Zack Polanski’s Green Party shattered decades of London politics with a series of historic wins which left Sir Keir Starmer fighting to stay Prime Minister.
In a day of Labour election disasters, Sir Keir’s party lost control of Lewisham, Hackney and Waltham Forest to the Greens.
Brent, Enfield, Haringey and Southwark fell from Labour to no overall control.
Westminster, Barnet and Wandsworth, the three flagship London boroughs Labour seized control of for the first time in 2022, were also lost to the Tories and no overall control respectively.
In a damning verdict, London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said: “Mid-term elections can sometimes be difficult for the party in national government, but this is different.
“These results speak to a far-reaching disillusionment and fracturing in our politics, which cannot be downplayed, spun or dismissed.
“Labour has lost votes in London to a variety of different parties, but the biggest change has been Labour voters switching to the Greens.”
Green candidate Zoe Garbett won a resounding victory to become Mayor of Hackney, with 35,720 votes to former Labour Mayor Caroline Woodley’s 26,685.
Speaking from the Hackney count, Mr Polanski said: “Two-party politics is not just dying, it is dead and it is buried.
“And actually, whether it’s here that Labour have been rejected, or whether we’re seeing around the country, it’s very clear that the new politics is the Green Party versus Reform.”
Clinching the Lewisham mayoralty, the Green’s Liam Shrivastava gained 35,265 votes, beating Labour’s Amanda De Ryk who had 30,374 votes and Reform UK’s Pete Newman who had 7,288 votes.
Labour retained control of Camden Council but its leader Richard Olszewski lost his seat to the Green Party.
The borough takes in Sir Keir’s Holborn and St Pancras seat.
Mr Olszewski had switched wards within Camden in an attempt to retain his place on the council, however he lost by 395 votes.
In Croydon, the Tories narrowly held on to their mayor after Jason Perry received 35,871 votes, just in front of Labour’s Rowenna Davis who received 34,758 votes.
While the Greens scored landmark wins in London, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK rampaged through Labour strongholds across England, including winning Sunderland.
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Reform also made significant gains in Wigan, Barnsley, Tameside, St Helens, Hartlepool, Tameside, Dudley, Southampton, Plymouth and Redditch.
Mr Farage’s party made limited inroads into London, winning Havering from the local residents’ group but failing to dislodge the Tories in Bexley and Bromley, or Labour in Barking and Dagenham.
But standing outside Havering Town Hall in east London, the Reform leader said: “What’s happened is a truly historic shift in British politics.
“We’ve been so used to thinking about politics in terms of Left and Right, yet what Reform are able to do is to win in areas that have always been Conservative, but equally, we’re proving in a big way that we could win in areas that Labour has dominated since the end of World War I.”
By 10.30pm on Friday and with 110 out of 136 councils declared, Reform had gained more than 1,200 seats across England, Labour was down more than 1,050, and the Greens were up 374.
The Tories were down 472 including losing Essex County Council to Reform, and Liberal Democrats up 91 seats across the country but failed to win their target borough of Merton, south-west London, from Labour.
Amid the electoral carnage, including in Wales and Scotland, a number of Labour MPs broke rank calling on Sir Keir to quit.
Former Cabinet minister Louise Haigh told ITV Calendar: “I think what is abundantly clear is that unless the Government delivers significant and urgent change, then the Prime Minister cannot lead us into another election.”
Stressing that he was taking “responsibility” for Labour’s mauling, the Prime Minister said: “The results are tough, they are very tough, and there’s no sugar-coating.”
First Minister Eluned Morgan was the highest profile casualty in Wales as she failed to win a seat in the newly-expanded Senedd, with Plaid Cymru and Reform hammering Labour.
She called for Sir Keir’s Government to “change course” and “go back to being the party of the working class”.
Some prominent Labour figures in Westminster questioned Sir Keir’s position but the Prime Minister insisted he would not “walk away and plunge the country into chaos”.
In Wales, Plaid’s Rhun ap Iorwerth looks set to be the new First Minister after his party became the largest in the Senedd, with Reform second and Labour reduced to a single-digit rump having dominated politics in Cardiff Bay since devolution.
The SNP looked set to continue in power in Holyrood, with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar acknowledging his party “didn’t win the argument”.