LIVE: Latest updates from across Yorkshire and beyond as local election results roll in

Stacy Hart won a seat on Basingstoke and Deane Council to give the Women’s Equality Party (WEP) their first borough councillor.

She polled 1,659 votes in Hatch Warren & Beggarwood ward, 61.6% of the vote, gaining the seat from Conservatives.

The WEP had previously won seats on town and parish councils but this is their most important victory in the nine years since the party was founded by broadcaster Sandi Toksvig and journalist Catherine Mayer.

We’ll run through another set of results that have just come in:

Milton Keynes - Labour gain: a big win for Keir Starmer’s party. The last time it had a majority in Milton Keynes was in 2000.

Solihull - Labour hold: positive signs for the Tories, with Andy Street hoping to retain the mayoralty.

Hastings - no overall control: a good showing for the Greens on the south coast, but no party has won a majority.

Leeds - Labour hold: no surprises here - I’ll try and check in with colleagues in Yorkshire for some reaction.

Manchester - Labour hold: again - no surprises on Manchester City Council. The mayoralty will be declared tomorrow.

Wolverhampton - Labour hold: a good result for Labour in the Black Country, their main target it neighbouring Dudley Council.

Calderdale - Labour hold: another solid result for Keir Starmer in the South Pennines.

Pendle - no overall control: a strong showing for independents in the Lancashire borough, with Labour losing four councillors likely over the party’s Gaza stance.

Three Rivers - Lib Dem hold: Ed Davey’s party keeps control of a council in its Hertfordshire heartland.

Rossendale - Labour hold: Labour won 22 seats on the Lancashire council.

"Sheffield City Council remains in no overall control, but there have been significant changes,” my colleague Harry Harrison writes in to say.

“After no gains orlosses overall in 2022, Sheffield Labour have gained six seats, whilst the Liberal Democrats (who felt they had a chance at regaining control) have lost two.

“The Conservatives have had their small share of the council wiped out as Labour took Stocksbridge and Upper Don  - a ward in Conservative right-winger, Miriam Cates MP's backyard.

“There was a big shock as Independent candidate Qais Al Ahdal, romped to victory in Darnall - a Labour stronghold in Sheffield - and as the Greens' Peter Gilbert beat incumbent Lib Dem Roger Davison in Ecclesall.

“Negotiations on power sharing are to come, but will likely once again feature a Labour/Lib Dem/Green coalition,” Harry adds.

The Tories have lost control of Basildon Borough Council in Essex. Labour is now the largest party, winning 18 compared to the Conservatives’ 13.

Nearby Brentwood also stayed in no overall control.

Jo Coburn has just interviewed a rather perturbed Tory Council leader, Cllr Andrew Baggott, who has just lost control of Basildon Council. He has blamed the loss on Tory infighting in Westminster and getting rid of Boris Johnson.

He told the BBC: “One of the main things behind the result ... is a real and immense dissatisfaction with people on the ground, with what they see as Parliamentarians actually trying to outscore each other ... do each other down and stab each other in the back rather than run the country.

“Time and time again people have said to me, if you get to raise this with the people that matter, tell them: ‘The Essex man is not going to vote for them until they sort their act out.’” The Essex man talking in the third person here.

Cllr Baggott hit out at Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss being “unelected”, adding that they should “never have got rid of Boris in the first place, that is what Essex man is saying”.

As elsewhere in the country, it appears to have been a good day for the Labour Party in Leeds, my colleague James Connolly writes in. The Labour administration at Leeds City Council has so far managed to hold on to 11 of its seats at the authority, while making three gains - each a loss for a Tory incumbent.

It also appears to have been a successful campaign for the Green Party, which has taken two additional seats at the authority so far - having had three sitting councillors previously.

Meanwhile, the Social Democratic Party has won another seat in Middleton Park, meaning that all three councillors representing the ward are now SDP members. So far, one of the big names to be ousted is Labour Cllr Al Garthwaite who, for the last year, has been the Lord Mayor of Leeds. She lost her seat to a new green councillor. The count in Leeds is nearing its end, with around five seats left to be declared.

The BBC has just released it’s projected national share of the vote. This is an estimate to work out how the country would have voted, if the local elections results were projected across the UK.

This is pretty similar to 2023, with Labour and the Tories each down a point. At 25%, the Conservative figure is an equal record low, last recorded in 2013 and 1995. The Greens will be very happy with their result, accounting for half of the smaller parties’ vote share.

Labour has held on to Cambridge City Council. With a third of the wards up, following the results Labour has 25 councillors, the Liberal Democrats 10 councillors, the Green Party, while the Conservatives and independents each have one.

A rarity today - Labour losing control of a council. In this case, Kirklees in West Yorkshire. Five pro-Palestine independent councillors won seats, depriving Labour of its majority. A sign that the Gaza war is cutting through at local elections, what will its impact be at the general election?

Labour has lost control of a number of councils, and lost councillors, due to the party’s stance on Palestine. Last year, a raft of councillors quit the party after Keir Starmer’s notorious interview when he said Israel could cut off food and water to Gaza.

Since then, the Labour leader clarified his comments, saying he did not intend to say that - however for many the damage has been done. In Kirklees, five pro-Palestine independents won seats to take down the Labour majority in West Yorkshire.

In Oldham, in Greater Manchester, independent candidates again deprived Labour of forming a majority administration. In Burnley, then Labour council leader Cllr Afrasiab Anwar and nine other councillors resigned from the party in November over Starmer's decision not to push for a ceasefire in Gaza.

At the time, the 10 councillors described their memberships as “untenable” given the leadership's refusal to demand a ceasefire in the Middle East, and became part of the Burnley Independent Group. Since then Labour has failed to retake the North West council, and it currently sits in no overall control.

In Manchester, Labour deputy leader of the council Luthfur Rahman lost his seat to Shahbaz Sarwar of George Galloway’s Workers Party. While in Newcastle, the Green Party hoovered up seats in student areas, saying this was down to the Gaza war.

Local elections are always likely to be more influenced by specific issues that national polls, however this will concern Starmer going into the general election later this year.