Election results bleak for Starmer - but plans to replace him may be fading

The early results were dire for Labour, as the results video lays bare - but what matters more is the reaction of Labour MPs.

After all, they are the judge, jury and executioner of a Labour prime minister, and his future lies in their hands.

And this morning, they were more emotional and more angry than they - and I - were expecting, and that's before the losses in Scotland and Wales. But still - where does that leave Keir Starmer?

Politics latest: Reform UK make big gains as Labour lose control of core councils

Results like this would, in theory, be more than enough to justify the prime minister's party demanding his head.

The numbers are bleak, Labour has dropped to third place and some believe the PM's early response has been tone deaf. But is it enough for a coup?

May elections - results as they happen

I'm aware that even this week some cabinet members on the party's left were discussing going en masse in a delegation to Number 10 this morning. They would demand the prime minister sets out a timetable for his departure - and take things from there.

But last night there was a sign that even this plan was fading away, and it came the moment the first cabinet minister appeared to show a bit of ankle.

The Times reported overnight that Ed Miliband initiated a conversation with Keir Starmer two weeks ago about whether he should go.

Team Miliband say they have an "alternative" version of that conversation but won't say how, and neither they nor the PM deny the report outright.

But what happened shortly after The Times report was telling: cabinet ministers who previously indicated they might head to Downing Street today were distancing themselves from the Miliband move, saying it was done without their knowledge.

The implication was that, after all the chat, they aren't quite ready to plunge the knife.

And nor is there any sign - yet - of a letter, as the party waits for further results and tries to work out what to do.

Read more:
What the results so far are telling us, in maps and charts

The truth is the overnight results present Labour MPs with two massive problems.

The first is well known - that there is no obvious answer to the question of who should succeed the PM. The favoured candidate of the cabinet and the Tribune group of left-wing MPs, Andy Burnham, remains outside the Commons.

But the second was revealed last night.

In the aftermath of February's Gorton and Denton by-election, many in the party assumed the loss to the Greens was a symptom of Starmer's failure to demonstrate "Labour values" - code for being more left-wing. But the results overnight suggest a different challenge for Labour: that the threat from Reform UK is bigger and more urgent.

Swathes of council seats in the Red Wall were won off Labour by Reform and the party is also at risk on its right flank.

Starmer's former chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, spent much of his time in office trying to protect the party from a threat from the right. His influence now gone, and it's back with a vengeance.

Plans from some to target Shabana Mahmood's immigration reforms and water down or scrap the reforms to indefinite leave to remain, look far less certain than they did 12 hours ago.

So while the herd might move in the next few days, Starmer will attempt to fill the gap, and with only two proper sitting days in the Commons in the whole of May, plotting in Westminster is hard.

On balance, I think the scale of the drubbing itself is not enough to precipitate a change of leader. I think the challenge is deferred until Number 10 faces its next crisis, which could well be this side of the summer.

That's because, as it stands, it makes little rational sense to change leaders this month if the goal is to improve Labour's standing.

But one Labour MP messaged to say that emotion, not strategy, may get in the way.

"I see why this is the moment of peril in a way I didn't hours ago. It's the collective grief and anger that could absolutely take him out," they wrote in the hours after the polls closed.

(c) Sky News 2026: Election results bleak for Starmer - but plans to replace him may be fading