'I get it': Starmer responds after losing Runcorn by-election to Reform UK

Sir Keir Starmer has said he "gets" why his party suffered defeat to Reform UK in the Runcorn by-election, as he promised to go "further" in delivering change.

The prime minister said the result in Runcorn and Helsby - where Labour lost to Nigel Farage's party by six votes - was "very, very close" but that he didn't want to give a "standard answer" by suggesting opposition parties do well in by-elections. Asked by Sky News what he believed his government had done in the 10 months to cause voters in traditional Labour strongholds to shun the party, he replied: "I want to respond by saying I get it." Politics latest: Starmer defends government's "tough decisions" Sir Keir said Labour was elected to "deliver change" and argued that the evidence of that was beginning to show with NHS waiting lists coming down and more appointments being created.

However, he said the message he was taking away from the results was that "we must deliver that change even more quickly. We must go even further." The by-election in Runcorn and Helsby was triggered after the previous Labour MP, Mike Amesbury, resigned following his conviction for punching a constituent.

Reform candidate Sarah Pochin won with 12,645 votes, compared with the 12,639 secured by Labour candidate Karen Shore, making it the closest by-election result since records began in 1945. Speaking after the result was declared, Mr Farage told Sky News that Labour's vote collapsed because of a "loss of confidence" and the fact "no one knows what the prime minister really stands for".

He said working people were fed up with higher taxes and illegal immigration, adding: "It's a sense of fairness and what's right and what's wrong bordering even on resentment." He added: "We now are the opposition party in the United Kingdom to the Labour Party and the Tories, frankly, are a waste of space." Hours after the Runcorn result was declared, several Labour MPs on the left of the party began to blame Sir Keir and policies such as cuts to welfare and winter fuel payments for the result. John McDonnell, who was shadow chancellor under former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, described the party's response to the results so far as "tin-eared.