commentary Two years after the British Labour Party’s “landslide” win, a crushing defeat threatens its future Published May 10, 2026 6:45AM (EDT) Prime Minister Keir Starmer reacts to the local Council Election results in London, May 9, 2026. (Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images) Last week’s local and regional elections across much of the United Kingdom — inevitably described as the “British midterms,” although the parallel is imprecise — delivered a world of hurt to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Labour Party , less than two years after they won a supposed landslide victory in the last national election. Labour lost nearly 1,200 seats across England’s chaotic mixture of county councils, municipal boroughs and metropolitan districts, and also suffered punishing defeats in regional parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales. (That reversal was especially dramatic in the latter case; more on that below.) This was a shock to the system, but not exactly a huge surprise.…