Does Labour's election bloodbath mean the end for Keir Starmer? Our presenter panel responds

As I speak, the Labour Party knows this is bad, very bad for them. The only questions are how bad it is and what to do next. Hold or fold on Keir Starmer? The jury is still out, although he says he will stay.

Reform UK took enough votes in Brexit-backing areas to claim the night as theirs, but Nigel Farage’s assertion that his is the only truly national party feels premature to me. There is no doubting his impact, or his party’s impact, on our politics, though. It is entirely possible that he reaches Number 10.

The Tories are down but not out, having won Westminster, but it's a long road to recovery, and they know it. It's funny how Brexit is still eating them alive, isn't it? This time, Nigel Farage is the shark circling the boat.

That other populist, Zack Polanski, will be pleased with the Greens' performance. Plenty more results are still to come in areas where they can realistically win.

The Liberal Democrats swept the board in one London borough, winning more than half the vote. They, too, will be pleased with their performance overall.

So where does that leave us? With five big parties, and a political system that looks more fragmented by the election. Perhaps this is the end of red-and-blue dominance. Perhaps not. But it is certainly harder than ever to argue that British politics still fits comfortably into a two-party frame.

Proportional representation, anyone?

Only one sure thing can be deduced from last night’s council elections, and I’m sorry to disappoint Mr Farage, but Reform PLC winning the next general election isn’t it.

No. The only certainty to be drawn from this latest sea change in local government is that Sir Keir Starmer’s toast…But then I’ve been saying that for a long, long time now, and he’s still here!

His supporters might have hoped the PM’s endless flip-flopping on domestic policy, lack of any apparent vision for the country, poor decision-making over Peter Mandelson, to cite but one example and dire approval ratings might be offset, even late into the 11th hour, by his reticence to join Donald Trump in another expensive Forever War. Wrong.

While those in the party who’ve long wanted Starmer gone were happy to bide their time, knowing what lay in store last night. Their thinking? If the PM goes now, he’ll carry a heap of Labour’s brown and smelly failings with him, leaving the way clear, well, a little clearer, for his successor.

Reform might have made huge gains despite all the recent scandals that have dogged Farage and his mob of late but the Greens and Lib Dems made big strides too: we are witnessing the death knell of two party politics and yet instead of a Reform government at the next election as Farage and his supporters crave, I suspect we are about to enter an era of coalition politics and the quicker our politicians own up to this the better.

We've known for a while now that the two-party system is crumbling.

I don’t know whether the era of two-party politics is over for good, but it is certainly no longer the dynamic we are operating within.

That is good news in one sense. For years, the country has seemed to oscillate between two options that ought to be different but too often end up feeling like more of the same.

But it also points to a rising appetite for populist politics. And it doesn’t look as though seeing what has happened in the United States has made many British people pause and reflect on where that can lead.

For a long time, I argued that, after the dying gasps of the Conservative government and the rapid turnover of leaders that characterised that era, what the country wanted was stability. By that logic, Keir Starmer, for all his unpopularity, should remain in post.

I’ve changed my mind since seeing the local election results. A big part of Reform’s victory, along with the support for the Greens and, to a lesser extent, the Liberal Democrats, felt like a message to Starmer specifically.

I don’t think this was an election fought on local community issues. I think it was the country trying to send a message to the leadership.

Reform’s full-page advertorial in a newspaper yesterday, with its slogan about getting Starmer out, told you everything you need to know about the mood it was trying to tap into.

What concerns me most, though, is Reform itself.

There is a Teflon quality to Nigel Farage. Questions about money, allegations of bullying, and some of the vile things he has said about immigrants, disabled people and the NHS seem to make no difference at all. None of it cuts through. None of it sticks.

The fact that around a third of those who turned out to vote would still back a party with that man at the helm, in spite of everything, says something both fascinating and concerning about their psyche.

It's nothing new for a governing party to go backwards in local elections, but the extent to which voters have turned on Labour is quite something. Sir Keir Starmer's record unpopularity has made the party electoral poison.

Reform's gains in the north and midlands will surprise no one, but look at how even the Tories have been able to profit from Labour's woes.

Neither YouGov nor More in Common's MRP analysis predicted the Conservatives would take Westminster or Wandsworth, yet they've won back the former and are likely to control the latter.

The reason they've been able to do so is not that voters have somehow fallen in love with Kemi Badenoch, but because the Tories' main opposition there was Labour.

Worse still for Starmer is the likely humiliation coming down the tracks in Wales and Scotland, where Plaid Cymru are expected to make history, and the SNP looks set to retain power.

Downing Street can spin these results however it wants, but make no mistake, the Prime Minister is toxic to the Labour brand. The only question now is how long he survives.

This has been a bad night for the Prime Minister and his party. This was always going to be a bad night for the Prime Minister, but for Labour figures on the ground, that won’t make it hurt any less. And the worst may be yet to come.

Even Labour MPs who are usually supportive tell me this morning that a challenge to him will be "hard to stave off. Which is exactly what our opponents want. That might save him for a while longer. But it is just a matter of time.”

For what it’s worth, I think he’ll survive the next few days. But mostly just because the challengers are not ready for their own reasons.

Over the next hours, we can expect more of the same from Sir Keir, insisting he will carry on. A big speech is planned for Monday, where we are told he is likely to strike a more optimistic tone when talking about the country’s future and his vision for it.

I do, though, agree with that MP. It is just a matter of time: Sir Keir Starmer won’t lead his party into the next general election.

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Edited by Katy Ronkin.

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