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The polls were terrible, the predictions dire and even one of his predecessors as Labour leader, Ed Miliband, had reportedly told Keir Starmer he should set a timetable for his resignation.

But for the prime minister, as polls closed in Wales, Scotland and many regions of England, there would be no consideration of such a course. “To all the Labour members and volunteers who have supported local campaigns across the country: thank you,” he posted on X late on Thursday. “Together we will build a stronger and fairer Britain.”

Well, maybe. As the long night went on, result after result in overlit leisure centres across England suggested this was going to be every bit as dire a set of results for Labour – and its leader – as feared. Miliband’s spokesperson may have disputed, if not quite emphatically, reports that he has urged Starmer to consider his position, but before 2am the first Labour MP was saying so openly.

It had been a “terrible” night for Labour, said an angry Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, and it was time to stop the “political cowardice” of the party’s leadership. “I’ve seen canvassers working night and day in this election and it’s all been for naught, and the reason has absolutely nothing to do with them … I think the very best thing the prime minister could do now is address the nation tomorrow and set out a timetable for his departure.”

As the night progressed, the scale of the challenge facing Labour and the other parties in checking the dramatic advance of Reform UK became more and more apparent. Nigel Farage’s party has had a sustained lead in the opinion polls, so a dramatic surge in its council representation in Brexit-voting areas was expected.

But the scale of the party’s advance remains remarkable. By the early hours, the BBC’s election analyst John Curtice noted, Reform had claimed 45% of all council seats that had been declared so far. On Friday morning, it captured control of Havering, its first London council, and a gleeful Farage appeared in the bright morning sunshine to declare its town hall “under new management”, to roars from his supporters.

Not everyone may agree with Farage’s assertion that “there is no more left-right. It is gone, it is out of the window, it’s finished,” but it is hard to dispute that the night’s results represented “a truly historic shift in British politics”.

The Reform leader was less forthcoming, however, when asked by reporters about his own funding, following Guardian revelations that that he was given £5m by the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne shortly before announcing he would stand in the 2024 British general election “Yeah, yeah, we’ll talk about that any other time you like,” he said, moving swiftly on to another questioner.

Four hours later, the party took control of Essex county council from the Conservatives – the party leader Kemi Badenoch’s local authority.

English council results aside, the eventual standings in the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly seem set to mark an equally dramatic advance in Reform’s fortunes. As counting progressed in the two nations on Friday, successive results indicated that while the Scottish National party was set to win an unprecedented fifth successive parliamentary term and Plaid Cymru on course to replace Labour, leading the Senedd for the first time, Reform had made gravity-defying surges in both nations.

Reform were not the only party celebrating dramatic wins. There were whoops of delight among Green party activists in Hackney, north London, where Zoë Garbutt became the first directly elected mayor in the party’s history. “Across London and the country, people have made it clear that they are desperate for an alternative to this failing Labour government,” she said in her acceptance speech. “It’s not old parties versus new parties. This is about a system of fear versus a movement of hope.”

The party’s leader in England and Wales, Zack Polanski, called it “a historic victory”. “Two party politics is not just dying. It is dead, and it is buried. And whether it is here where Labour has been rejected or it is around the country, it is very clear that the new politics is the Green party versus Reform.”

The Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, was also bullish, after the party gained control of Portsmouth and Stockport, while in south-west London the party now holds 51 out of 55 seats on Sutton council and every single seat (out of 54) in Richmond.

“Labour and the Conservatives are facing extinction level losses because people are rightly fed up with the appalling mess they have made of the country,” he said. “The Liberal Democrats are now the only party strong enough to stand up to the populist extremes and protect our country from chaos. We will be the rallying point for all those who believe in building things up, not burning them down.”

At least Labour were not the only party having a terrible night, with the Conservative party losing more than 180 seats by lunchtime on Friday. There was some consolation for Badenoch, however, that the Tories regained control of Westminster and Wandsworth, even if not everyone will have agreed with her interpretation of this, that “the Conservatives are coming back” in London.

Perhaps inevitably, as gloomy result after gloomy result for Labour was announced throughout the morning, there were some calls for Starmer to go.

Daren Hale, the leader of the Labour group on Hull council, where Labour lost eight seats, said: “What we were getting on every doorstep... was not about the Labour Party per se - certainly not about local councillors - it was about the leadership of the Labour party. I’m afraid councillors up and down the land… have paid the price for that. Keir Starmer needs to look at these results, reflect upon them and do the right thing and go.”

Maryam Eslamdoust, the general secretary of the TSSA transport union, was more pointed, comparing Starmer to Joe Biden in refusing to stand aside for a candidate who could defeat the right. “Unions like the TSSA will not stand by in the wake of this electoral disaster and let Keir Starmer pave the way for a hard right government led by Nigel Farage.” The former Labour chair Ian Lavery said Starmer could “kill Labour” if he didn’t stand down.

For the prime minister himself, however, though these were clearly “very tough” results, there would be no stepping down. “The voters have sent a message about the pace of change, how they want their lives improved. They was elected to meet those challenges. And I’m not going to walk away from those challenges and plunge the country into chaos.”