Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership came under attack this morning as Labour looked on course for a disastrous election result in Scotland and setbacks in England and Wales.
In what would represent an astonishing result, Labour was predicted to come third in Scotland, behind the SNP and the Conservatives.
The party has gone backwards in its former heartland, despite Mr Corbyn’s insistence that his leadership would help to revive Labour in Scotland. The party could to see its share of the vote fall by nine points.
The SNP secured a clear victory in the Holyrood election, but it may not have secured the overall majority it won in 2011. Labour appears likely to become the first main opposition party to lose council seats for more than 30 years, though its losses look set to be far lower than the 150 seats some experts forecast.
Predictions that it could lose control of key southern councils looked wide of the mark, with the party holding on to control of Crawley, Southampton, Norwich and Hastings. Labour also won two parliamentary by-elections in safe Westminster seats. In Wales Labour lost the totemic Rhondda seat in the Welsh Assembly to the Plaid Cymru leader, Leanne Wood.
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Labour figures immediately warned that the party was facing a very poor result under Mr Corbyn. Neil Coyle, MP for Bermondsey, said his party was “moving away from government” under Mr Corbyn. Another Labour MP, Jo Cox, said the result was “not a route back to power” and described it as “incredibly disappointing”.
Pete Hain, the former cabinet minister who is on the left of the party, told the BBC that Labour should be “should be gaining seats at this stage in the cycle, not losing them”.
“The leadership has to show that it can win the centre ground, as well as doing what Jeremy has done very effectively in bringing the left back into the party,” he said. “What he hasn’t shown anything like an ability to do is win the centre ground votes that we need to win a general election.”
Emma Reynolds, the Labour MP for Wolverhampton North East, said the results were “not good enough”.
“We have done well in some areas, but l don’t think we should be content with either standing still or going backwards in other areas,” she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
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“I respect the fact that he is our leader. But he now has a responsibility to make sure that we are not just content with keeping our core vote. We really do have a lot of work to do if we want to get back on the route to power.” John Mann, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, told Sky News.
“The question we have to look at is we were all told Jeremy was going to be bring in these five million voters who haven’t voted before. It’s not happening – it hasn’t happened. Things haven’t changed. We haven’t got those new voters coming out at all. “
The leader of the Labour group on Portsmouth council, John Ferret, told the BBC that Mr Corbyn was “incapable of giving the leadership we need”.
The Labour team will point to better than expected results in England and an expected win for Sadiq Khan, its London mayoral candidate, as evidence that progress is being made. While there is no prospect of a coup against Mr Corbyn until after June’s EU referendum, his allies urged the party to give him more time to set out his strategy.
“You can’t judge Jeremy Corbyn on the basis of eight months in office,” said John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor. He also angered Labour insiders by saying that the party was making progress because it would reduce the 6.3 per cent vote share advantage secure by the Conservatives at the 2015 general election,
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“What we are looking to do is build over the next four years so that we steadily, steadily build our support and then we are ready for 2020,” he told Sky News. “I think that’s exactly what we will do, laying firm foundations over the next four years.”
Jon Trickett, shadow communities secretary, said Labour was “rebuilding its support and closing the gap the Tories had at the 2015 general election”.
While Labour lost control of Dudley council in the West Midlands, it managed to hold on to power elsewhere, including in key southern areas such as Exeter, Southampton, Crawley and Slough.
The Conservatives gained a handful of council seats, losing overall control of Worcester, but securing a majority in Peterborough. It was a good night for Ukip, which gained seats in Thurrock, Tamworth and Bolton and was on course to gain a foothold in the Welsh assembly.
Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader, said Labour had suffered “quite staggering” losses in Scotland. There were signs that the row over antisemitism that has engulfed Labour over the last two weeks had caused some losses. There was a large swing to Conservatives in the Sedgley ward in Bury, and the Eastwood constituency in Scotland, which have significant Jewish communities.