LONDON: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer suffered heavy early losses in elections on Friday, showing the depth of voter anger with his government and raising fresh doubts about his future just two years after a landslide general election victory.

Starmer’s Labour Party haemorrhaged support in areas reporting results overnight, including traditional strongholds in former industrial regions of central and northern England, along with some parts of London.

The main beneficiary was the anti-immigration populist Reform UK of Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, which gained more than 200 council seats in England, and could form the main opposition in Scotland and Wales to the pro-independence Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru.

“The picture has been pretty much as bad as anyone expected for Labour, or worse,” said John Curtice, Britain’s most respected pollster.

The elections for 136 local councils in England, alongside the devolved parliaments in Scotland and Wales, represent the most significant test of public opinion before the next general election due in 2029.

Lawmakers in the governing Labour Party said if the party performs poorly in Scotland, loses power in Wales, and fails to hold many of the roughly 2,500 council seats it is defending in England, then Starmer will face renewed pressure to quit or set out a timetable for his departure.

Insurgent parties fracture two-party system

The early results showed the continued fracturing of Britain’s traditional two-party system into a multi-party democracy, in what analysts say represents one of the biggest transformations in British politics in the last century.

The once-dominant Labour and Conservative parties were losing votes to Reform, and at the other end of the political spectrum to the left-wing pro-environment Green Party, while nationalist parties were expected to win the elections in Scotland and Wales.

Farage said the results so far were “way exceeding” his expectations and represented a “historic change in British politics”.

Labour was wiped out in some of the most closely watched early results.

The party lost control of the council of Tameside in Greater Manchester for the first time in almost 50 years after Reform picked up all 14 seats Labour was defending.

In nearby Wigan, a former mining community it has controlled for more than 50 years, Labour also lost every one of the 20 seats it was defending to Reform, and in Salford, the party only held three of the 16 seats it was defending.

The results were “soul-destroying”, said Rebecca Long-Bailey, a Labour member of parliament for Salford.

While incumbent governments often struggle in mid-term elections, pollsters forecast that Labour could lose the most council seats in local elections since former Prime Minister John Major lost more than 2,000 in 1995, when his government was mired in endless corruption scandals.

The Reform UK party added 253 council seats in England with results in more than 4,200 seats still to be counted. The Labour party lost 185 seats, and the Conservative party was down 93 seats.

Most of the election results — including the seats in the Scottish and Welsh elections — are due to be declared on Friday afternoon and evening.

U-turns, scandals erode Starmer’s authority

Starmer, a former lawyer, was elected in 2024 with one of the largest parliamentary majorities in modern British history on the premise that he would bring stability, rather than charisma, after years of political chaos.

But his time in office has been marked by numerous policy U-turns, a rotating cast of advisers and the disastrous appointment of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to the United States, who was fired nine months into the job over his links to the late convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Starmer insists he will lead Labour into the next election, and the party has never successfully removed an incumbent prime minister in its 125-year history.

The prime minister is helped by the fact that two frontrunners to succeed him if he goes — Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner — are not yet in positions to mount leadership bids, and other potential rivals seem unwilling to move against him for now.

The energy minister Ed Miliband denied on Thursday a report in The Times newspaper that he had advised Starmer to consider setting out a timetable for his departure from Downing Street.

• Iran says struck US vessels after US attacks on ships and Iranian territory.
• US says Iran launched missiles, drones and small boats targeting destroyers.
• Iran state media says calm returned after several hours of exchanges.

WASHINGTON/DUBAI: The United States and Iran exchanged fire on Thursday in the most serious test yet of their month-long ceasefire, but Iran said the situation returned to normal while the Americans said they did not want to escalate.

Iran’s military said the US targeted two ships entering the Strait of Hormuz and carried out strikes on Iranian territory. The US military said it fired in response to Iranian attacks.

Trump told an ABC reporter that the ceasefire was still in effect and sought to downplay the exchange. “It’s just a love tap,” Trump told the reporter, according to her social media post. 

Iranian state media said after the strikes that the situation was back to normal.

The renewed hostilities broke out as Washington was awaiting Iran’s response to a US proposal that would stop the fighting but leave the most contentious issues, such as Iran’s nuclear programme, unresolved for now.

The two sides have occasionally exchanged gunfire since the ceasefire took effect on April 7.

Iran’s top joint military command accused the US of violating the ceasefire by targeting an Iranian oil tanker and another ship, and of carrying out air attacks on civilian areas on Qeshm Island in the strait and nearby coastal areas of Bandar Khamir Sirik on the mainland. The military said it responded by attacking US military vessels east of the Strait of Hormuz and south of the port of Chabahar.

A spokesperson for the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters said the strikes inflicted “significant damage,” but US Central Command said none of its assets were hit.

CENTCOM said Iran had used missiles, drones and small boats in the attack, which targeted three Navy destroyers. The US said it targeted missile and drone sites and other locations in response.

“CENTCOM does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces,” the statement added.

Iran’s Press TV later reported that following several hours of fire “the situation on Iranian islands and coastal cities by the Strait of Hormuz is back to normal now.”

This is not the first time the two sides have exchanged fire since the ceasefire started.

On Monday, the US military said it destroyed six Iranian small boats and intercepted Iranian cruise missiles and drones as Tehran sought to thwart a US naval effort to open shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

Ceasefire under pressure

Before the latest exchanges, the US had floated a proposal to formally end the conflict. But it does not address key US demands that Iran suspend its nuclear work and reopen the strait, which before the war handled one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas supply.

Tehran said it had not yet reached a conclusion on the emerging plan.

Separately, the US imposed sanctions on Thursday on Iraq’s deputy oil minister and three militia leaders over what it said was their support for Iran.

Israel, which has also been fighting Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, said on Thursday it had killed a Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on Beirut a day earlier, the first Israeli attack on the Lebanese capital since a ceasefire there was agreed last month.

A halt to Israeli strikes in Lebanon is a key Iranian demand in negotiations with Washington.

With the standoff over the frozen Iran war threatening a global economic meltdown, Washington and Tehran have scaled back their efforts to agree a comprehensive peace deal and now seek a limited pact putting off the harder issues.

This is what we know about the proposals under discussion and where they leave the big unresolved disputes behind the war:

At what stage are the discussions?

Sources in both camps have said the latest peace efforts are aimed at a temporary memorandum of understanding to halt the war and allow traffic through the Strait of Hormuz while they discuss a fuller deal.

The proposed framework would unfold in three stages: formally ending the war, resolving the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz and launching a 30-day window for negotiations on a broader agreement.

Gaps remain even on this limited plan, sources have said. Any wider deal would have to address intractable disputes such as Iran’s nuclear programme. The last deal over the nuclear programme — struck in 2015 and torn up by Trump in 2018 — took years of negotiations between large teams of technical experts.

What are the main issues?

Ending the war — US President Donald Trump says the war is near an end and can be resolved by Iran accepting terms. Iran does not trust him or Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Iranian officials point to their decision to attack in February despite a ceasefire that ended a previous US -Israeli air campaign last year. Both conflicts were launched unannounced during efforts to resolve issues diplomatically. Tehran also cites Israeli attacks during ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon as reasons to believe a truce will not hold and wants some form of external guarantee.

Hormuz and Gulf blockade — Tehran sees its control of Hormuz and Washington views its blockade of Iranian ports as their chief points of leverage. But both sides are hurting. Iran’s economy faces catastrophe, and its inability to export oil may mean a storage crunch and output cuts. Its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, meanwhile, is causing a worldwide energy crisis months before US midterm elections. Iran wants formal recognition of its control over Hormuz, though this would be opposed internationally.

Nuclear — the United States believes Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb. Iran has always denied this, saying its atomic programme is for peaceful purposes only. The focus is on its enrichment of uranium, which generates fuel for nuclear power but can also make material for a warhead. Washington wants Iran to give up its right to enrichment for 20 years and hand over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Iran wants its right to enrichment to be recognised. An agreement may eventually be possible including a years-long moratorium on enrichment and the export of its highly enriched uranium, but that still looks far off.

Ballistic missile — One main US demand before the war was for Iran to limit the range of its ballistic missiles so that they could not reach Israel. It says its war has succeeded in degrading Iran’s missile stocks, and it is not clear whether it would continue to insist on range limits in a bigger peace deal. Iran has always refused to discuss its ballistic missiles, saying its right to conventional weapons cannot be on the table and that it still has a large arsenal.

Sanction and frozen assets — Iran’s economy has been hurt by sanctions for years, contributing to the nationwide unrest in January. Tehran badly needs them to be lifted and frozen assets to be released. It also wants reparations for war damage, though there seems no chance now of the US agreeing to this, and it is not clear if it would stick to the demand as a condition for a deal.

Iran has previously said Israel’s war against its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon must be included in any peace deal. Israel rejects this, and it is not clear how far Iran would insist on it in future talks.

What do Israel and Gulf states think?

Israel is not directly involved in the peace effort. Netanyahu was eager to continue the war and would also be loath to subject Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah to a deal between Washington and Tehran.

Gulf states are not united on how to end the conflict. They have been targeted by Iran throughout the war and would oppose a deal that left Iran able to keep hitting them or impose controls on the Strait of Hormuz — their main trade route. They may fear that Washington will not prioritise their needs and concerns in talks.

Could European states, China or Russian play a role?

European states have their own sanctions on Iran and would want to be involved in any deal aimed at resolving the nuclear dispute. France, Germany and Britain were closely involved in the 2015 deal. European countries have offered to take a role in securing free passage in Hormuz after the war.

China is a major buyer of Gulf oil transiting the Strait of Hormuz. Iran may hope it would agree to be a guarantor in any deal, but it has given no indication it would want such a role.

Iran may also want Russia to play a role in any eventual agreement over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, though it is not clear if Washington would accept that.