Local election results 2024 live: Sadiq Khan wins as London mayor with West Midlands vote close – BBC News

So far in the local authorities where results have been declared, the swing from Conservative to Labour is 3.8% – somewhat short of the 4.5% overall swing that Labour needs to win the contest.

If Labour is to win, they will need to secure a swing of 5.45% in the two remaining counts yet to declare – Coventry and Sandwell.

However, the swing was above that in three of the five local authority areas which have now declared.

This probably helps to explain why the Conservatives are hoping that a recount in Coventry might yet enable Andy Street to remain in office.

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As votes continue to be counted in the West Midlands Mayoral contest, it’s worth noting just how well a relatively unknown independent candidate has done in some of the results so far.

Akhmed Yakoob – who campaigned on the issue of Gaza – won a sizeable 42,923 votes in the Birmingham part of the result, coming third there.

Labour’s Jess Phillips, a Birmingham MP, tells me she believed her party’s initial refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza has cost them votes.

“I’d be lying if I said if I said this hasn’t been an issue that hurt the Labour party in this election,” she says.

Phillips quit the shadow front bench last year over Sir Keir Starmer’s position on the ongoing conflict

“This is a political issue that the people here care about,” she adds.

Whatever the outcome here in the West Midlands, she believes her party needs to “listen to what is being said to us”.

But overall, Phillips does believe that Labour has “many reasons to be cheerful.. the votes are building up in areas that we need to win in the general election”.

The focus for much of the day has been on council and mayoral elections, but we’ve also had results coming in for police and crime commissioners.

Today, Conservatives held Hertfordshire, Warwickshire, Thames Valley, Wiltshire, and Dorset, though they also saw their vote share generally fell.

Labour candidates held Merseyside and the West Midlands, while in Cheshire Labour’s Dan Price ousted Conservative incumbent John Dwyer.

Of a total of 37 races, results have now been declared in 35, with only Sussex and Kent still to come.

The recount in the West Midlands mayoral race shows the Conservatives have done “extremely well” in “core Labour territory”, local MP Andrew Mitchell says.

Ballots are being counted again in Coventry, one of seven areas that make up the region, and the vote is believed to be close-run between Conservative incumbent Andy Street and Labour’s Richard Parker.

Mitchell, who represents the Birmingham seat of Sutton Coldfield, tells BBC News that “on any objective basis Labour would win this mayoralty by miles and miles”.

“If Andy Street is even in contention here, that is a very good result for the Conservative Party,” he says.

When it is put to him that the Conservative Party brand had not featured heavily in Street’s campaign literature, Mitchell says many voted for him “because he was Andy Street and because he was a Conservative”.

Asked whether he expects it to be a long night while recounts are carried out, he replies: “I think it may be”.

Leaving the West Midlands for a moment – Labour’s Paul Dennett has been re-elected for a third term as Mayor of Salford.

Dennett, who was first elected in 2016, received 30,753 votes, almost three times as many as his nearest rival, Conservative Jillian Collinson, who got 10,930.

The position is different from metro mayors, who oversee a whole region, and serves as the effective head of Salford City Council, one of the constituent authorities of Greater Manchester.

Dennett said it was a “huge honour” to continue in the “most humbling and rewarding” job and that the role was one he would “never take for granted”.

It was beginning to look as if the best way to be elected mayor was to be mayor already. The power of incumbency.

From the Tees Valley to West and South Yorkshire, from London to Manchester and Liverpool, mayors re-elected.

But hang on. There are dollops of jeopardy here in the West Midlands. In a region of millions, I’m told it’s coming down to a few thousand votes.

To be a mayor is to be on a pedestal; on purpose – regional figures with an ambassadorial role, affording them a national stage. The personal brand elevated above the party one; if a candidate so chooses.

And boy Andy Street chose just that. He is, make no mistake, a proud Conservative. But he wears his affiliation lightly.

It afforded Tories optimism he could buck the national trend. And he is close, but currently behind.

Rishi Sunak had hoped Street would provide a second beam of positivity for him, alongside Ben Houchen’s victory in the Tees Valley; another bright spot in a cavern of Tory gloom.

But that now could be turned off – and so underlines yet further how bleak a few days the electorate is exacting upon the prime minister.

Senior Conservative and Labour sources now think the West Midlands Mayoral contest currently has under 2,000 votes in it, across the whole region.

The recount in Coventry continues.

The Birmingham part of the West Midlands result has been declared.

Labour’s candidate Richard Parker came out on top with 80,251 votes.

The Conservatives came in second, with candidate Andy Street – currently the West Midlands mayor – winning 66,296 votes.

Independent Akhmed Yakoob came next, with 42,923.

As a reminder, Birmingham is one of the seven areas that make up the West Midlands electoral region.

Mayoral candidates are taking their places at the front of stage here in Birmingham, where the results are expected imminently.

As a reminder: this isn’t the result for the West Midlands mayoral election, only the Birmingham part of it.

Susan Hall, the Conservative mayoral candidate, is speaking now. She starts by congratulating Sadiq Khan.

She continues by telling Khan he “owes it” to the families who have lost lives to knife crime under his leadership to improve the police’s record on crime.

“This is isn’t an episode of The Wire, this is real life on his watch,” Hall adds, referencing an earlier disagreement with Khan.

“Our brightest days are still ahead of us,” Khan concludes, to roaring applause in the room.

He finishes his speech thanking all Londoners, who he says make the city the “greatest” in the world.

Khan continues, promising Londoners “to repay the trust you’ve placed in me” and deliver a “fairer, safer and greener” city.

He says the last few months have been difficult, facing “non-stop negativity”.

Khan says his campaign has “answered fear-mongering with facts”, and countered attempts to divide with efforts to unite.

We’re now hearing from Sadiq Khan following the official declaration.

He opens his victory speech thanking Londoners “from the bottom of my heart”.

“It’s the honour of my life to serve the city that I love and I’m beyond humbled right now,” he says.

When he first took to the stage, some in the crowd and on stage began heckling – but were quickly told by the returning officer that they would be removed by security if they continued.

The returning officer in London’s mayoral race has now taken to the stage to announce the official results.

We’ll be hearing shortly from Sadiq Khan, who has won re-election.

You can watch what’s happening live on the feed at the top of the page.

James Kelly

Reporting from London

One of the 13 London mayoral candidates, Count Binface, is speaking to reporters after another election loss.

He came 11th, with 24,260 votes.

Count Binface’s promises of capping croissant prices at £1 and renaming London Bridge, Pheobe Waller-Bridge, weren’t enough to sway the capital’s voters to put an X in his box en masse.

The Count tells me: “If Rishi Sunak is prime minister by the time of the election, I’ve heard lovely things about Richmond, North Yorkshire [Sunak’s constituency].”

James Kelly

Reporting from London

Candidates have been joined by their supporters as the official final result in London’s mayoral race is imminent.

Proceedings are running slightly later than the predicted 16:40 results time, but candidates have been called into see their final tallies with the returning officer.

The final results should be announced shortly after. As we’ve been reporting, Sadiq Khan has won a third term.

There is to be a full recount in Coventry in the West Midlands mayoral race.

Coventry is one of the seven areas that votes in the election.

Labour hold the West Midlands police and crime commissioner post — Simon Foster is re-elected

It is expected the result for the West Midlands police and crime commissioner – a separate position from the mayor – will be declared in the next 10 minutes.

Some reaction now from the London race, where Labour’s Sadiq Khan has won a third term.

Conservative MP Paul Scully says his party ran an “incredibly underwhelming campaign” in the capital, and “gifted” Khan the win.

Scully is a former minister for London and also stood unsuccessfully to be the Conservatives’ mayoral candidate.

He tells BBC News the party ran an “anti-Khan campaign” and that there’s “only so far you can go in joining people wagging a finger saying, ‘I don’t like that guy’”.

He cited Conservative Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen, who won re-election on Friday, as someone with a “positive vision… doing different things, delivering for his local people”.

However, he also said there should be “no talk of what happens to the prime minister” after the local election results – and that it would be “bonkers if we start to throw the dice for something else”.