Results boost Labour hopes of general election win

Labour is planning to target the south of England heavily at the general election as the local election results show some “blue wall” seats are turning red, Keir Starmer’s election chief has said.

The shadow cabinet minister Pat McFadden said Labour was advancing in southern Tory heartlands and it was wrong to think the Lib Dems were the only challengers to the Conservatives in the south.

Last Thursday’s local and mayoral elections had given Labour the “confidence and belief” that it can win a general election convincingly, he said.

Rishi Sunak faces turmoil in his party after its heavy losses, as the former home secretary Suella Braverman said the prime minister’s “plan is not working”.

Starmer hailed “seismic” results, including winning a landslide byelection in Blackpool South, as well as mayoralties in the East Midlands, North East and North Yorkshire, which covers Sunak’s own constituency. The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, won a historic third term, while Labour’s Richard Parker defeated Tory incumbent Andy Street in a tight West Midlands mayoral race.

Labour also ousted a number of Conservative police and crime commissioners, and took control of at least seven new councils, including in Buckinghamshire, Essex, Hampshire and Sussex in the south of England.

The Conservatives emerged in third place in terms of the number of council seats won, behind the second-placed Liberal Democrats, for the first time since 1996.