Reform has won its first-ever regional mayor in England while Labour managed to hold on to a hat-trick of mayors across the country, in the first results from this year’s local elections. Most local councils will announce their results in the late morning or afternoon.
Two further mayoral contests, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough and Hull & East Yorkshire, are also due to declare on Friday afternoon. Here are the key results from the elections so far...
Greater Lincolnshire
Reform enjoyed a comfortable victory in this brand new mayoral position, winning 42.0% of the vote, well ahead of the Conservatives in second place on 26.1%.
Labour finished a distant third on 12.3%.
Winning candidate Dame Andrea Jenkyns is a former Conservative MP and becomes Reform’s first-ever directly-elected regional mayor.
North Tyneside
Labour held on to the mayor of North Tyneside by a tiny margin, with Reform coming a close second.
The area is one of Labour’s north-east heartlands and the party’s candidate Karen Clark was favourite to win, but the result was much closer than expected: Ms Clark received 16,230 votes, just 444 ahead of Reform candidate John Falkenstein (15,786).
Doncaster
Labour’s Ros Jones won a fourth term in office in Doncaster, having held the position since 2013.
As in North Tyneside, Reform finished a close second, winning 23,107 votes to Ms Jones’ 23,805, giving her a majority of just 698.
West of England
Labour also held on to West of England mayor, albeit on an even lower share of the vote than at North Tyneside or Doncaster.
Helen Godwin won the contest with a majority of 5,945, but did so with just 25.0% of the vote, ahead of Reform on 22.1%, the Greens on 20.0%, the Conservatives on 16.6% and the Lib Dems on 14.0%.
Northumberland
The Conservatives remain the largest party on Northumberland council, but won only 26 of its 69 seats, just ahead of Reform on 23, with Labour some way behind on eight, independents on seven, the Lib Dems on three and the Greens on two.
Reform had no seats on the council before the election and have made gains at the expense of both the Tories and Labour.