After counting more than two million votes cast in the English council elections, a provisional National Share Estimate shows the Conservatives on just 26% of the vote, a 19-point drop compared with the 2019 general election and one of its worst ever performances in any set of local elections.

Labour‘s vote rises from 33% in 2019 to 35% on the current estimate, after more than half the wards have now declared.

The Liberal Democrats are on 16%, an increase of five percentage points on the 2019 election. This follows a familiar pattern where the party does better in council elections than in parliamentary elections.

Local election results: Relief for Sunak in key mayoral race

Other parties, such as the Greens, Reform, and independents, are projected to be on 22%.

This figure assumes also that votes for the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, places where no local elections took place, are unchanged from the previous election. The same condition applies to the 18 seats in Northern Ireland.

Assuming these changes in vote share occur uniformly across each of the newly drawn parliamentary constituencies in place for the next general election, Labour wins 294 seats and would overtake the Conservatives – but falls 32 seats short of gaining an overall majority.

The Conservatives fall from 372 seats on the new boundaries to just 242 seats, a projected loss of 130 seats. The Liberal Democrats rise from eight to 38 seats.

As is usual in such projections, there are individual constituencies where the count of local votes shows a party “winning” a constituency when the uniform swing suggests otherwise.

Two such examples are Aldershot and Plymouth Moor View, both of which fall to Labour when we aggregate local votes in wards lying within those constituencies.

Employing the same procedure, however, Labour’s seat tally suffers when local votes in constituencies such as Blackburn and Oldham West were “won” by independents when actual votes are counted.

Labour easily retains these constituencies when uniform swing is considered.

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The large vote for others highlights a growing tendency in local elections for some voters to support a range of smaller parties.

This year that tendency is exaggerated still further with the swing away from Labour towards independents in certain parts of the country.

The UK will appoint a new envoy to oversee a plan to ramp up the production of weapons and ammunition, which is now a “national priority”, the foreign secretary has revealed.

Lord Cameron, speaking on a visit to Ukraine, also underlined the importance of supporting the Ukrainian war effort against Russia, warning that the world was at an “absolutely critical tipping point” and Kyiv must prevail or else Europe faced a “very dangerous future”.

However, he cautioned against an idea from French President Emmanuel Macron to consider sending NATO troops to Ukraine to join the fight if Russia’s Vladimir Putin achieves a breakthrough, saying that such a move would be a “dangerous escalation”.

“I don’t think it is right to have NATO soldiers killing Russian soldiers,” the foreign secretary said in an interview in the western city of Lviv on Friday, having met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top ministers in Kyiv on Thursday.

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Moscow rages over Cameron remarks

Lord Cameron made the two-day trip to reaffirm the UK’s commitment to Ukraine, which most recently includes a promise to transfer more of the British military’s own stockpiles of weapons, including precision-guided bombs and air defence missiles.

The UK has also promised at least £3bn worth of military assistance annually.

But Western nations are failing to deliver munitions to Ukraine’s frontline as quickly as Russia is rearming its military, with Russian troops gaining ground in the east in recent months.

President Putin put his economy on a war footing when he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – something NATO allies are only slowly starting to move towards.

Rishi Sunak said last week he would increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of national income by 2030 – claiming this equated to an additional £75bn in investment.

He also said he was putting the UK defence industry on a “war footing” and added £10bn of new funding would be dedicated to domestic munitions production over the next decade.

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‘We need to build up our own stocks’

Asked how Britain could force defence companies like BAE Systems, Thales and Babcock – that have to answer to their shareholders, not the government – to increase production lines at the required rate and scale without some kind of legislation to force them to act, Lord Cameron revealed the plan for a new envoy for defence production.

“There is a specific munitions strategy of £10bn which will do exactly what you are talking about – the ramping up of production,” he said.

“But crucially I think we can go further than that in terms of a specific defence envoy with the ability from the prime minister to go out and make sure we are doing those muti-year deals with the defence suppliers because we need not only to provide more weapons to Ukraine, we need to build up our own stocks.

“So this is very important, it is a national priority.

“The prime minister is giving the lead and I think the industry will respond.”

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Pushed on whether the new envoy – whose identity has not yet been revealed – would be the modern-day equivalent of someone like Lord Beaverbrook, who was tasked with expanding aircraft production during the Second World War, Lord Cameron said: “It is the 21st century so there won’t be a Lord Beaverbrook.”

But he signalled that the envoy’s ability to approach industry with a commitment to fund multi-year contracts for munitions would be key – and could also drive down cost.

“It is possible to go to the defence contractors and say to them: ‘You are not going to get the price you might have hoped for year after year after year because we are going to make a contract with you over the coming years to make sure we replenish our ammunition, our artillery, our long rage fires, our missiles’ – those crucial things vital for Ukraine but also vital for our own defence.”

As for why the government needed to appoint a specific envoy to this role, Lord Cameron said: “You need I think to have that direct line to the prime minister to make sure we are making this the national priority it clearly is.”

Cameron warns of ‘dangerous future’

Turning to the war in Ukraine, the foreign secretary said Europe faced “two futures” – one in which Ukrainian forces, backed by Western weapons, are able to push out the Russian invaders and secure what he called a “just peace”.

“That is a footing on which you can see great security and prosperity for us and for Europe,” he said.

But he warned: “A future in which Putin is successful and Ukraine is pushed back is I think a very dangerous future.”

Nations such as Moldova and even the NATO states of the Baltics would be worried that President Putin might turn his attention towards them next, Lord Cameron said.

In addition, the authoritarian regimes in Iran and China would be watching closely.

“I think we are at an absolutely crucial tipping point in global affairs,” Lord Cameron added.

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has renewed his demand for Rishi Sunak to go to the polls after the prime minister suffered a by-election drubbing and bruising council losses across England.

But while Mr Sunak said the the grim early results were “disappointing” for the Conservatives, he insisted he was “focused completely on the job at hand” and is certain to seize on the party holding the Tees Valley mayoralty.

Sky News elections analyst Professor Michael Thrasher has warned the Conservatives could be on course for one of their worst-ever performances.

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The results as they come in

Buoyed by council gains in key battleground areas like Hartlepool, Rushmoor in Hampshire, Redditch in the West Midlands and Thurrock in Essex, Sir Keir declared the “seismic win” for Labour in the Blackpool South by-election “a direct message to the prime minister”.

Highlighting the swing of 26.33% from the Tories in the Lancashire seat, the opposition leader told Sky News: “There’s no denying the mood of the country now is for change. And I think it’s for the prime minister to allow the country to express that change now in a general election.”

But speaking at a military base in North Yorkshire, Mr Sunak said: “Obviously it’s disappointing to lose good, hard-working Conservative councillors and I’m grateful to them for all their service in local government, keeping council tax low and delivering services for local people.”

He also stressed there were “lots of results to come”.

One of those was the Tees Valley mayoral contest, which saw Tory incumbent Ben Houchen re-elected in the face of a concerted Labour challenge.

The Conservative peer held the role with the a majority of 18,789 votes.

Speaking to Sky News earlier, Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden said it had been a “tough night”, but insisted that “when we’re facing those tough challenges we’ve got the right man for the job”.

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Charts tell story of Conservative collapse
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On the potential threat of Conservative MPs choosing to oust Mr Sunak, Mr Holden added: “Parliamentary colleagues need to look at this and see… and wait through the weekend as well.”

Mr Holden sought to highlight local issues at play, insisting the Blackpool South by-election took place in “particularly difficult” circumstances following the resignation of former Tory MP Scott Benton after a lobbying scandal.

Key results include:

• Labour won Rushmoor in Hampshire for the first time
• The party also claimed the council in general election bellwether Redditch
• Labour won Hartlepool council, regaining ground after a Westminster by-election disaster there in 2021
• Labour also won Thurrock, one of its top targets
• The Tories clung on by a single seat in Harlow, Essex – a council targeted by Sir Keir on the eve of polling
• Conservatives lost control of North East Lincolnshire
• Labour replace the Tories as the largest party on Peterborough Council
• Labour lost control in Oldham, which has a large Muslim population, amid anger over Labour’s stance on Gaza
• In Cumbria, a Labour police and crime commissioner was elected, at the expense of the Tories
• Labour also beat the Conservatives in the police and crime commissioner race in Avon and Somerset