VE Day may prove to have been the Prime Minister’s Waterloo as Friday 8 May saw dreadful results for Labour from the previous day’s elections in Wales, Scotland and local authorities across England.

Wales has ejected Labour from government in favour of Plaid Cymru, and its former First Minister from the Senedd; the SNP – so recently reeling from the party finance scandal, the still-mysterious resignation of Nicola Sturgeon and the brief premiership of Humza Yousaf – stood strong in Scotland; and in England, the governing party lost nearly 1,500 councillors and control of 38 councils, primarily to a surging Reform UK.

At the time of writing – with events moving swiftly – the Prime Minister faces a Sir Anthony Meyer-esque challenge from the Hornsey and Friern Barnet MP Catherine West, who has threatened to launch a leadership bid unless the Cabinet moves against him.

Our colleagues in Scotland and Wales will be reporting in detail on the results in those home nations, including what they mean for the shape of the governments and their rural policy agendas.

In England, aside from the collapse of Labour the big story must surely be the Reform UK insurgency. The party won 1,453 councillors, all but two of which were ‘gains’ of seats it had not previously held, as well as overall control of 14 councils. Most of those are in urban areas, although there is a fair amount of countryside within the boundaries of its newly controlled councils of Newcastle-under-Lyme, Calderdale, Wakefield and Barnsley. These new administrations will not provide a precise barometer of how the party means to govern rural Britain. Nevertheless, the advance of Reform UK across smaller towns, coastal districts and semi-rural authorities is striking indeed.

Other results included a competent performance from the Liberal Democrats, which gained 155 councillors and one council, and an underwhelming result for the Green Party which appeared to have hoped for more than its gain of 441 councillors and five councils. The party may, of course, negotiate itself into the administrations of some of the 64 councils now under no overall control, an increase of 23 over the status quo ante.

The decline of the Conservative Party has yet to be halted; its 801 council seat victories represent a net loss of 563, and its number of controlled councils among those up for election fell by six to nine. Kemi Badenoch still has work to do. The party will draw some comfort from its relatively strong results in London, where it regained Westminster and wrested away Labour control of Barnet, Enfield and Wandsworth.

For rural communities, what matters is not only who won but why voters have come to seek alternatives. The cultural gap between metropolitan policymaking and the rural experience continues to widen. Many rural voters increasingly feel decisions are being imposed on them rather than developed with them: especially around housing targets, solar farms, pylons, biodiversity rules and transport policy. They often care less about ideological branding and more about whether buses run, potholes are fixed, planning decisions feel fair, GPs are accessible and broadband works.

These sentiments have created fertile ground for anti-establishment parties: primarily Reform UK but potentially also the Greens, although their direction under Zack Polanski may not be well-calculated to appeal. Regardless, rural England is no longer a straightforward Conservative bloc, and the Liberal Democrats have yet to solidify themselves as their replacement.

Fragmentation in the vote could make rural politics less predictable but more influential. Parties can no longer take the countryside for granted.