Swinney keen to work with fellow nationalist devolved leaders in UK

John Swinney has said he plans to work with the nationalist first ministers in Wales and Northern Ireland in a coordinated opposition to Labour’s policies on the cost of living and UK government spending.The Scottish National party leader said he had spoken to Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin first minister of Northern Ireland, on Friday night after she had called to congratulate him on his party’s “emphatic” victory in the Holyrood elections.Swinney, who will be sworn in as Scotland’s first minister next week, said he expected Plaid Cymru’s leader, Rhun ap Iorwerth, to be appointed first minister of Wales after winning the Senedd elections for the first time on Thursday.He said he “looked forward to making sure our respective countries’ voices are heard loud and clear in the UK”.O’Neill, who has to work jointly with the Democratic Unionist party in Stormont, so has limits to her authority, had made clear her enthusiasm for all three nationalist-led governments working in concert, Swinney added

Starmer brings in Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman to ease pressure on him to resign

Keir Starmer has brought in Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman as advisers in a move to ease the mounting pressure on the prime minister to resign after the disastrous election results for Labour.Brown, the former prime minister and long-serving chancellor under Tony Blair, has been made Starmer’s envoy on global finance, with a brief to advise on financial partnerships to help with defence-related investments, particularly with Europe.Harman, who was Labour’s deputy leader under Brown, will be the prime minister’s adviser on women and girls, focusing on tackling violence and improving economic opportunities.While the roles are part-time and unpaid, there is deliberate symbolism in Starmer gathering Labour heavyweights around him as he battles to save his job, particularly with the optics of Brown being pictured with him at Downing Street on Saturday morning.With the bulk of the votes now counted from Thursday’s series of elections, Labour lost more than 1,400 councillors across England, shedding support to Reform UK and the Greens in traditional heartlands

British leader Keir Starmer under pressure after heavy election losses

Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, is facing increasing pressure to set a date for his departure after elections across much of the country resulted in massive losses for his ruling Labour party.With the bulk of results now counted after voting on Thursday, Labour had lost more than 1,400 representatives from English councils, the local government structures that deliver many neighbourhood services.Starmer’s party also crashed to defeat in the election for the devolved parliament of Wales, where it had dominated the country’s politics for a century, and went backwards in representation in the Scottish parliament.Adding to the panic in Labour, the party lost to a series of challengers, including the rightwing populist Reform UK party, the leftwing Greens, and pro-independence nationalists in Wales and Scotland.The elections, the biggest since Starmer won power in mid-2024, showed how the UK’s traditional two-party system of Labour and the Conservatives has been smashed, with Reform taking the most votes, and the Greens, Conservatives, Labour and the centrist Liberal Democrats bunched up behind

The SNP may have won again but Scottish politics has been upended

Long before the final votes were counted in Scotland, veteran Labour politicians said it was a defeat made in Downing Street.When the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, strode into the Glasgow count arena on Friday afternoon flanked by sombre-faced activists, the scene was a mirror image to the same venue in 2024, when his resurgent party won 36 seats from the Scottish National party, playing a significant part in Keir Starmer’s landslide victory.Two years later, Starmer’s unpopularity proved an insurmountable obstacle for Sarwar, despite record donations to Scottish Labour and a formidable electoral machine, honed over the past five years. And with only a handful of constituencies declared, he decided to concede defeat before the real scale of Labour losses across the country was known.More than 12 hours later, when the final regional results were declared after 1am, it was clear that Holyrood politics had been upended

Most Labour members think Starmer cannot revive party fortunes, poll finds

The majority of Labour members say they do not believe Keir Starmer can turn around the party’s fortunes, while 45% say the prime minister should step down.The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, was the first preference for 42% of members, who were asked to rank their preferred successor.Several Labour MPs – especially those who are close to Burnham – have told the Guardian that they would like to see a timetable for Starmer to stand down in an orderly and dignified way, including allowing the mayor time to seek a parliamentary seat.The poll was conducted just before Thursday’s elections, where Labour was fighting on all fronts, in local elections in England and parliamentary elections in Wales and Scotland. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK won hundreds of seats and control of more councils in England, Labour went backwards in Scotland as the SNP claimed a historic fifth victory and Plaid Cymru ended a century of Labour dominance in Wales, unseating the Labour first minister Eluned Morgan

John Swinney urges Starmer to show Scotland ‘greater respect’ after SNP victory

John Swinney, the Scottish National party leader, has challenged Keir Starmer to show “greater respect” to the Scottish government after winning the Holyrood elections by a comfortable margin.The Scottish National party secured a record fifth term in office on Friday after securing 58 of Holyrood’s 129 seats.In a dramatic conclusion to the day’s counting, Labour and Reform UK were left tied on 17 seats each after Highlands council finally finished its regional list count at 1.10am on Saturday, 16 hours after counting began.With Labour enduring its worst result since devolution in 1999, this puts the Scottish parliament in the unprecedented position of having two parties in joint second place, adding to Labour’s humiliation