent.

The 2024 result suggests it should be a safe Labour seat – Amesbury won 53 per cent of the vote – but Reform’s Sarah Pochin is the bookmakers’ favourite to secure a by-election victory.

Political correspondent Millie Cooke reports from Runcorn:

The Tory party already appears to be in damage control mode ahead of what is expected to be a difficult night across both the local elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.

Issuing a statement as polls closed, a Tory spokesperson said they “have always been clear that these would be tough elections for the party – defending an incredibly high watermark from 2021 when we took two-thirds of all seats”.

“If the 2024 General Election was replicated on today’s battleground, we would lose control of almost every single Council”, they added, in an attempt to manage expectations.

The party spokesperson said that anything less than progress on the “historic supermajority” Labour won at the last general election would “raise serious questions about the direction Labour is taking this country”.

While Labour is certainly at risk of suffering bitter losses tonight, it is expected to be even worse for the opposition. Tory peer and pollster Lord Hayward last week said he expects his own party to lose between 475 and 525 local authority seats. Defending around 900 seats, the party will only win between 375 and 425, the pollster said.

More than 1,600 council seats are up for grabs across 23 local authorities, while four regional mayors and two local mayors will be elected.

Of the 23 local authorities holding elections, 14 are county councils: Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

Polls have also taken place in eight unitary authorities: Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Durham, North Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Shropshire, West Northamptonshire and Wiltshire.

In addition, one metropolitan council, Doncaster, has held an election.

We are also now waiting on the results from six mayoral elections: in the West of England, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, North Tyneside, Doncaster, Greater Lincolnshire, and Hull and East Yorkshire.

Political correspondent Millie Cooke reports from Runcorn:

Anti-racism protesters have gathered outside the Runcorn and Helsby by-election count hall, warning that Nigel Farage is not welcome in Runcorn.

“Nigel Farage we know you, you’re a racist through and through”, the group of around 20 activists from Stand Up To Racism chanted.

Holding up signs saying, “refugees welcome”, the group argued that Reform UK does not represent the values of Runcorn.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey was optimistic about his party’s prospects as polls closed.

“We are expecting to see big gains against the Conservatives in their former Middle England heartlands,” he said.

“Last year the Liberal Democrats won a record number of MPs and became the largest third party in 100 years. Now we are on course for our seventh year of local election gains, making this our best ever winning streak.

“Voters have delivered their verdict on a Conservative Party that broke the country and a Labour government that is too timid to fix it.”

Labour Party chairwoman Ellie Reeves has admitted that the elections “were always going to be a challenge” for her party.

She acknowledged voters “aren’t yet fully feeling the benefit” of changes brought in since Sir Keir Starmer took office.

She said: “These elections were always going to be a challenge, being held largely in areas dominated by the Conservatives, often for decades. That’s why Labour candidates stood on a promise to bring change right across our country.

“There are promising signs that the Labour government’s plan for change is already starting to turn around 14 years of Tory failure.”

She pointed to falling NHS waiting lists, breakfast clubs in primary schools and the increase in the minimum wage.

“But we know people aren’t yet fully feeling the benefit and we are just as impatient for change as the rest of the country,” she said. “However the results turn out this evening, this Labour government will go further and faster in turning our country around and giving Britain the future it deserves.”

Polls have closed in a series of elections across England which could see Nigel Farage’s Reform UK deal blows to both Labour and the Conservatives.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour faces a battle to hold on to the Runcorn and Helsby seat in the Commons, with Reform hoping to take a seat the governing party won convincingly at the 2024 general election.

Kemi Badenoch faces her first test as Tory leader with the party braced for a difficult set of results, with both Reform and the Liberal Democrats hopeful of stealing council seats last contested in 2021 at the height of Boris Johnson’s popularity with Conservative voters.

Many parts of the country did not have a vote but real elections are in some ways a much better indicator of a party’s political strength than the polls.

The Independent’s political editor David Maddox explains: