A nightmarish set of local elections for Labour saw voters abandon the party for Reform UK in their droves across its northern heartlands, as it lost control of councils it had run for decades.Nigel Farage’s party made gains around the country as hundreds of Labour councillors lost their seats, ramping up the pressure on Sir Keir Starmer, who has vowed not to walk away but will be unable to ignore the reality of these results.The overnight results on Friday were felt sharply in the north of England, a bedrock in the party’s electoral coalition.The first council to complete its counts on Friday was Halton in the Liverpool City Region, where Labour has always been in power. It lost 15 councillors while Mr Farage’s party gained 16, seeing more than a 50 per cent vote swing in some wards.Prime minister Keir Starmer said he would not walk away despite the ‘tough’ night (PA Wire)Labour held onto control of the local authority, found just outside the city, by virtue of there simply not being enough seats up for election this year for anyone else to gain a majority.A similar situation was seen in Greater Manchester’s Wigan, with Reform winning 24 of 25 seats up for grabs in a borough where Labour has been the ruling party since it was created in 1974. Twenty-two of the 24 seats won by Reform were taken from Labour. As in Halton, it has held onto control of the council for now. But next year, when another 25 seats will be contested, Reform will have a route to power. Also in Greater Manchester, Tameside – which includes Angela Rayner’s constituency – changed from Labour to no overall control, as Reform gained 18 councillors and Labour lost 16.Before the elections, Mr Farage told the BBC: “What I will say is the map of local government will look very different after 7 May across the North West.”After the early results on Friday proved him right, the Reform leader hailed a “historic shift in British politics”.In the North East, Reform won all 12 seats up for grabs in Hartlepool, with Labour losing seven and relinquishing control of the council. Hartlepool MP Jonathan Brash, who watched his wife lose her council seat, called for Sir Keir to resign.“It’s clear to me that the prime minister should take this opportunity to set out a timetable for his own departure, and then allow for the widest possible leadership election that includes all the talents of our party”, he said. Reform UK councillors react after winning seats in all of the 12 contested wards in the Hartlepool local election (Getty)A further seismic blow arrived on Friday afternoon as Sunderland – a council that had a consistent red majority for more than half a century – was won by Reform. It was the first Labour-run local authority to fall into Nigel Farage’s hands in these elections.It is an unprecedented position for Labour to find itself in. Now losing areas which held firm even when Boris Johnson swept parts of the red wall in the 2019 general election, but it is not a surprise if you listen to voters in the north of England.There is no love lost for Sir Keir among them, and it has left the party facing the prospect that it might no longer have safe seats in the region.It was apparent in February, in the run-up to the Gorton and Denton by-election, when voters told The Independent they no longer felt represented by a party they then abandoned to the Greens and Reform as Labour finished third. As expected in Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham was suggested by many as an alternative who would win them back to the party. Voters believe the very popular mayor, dubbed the “King of the North” for a reason, understands them and the places they are from.Keir Starmer and Andy Burnham visit a primary school in Greater Manchester in April (Getty)Though Labour has suffered heavy losses in Mr Burnham’s city region, there is an argument to be made that this was largely driven by voters’ responses to the government and the man who leads it. As such, the prospect of Mr Burnham returning to Westminster is seen by many in the parliamentary party as the only way for it to recover from these dismal results.Deputy Labour leader Lucy Powell said on Saturday she did not want to see a leadership election but added that Mr Burnham has a “huge amount to offer”.“He’s very popular and he’s a great asset to the Labour Party,” she said. “And I want to see us using all of the talents that we have.”The view on parts of the Labour left is that the Merseyside-born mayor can reconnect with lifelong voters the party has now lost.Before these elections, when The Independent spoke to the electorate in St Helens – another Liverpool City Region council that had long been a Labour stronghold – the disdain for the current party was palpable. “It’s not the old Labour we had,” voter Janet Wylde told The Independent. Thousands of her fellow voters in the post-industrial town agreed as Reform took control of the local authority on Friday evening.Reform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks to the media at The Dam Bar And Grill in St Helens (Getty)It meant Mr Farage took a victory lap in Merseyside – a prospect that would have been inconceivable before now – as he said Reform had “absolutely torn the most massive historic chunk out of the Labour vote in the north of England.”Before the elections, Liverpool City Region mayor Steve Rotheram told The Independent that Labour would find more success if it focused on local issues rather than the man in Downing Street. “Once we break beyond the people who are not supporting the likes of Keir Starmer, when we get beyond that and explain the type of town hall that Labour are proposing, then we get a much fairer hearing,” he said.Though it was not a complete wipeout, with the vote holding up just enough to keep control of councils like Sefton in Merseyside, it is apparent that the majority of voters in Labour’s most loyal regions have rejected a party led by Sir Keir.Its general election win in 2024 was meant to provide hope – none of which is being felt in cities and towns across the North. Speak to people in traditionally Labour areas like St Helens, Bradford and Halton and they will tell you they have been forgotten about.Labour must ‘adapt or die’, Liverpool city region mayor Steve Rotheram said (PA)Barnsley, run by Labour for more than 50 years, fell to Reform on Friday afternoon. Sir Stephen Houghton, who had led the local authority, said the result was a consequence of Reform turning these local elections “into a Keir Starmer referendum”. Phil Riley, who lost the leadership of Lancashire’s Blackburn with Darwen council as Reform gained nine seats and Labour lost 11, went further as he called for the prime minister to resign. “Keir Starmer has a very poor reputation with people out there,” he said as Labour lost control of a council it has run since 2011.“Getting back from that position, I think, is virtually impossible,” the councillor added.The party now finds itself at a crucial juncture. As results came in on Friday, Mr Rotheram said it had to be a “wake-up call” for Labour. The mayor said his party must “adapt or die”, calling on it to be “rooted in working people’s lives, hopes and concerns.”Whether the party can reconnect with those values and provide hope to areas which feel forgotten will determine whether it can ever call the north of England its heartlands again.