Faster, fairer, or further right? Labour MPs divided over local election fallout

Rifts within the Labour Party have been exposed as MPs delivered a range of responses on how the party should respond to their disappointing performance in the local elections.

MPs have called for urgent introspection from the government as Reform UK made gains across England, with Labour losing two-thirds of the seats they were defending.

Reform gained control of ten councils, including Durham, and won the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby from Labour by just six votes.

While government ministers and party loyalists have stressed the need for Labour to go “further and faster” to deliver change, others have said the party should reverse unpopular policies or be tougher on immigration to see off the threat of Reform.

READ MORE: Council by council Labour gains and losses – and its position in each mayor race

‘Going faster to deliver for Britain’

Following the local elections, Prime Minister said in an op-ed in The Times that while there is “real, tangible proof” that things are going in the right direction, “people aren’t yet feeling the benefits”.

He said: “The lesson of these elections isn’t that the country needs more politicians’ promises of ideological zealotry. It isn’t that there is some easy solution, as promised by our opponents. It’s that now is the time to crank up the pace on giving people the country they are crying out for.”

His words were echoed by ministers Luke Pollard, Matthew Pennycook and Sarah Jones, who took to social media to say: “The government is hungry for change too. We will go faster to deliver for Britain.”

While stressing the positive change Labour has delivered over the last ten months, Glasgow South MP Gordon McKee acknowledged that people would “keep voting for change until they get change”.

He said: “One of the lessons for us is we’ve got to go further and faster with the change we’re delivering.”

Reform UK won’t deliver the change our country needs. pic.twitter.com/PfmVUeFdi2

— Gordon McKee MP (@GordonMcKeeMP) May 3, 2025

READ MORE: Runcorn blame game begins – why did Labour lose?

‘We must be the party of the patriotic working classes’

While Starmer cautioned against responding to the results by “claiming that there is some simple, ideological fix”, it hasn’t stopped some of his colleagues in Parliament from calling for a shift rightwards to fight off Reform.

In an op-ed for the Mail on Sunday, Blue Labour parliamentary leader Dan Carden warned that the results were a matter of “life or death for this Labour government – and for the Labour Party”.

He claimed that people had expressed anger over “public services that don’t work… low wages and sky-high bills… [and] a political class that listens to lobbyists and consultants, not citizens.”

“It was the working class that turned its back on Labour. In their eyes, the political establishment has for decades failed to provide a well-run health service, build the homes we need or control immigration and asylum.”

He said the government “restore the strength” of the armed forces and suggested “closing half our universities and turning them into vocational colleges” to rebuild skills required for production.

READ MORE: ‘Results so far say one thing: voters think change isn’t coming fast enough’

Jo White, chair of the Red Wall Caucus, said that the response from the leadership “isn’t going to wash” and called on the party to do a “reset”.

“Sir Keir Starmer has shown strong leadership internationally and he needs to show the same leadership in our own country and stop the government pussyfooting around.”

She called for more decisive action from the leadership, drawing comparison with US President Donald Trump in urging Starmer to “follow his instincts and issue some executive orders”.

Pendle and Clitheroe MP Jonathan Hinder, a member of both Blue Labour and the Red Wall Caucus, also stressed the need to address the issue Reform are best known for – immigration.

Sharing a LabourList op-ed from Ben Glover, Hinder said: “If we don’t reconnect with our traditional base in the north, the Midlands, Wales, it’s over. We must be the party of the patriotic working classes, or we are nothing.”

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‘We will never out-Farage Farage on immigration’

However, others, particularly members of the left-wing Socialist Campaign Group, have rejected such a move and instead urged the government to “urgently change course” by taxing the wealthy and dropping controversial plans to restrict disability benefit.

In her op-ed for LabourList, Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome warned the government against a move to “double down on decisions that disproportionately harm working class communities and have resulted in these defeats”.

“We will never out-Farage Farage on immigration – nor would it be morally right for us to attempt it. Most Reform voters support progressive policies on wealth redistribution, improving workers’ rights and nationalisation in some sectors, which are also popular with our base. These are the areas we should be focusing on.”

Mother of the House Diane Abbott echoed this view and described the direction of the government so far, particularly on welfare reform and the winter fuel allowance, as “alarming”.

She told ITV News: “Since we won the general election, we’ve done a series of actions which are the most painful for some of the most marginalised and poor communities. I hope that we will learn the lessons from what has happened, but if we don’t, we are going to find ourselves in a very politically vulnerable position. These aren’t just knee-jerk votes, these are votes that may not come back.”

Runcorn shows Labour must change course. People voted for real change last July & an end to austerity. The first 10 months haven’t been good enough or what the people want & if we don’t improve people’s living standards then the next government will be an extreme right wing one.

— Brian Leishman (@BrianLeishmanMP) May 2, 2025

Brian Leishman, MP for Alloa and Grangemouth, said that the party’s loss in Runcorn demonstrated the need for Labour to “change course” and said the idea that people want a faster implementation of the government’s plan is “miles off the mark”.

“The arrogance and ignorance that Labour members or the wider electorate want more of the last ten months is seriously misguided.

“People voted for real change last July and an end to austerity. The first ten months haven’t been good enough or what the people want and if we don’t improve people’s living standards, then the next government will be an extreme right wing one.”

Chair of the business and trade committee Liam Byrne also cautioned chasing Reform voters to the right, warning it could unravel the “progressive coalition” Labour needs to win at the next general election.

In a post on Substack, he said: “Keir is right to say we need to go further, faster. But in doing so, we ought to be clear that we are determined to let Labour be Labour – and we plan to avoid doing the things that progressive, compassionate parties try to avoid, like increasing inequality, poverty and vulnerability.”

READ MORE: ‘‘Labour has lost in Runcorn – here are the eight things the party should do now‘

‘Tone deaf to repeat we will move further and faster’

Other MPs were particularly scathing in their attack on Starmer’s response to defeats at the local elections, with his comments being described as “tone deaf” by some.

South Shields MP Emma Lewell said measures including the means testing of the winter fuel allowance, denial of compensation for Waspi women and the proposed disability benefit cuts, had broken the trust of the electorate.

“Trust matters. If you promise people that you will be focused on serving the public and then do not listen to them, do not expect them to vote for you. People are fed up of politicians not doing what they say they will do.

“We inherited a mess, but we knew we would, so did the post-war government. It’s about choices. It is tone deaf to keep repeating we will move further and faster on our plan for change. What is needed is a change of plan.”

Ian Byrne, who had the whip withdrawn for six months after backing an SNP amendment to scrap the two child benefit cap, also described the government’s response as “tone deaf” and said Labour must “transform the economic situation” of working class people.

“If we do not improve the situation that millions of working class people find themselves in after 14 years of austerity, we will be rolling the carpet to Reform at the next general election.

“I urge the Labour leadership to now truly reflect and change course. If they don’t, I genuinely fear the country will face the consequences of a far right government in four years’ time.”

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‘Time for an economic reset’

The most senior MP to criticise the Prime Minister for his response to the elections is former transport secretary Louise Haigh, who said Starmer “failed to acknowledge any need to change course but simply committed itself to double down on the plan, whilst haemorrhaging votes to the parties of our left and right”.

Speaking to The Times, she called on the government to ditch the fiscal rules and instead pursue a more radical economic policy in order to fend off Farage’s offer to voters.

“It is now urgent that we develop a vision and a strategy that is confident in our values, sets the terms of the debate and takes the fight to Reform, rather than letting the fight come to us. That is the only way to hold our perilous coalition together. I believe the only way to achieve that is through an economic reset, through ripping up our self-imposed tax rules and by a serious programme of investment and reindustrialisation.

“Voters are desperate for change and they’ve sensed from us that we’re not capable or interested in delivering it.”

‘We can fix link with working class communities – or die’

MPs also said that the local election results exposed the “existential” threat posed by Reform, with Rother Valley MP Jake Richards highlighting that roughly 85 percent of the most deprived wards are now held by Reform, when previously Labour held 61 percent.

“Labour must take on Reform because it’s the party’s moral purpose, not simply for electoral regions – which makes it a necessity.”

Crewe and Nantwich MP Connor Naismith was even more blunt in his warning about Reform and said: “This set of election results are just part of a story which is long in the marking. A story in which the historic link between the Labour Party and the working class communities it was formed to represent is fracturing. We can acknowledge it and resolve to fix it, or we can die.”

Read more on the 2025 local elections:

Results on the day

Analysis of the 2025 election results

• Starmer: ‘Labour must go further and faster to deliver after Runcorn defeat’
• Runcorn blame game begins – why did Labour lose?
• ‘Labour has lost in Runcorn – here are the eight things the party should do now‘
• MPs who could lose their seat on Runcorn by-election swing to Reform
• ‘Results so far say one thing: voters think change isn’t coming fast enough’
• Three ways to measure Labour’s success tonight
• ‘Uxbridgitis: If election results are grim, let’s not learn the wrong lessons again’
• Where’s Keir? PM barely features in Labour party election broadcasts for the locals
• The meme elections: Labour’s social media pivot to take fight to Farage

LabourList’s on-the-ground reports from the campaign

• Hull and East Yorkshire: Labour candidate spars with Reform’s boxing star in UK’s most disillusioned city
• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Nik Johnson on why he’s standing down and Anna Smith on knife-edge Labour-Tory fight to replace him
• West of England: Tory and Green threats, Dan Norris and low voter awareness
• Lancashire: Long shadow of Gaza looms over key battleground

Inside the Runcorn campaign

• Mood on the doorstep: Labour’s last push for Tory voters to keep out Reform
• At least 150 Labour MPs visit – but Keir Starmer ain’t one
• Karen Shore interview: Labour candidate on Reform, the NHS and closing asylum hotels
• Runcorn poll: One in ten Labour voters expected to back Reform

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