London, 2 May 2025 (PA Media/dpa/MIA) - Votes are being counted in elections which could see Labour lose a previously safe Commons seat and the Tories suffer a "battering" in council contests across England.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK could deal major blows to both Labour and the Conservatives, while the Liberal Democrats and the Greens are also confident of success at the expense of the two biggest Westminster parties.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour party faces a twin challenge of council and mayoral elections across England and a UK Parliamentary by-election in the Runcorn and Helsby constituency, a seat Labour won convincingly in 2024, but that is expected to go down to the wire in a contest with Reform UK.

Kemi Badenoch faces her first test as Tory leader as the party braced for a difficult set of results, with both Reform and the Liberal Democrats hopeful of stealing council seats last contested in 2021 at the height of Boris Johnson's popularity with Conservative voters.

The Runcorn and Helsby by-election was triggered when former Labour member of parliament (MP) Mike Amesbury quit after admitting punching a constituent.

The 2024 result suggests it should be a safe Labour seat – Amesbury won 53% of the vote – but Reform's Sarah Pochin is the bookmakers' favourite to secure a by-election victory.

More than 1,600 council seats are up for grabs across 23 local authorities, while four regional mayors and two local mayors will be elected.

Reform party leader Nigel Farage said he wanted to "smash the two-party system" and added: "We have fought a strong campaign. The two major parties are more fearful of the results tonight than we are."

Labour Party chairwoman Ellie Reeves said the elections "were always going to be a challenge" for her party because they were largely in areas "dominated by the Conservatives, often for decades."

She acknowledged voters "aren't yet fully feeling the benefit" of changes brought in since Starmer took office.

"However the results turn out this evening, this Labour government will go further and faster in turning our country around and giving Britain the future it deserves," she said.

Conservative frontbencher Helen Whately said "we know we're going to have a really hard night" because 2021 was a "high watermark" for the Conservatives.

Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey said Badenoch faced "a reckoning at the ballot box as former Conservative voters across the home counties rally behind the Liberal Democrats."

He said: "We are expecting to see big gains against the Conservatives in their former Middle England heartlands."

The Green Party was also hoping for success in local contests, with co-leader Carla Denyer saying: "We are taking seats from both the Conservatives and Labour up and down the country as voters, understandably, move away from the tired old parties that have let us all down."

MIA file photo