Keir Starmer has said the Labour Party is "back on track" to win an election after taking key Tory strongholds in London and modest gains across England in last night's local elections.
The Labour leader was in Barnet, which alongside Westminster and Wandsworth, Labour had snatched from the Tories in London.
But he also hailed victories in Cumberland and Southampton as evidence the party was winning "north and south" and recovering from "the depths of 2019" when Jeremy Corbyn took Labour to an historic defeat.
He said: "We have turned a massive corner in the Labour Party here. We're winning in London, we're winning north and south – we've won in Cumberland, we've won in Southampton, we've got more results to come.
He went on: “This is a big turning point for us. From the depths of 2019 in that general election, back on track, winning in the north. Cumberland! Southampton! We’ve changed Labour and now we’re seeing the results of that.”
He added: “What brilliant teams we’ve got, all the fantastic work we’ve put in.
“When it comes to London, you can hardly believe those names come off our lips. Wandsworth. They’ve been saying for years ‘You’ll never take Wandsworth from us.’ We’ve just done it! Westminster! It’s an astonishing result.”
Mr Starmer went on to say Labour’s gain from the Conservatives had “sent a message” to Boris Johnson.
“We’ve sent a message to the Prime Minister: Britain deserves better," he said.
Meanwhile, Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden downplayed Tory losses and Labour gains, pointing to a lack of progress in the key bellwether area of Nuneaton and Thurrock..
He told BBC Breakfast: “Of course we’ve had some difficult results and you can see that in London.
“I would say, though, that we are mid-term and it’s quite a mixed picture because you look elsewhere, whether that’s in Hartlepool or Nuneaton and Thurrock, we’ve actually made gains and I think if you take the whole picture of this, it really doesn’t demonstrate that Labour has the momentum to form the next government”.
He also said: “This isn’t like what Tony Blair got in say ’95 two years before his election victory, they were making 1,800 gains. If you look at Ed Miliband (he) managed to make 800 gains in 2011 and still not win the election”.
