The Prime Minister had a nightmare overnight as his Party took a battering in traditional Labour heartlands from Reform.

Nigel Farage even suggested Reform UK was on course for a general election victory after taking council seats from Labour in early local election results.

While Reform’s gains exceeded 180 seats when results were in from 26 of the 136 councils in the early hours of Friday, Labour lost more than 130, including in its traditional northern heartlands.

Keir Starmer’s Party lost key London council Wandsworth to no party majority after shedding six seats, leaving it with 28.

Sir Keir’s party went into Thursday’s local elections expected to lose up to 1,850 councillors, with senior figures describing the contest as ‘tough’.

Initial results painted a bleak picture for the Prime Minister.

Although Labour’s starting position means it retains control of Halton Council, the shift in vote share combined with losses elsewhere in the north west kicked off a difficult night for Sir Keir.

Those results included losses to Reform in Chorley, in Lancashire, and Wigan, in Greater Manchester.

A national drubbing is likely to reignite speculation about Sir Keir’s leadership of the party and the country.

Before polls closed, The Times reported that Energy Secretary and former Labour leader Ed Miliband had privately urged the Prime Minister to set out a timetable for his departure after the elections.

Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, whose wife Pamela Hargreaves lost her seat in Reform’s clean sweep, said Sir Keir should go.

He said: ‘It’s clear to me that the Prime Minister should take this opportunity to set out a timetable for his own departure, and then allow for the widest possible leadership election that includes all the talents of our party.’

But Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy urged his party not to play ‘pass the parcel’ with the leadership in response to the election results.

He told the BBC there were ‘questions that we have to answer’ but there were ‘no circumstances in which the answer to the questions that the British people are raising is to change the leader yet again’.

Labour sources also pointed to the heavy defeat suffered by the party in 1999 before Sir Tony Blair went on to win re-election by a landslide in 2001.

There were some bright spots for Labour as it clung on in Lincoln, Reading and Salford.