Polanksi hails 'historic' win in Hackney, tells PM to step down
In UK local elections, anti-immigrant Reform soars and anti-Israel Greens win 1st mayoralty
Starmer says he won’t quit; new mayor of Hackney reportedly blocked letter praising London police for response to antisemitic attack; Farage says results show ‘truly historic shift’
by Agencies and ToI Staff · The Times of IsraelBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer insisted Friday that he will not resign after bruising elections that saw his governing Labour Party suffer big losses, with major gains for the anti-immigrant Reform UK, and the far-left, anti-Israel Green Party winning its first directly elected mayoralty.
Both Reform and the Greens face accusations of antisemitism and bigotry at a time when Jews in the UK are under increasing threat.
The local and regional elections are widely seen as an unofficial referendum on Starmer, whose popularity has plummeted since he led Labour to power less than two years ago.
Early results underscored the fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system, with the once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties losing votes not only to Reform, but to the left-wing Green Party at the other end of the political spectrum, and to nationalists in Scotland and Wales. The centrist Liberal Democrats made some gains.
The main beneficiary was the populist Reform UK party of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, which gained more than 400 council seats in England, and could form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales to the pro-independence Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru in results later on Friday.
Across the UK, Labour lost votes to Reform UK on its right, and also to the Green Party, whose popularity has risen under self-described “eco populist” leader Zack Polanski.
Polanski has made anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian issues a centerpiece of his party’s platform, and he and many of his party’s candidates are also alleged to have engaged in antisemitism.
The Greens hoped to win hundreds of council seats in urban centers and university towns, and took the mayoralty of traditionally Labour-supporting Hackney in east London. Hackney Council is responsible for Stamford Hill, home to tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Speaking outside the vote count, the Jewish, anti-Israel Polanski hailed the “historic victory” and declared “two-party politics is no longer dying; it is dead and buried.”
“My message to Keir Starmer is that he needs to go. But I don’t think that’s my message; I think that’s the country message,” said Polanski. “We’ve seen for a long time now his popularity has been going, and he’s lost for the trust of the country.”
Councillor Zoë Garbett, who will now serve as Hackney’s mayor, reportedly blocked a letter praising London’s Metropolitan Police for their response to the antisemitic terror attack in Golders Green last month.
British media have reported that the issue of the war in Gaza was high on the agenda for voters in Hackney. Garbett said last week that voters in Hackney, where Labour had been the biggest party on the council since the 1970s, were dissatisfied with Labour for a range of reasons, from local housing issues to their stance on the Gaza war.
Farage hails shift
Anti-immigrant Reform UK, led by the veteran nationalist politician Farage, won hundreds of local council seats in working-class areas in England’s north, such as Hartlepool, that once were solid Labour turf, and also made gains from the Conservatives in areas like Havering on the eastern edge of London.
Farage said the local election results had demonstrated a “truly historic shift in British politics” and they were now “the most national of all the parties. We are here to stay.”
Farage, 61, and his populist party have long been accused of flirting with racism, something which both have denied. Former classmates have alleged that Farage made a Nazi salute, joked about gas chambers and said, “Hitler was right,” among other expressions of support for Nazism.
Related: Far-right UK lawmaker Nigel Farage denies saying ‘Hitler was right’ as a schoolboy
Starmer says won’t walk away
With about a quarter of the votes counted on Friday morning, Starmer said he took responsibility for the “very tough” results but would not quit.
“The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved,” he said. “I was elected to meet those challenges, and I’m not going to walk away from those challenges and plunge the country into chaos.”
Labour was also braced for humiliating results in voting for the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales due to be announced later in the day.
The party also looked set for more losses in London as the Greens pick up disaffected left-wingers in urban areas with an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian message.
“The results are tough, they are very tough, and there’s no sugarcoating it,” Starmer said.
“We have lost brilliant Labour representatives across the country; these are people who put so much into their communities, so much into our party.
“And that hurts, and it should hurt, and I take responsibility,” he added.
The ballot is the biggest electoral test for the beleaguered Starmer since Labour ousted the Conservatives following 14 years in power in a landslide election victory less than two years ago.
Big losses for Labour could amplify calls for Starmer, 63, to resign or face a long-rumored party leadership challenge.
He insisted Friday that “days like this don’t weaken my resolve to deliver the change that I promised.”
Before polls closed on Thursday night, The Times reported that Energy Secretary and former Labour leader Ed Miliband had privately urged Starmer to set out a timetable to step down after the elections.
Britain’s media is full of rumors that ex-deputy prime minister Angela Rayner or Health Secretary Wes Streeting could try to oust Starmer after the results.
Neither is universally popular within Labour, however, and would need the backing of 20 percent of the party’s MPs to launch a contest.
But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy insisted early Friday that a change of leadership would be a mistake.
“You don’t change the pilot during the flight, you carry on… Sometimes, particularly incumbent governments, have it hard,” he told BBC radio.
He conceded there was a “lot of frustration,” but “sometimes our mistakes have been heard more than our achievements.”
Missteps
The ballot is deciding around 5,000 local council seats, out of 16,000, across England, while in Wales and Scotland, voters are electing new devolved parliaments.
Reform and the Greens are benefiting as expected from widespread disillusionment with Starmer’s government.
Critics say Starmer has swerved from one policy misstep to another, and he has been embroiled in a scandal over Peter Mandelson, who was sacked as ambassador to Washington over his links to US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
He has also failed to fulfil his main promise of spurring economic growth, with impatient Britons still suffering a cost-of-living crisis, including from high energy prices.
The former lawyer is now one of the most unpopular prime ministers ever.