In Scotland, the Scottish National Party (SNP) is in control with a single-digit majority over the combined opposition benches at Holyrood.
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However, poll predictions fell after an anti-Semitism row that involved former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone being suspended from the party.
The anticipated surge for the S.N.P. could inject new life into the cause for Scottish independence just ahead of the European Union referendum that is likely to highlight Scotland’s preference for remaining inside the bloc. Mr. Khan, who is the son of an immigrant bus driver, is the favorite to replace the outgoing mayor, Boris Johnson, a Conservative.
With about half the vote counted, Khan was leading.
Urging the leader to broaden the political “diversity” of his inner circle, Mr Coyle said: “We are moving further away from Government, I think, because we seem to be fixated on some issues that are peripheral and we seem to have a team which isn’t projecting either unity within the party or a vision and policies that the voters want”.
He said: “The Labour Party have lost touch with the hard-working people they are supposed to represent”.
“The Conservatives under popular Scottish leader Ruth Davidson became the main opposition in Scotland’s Edinburgh-based parliament “ an unprecedented situation in a region that shunned the party for decades.
It was a contrast with party leader Jeremy Corbyn’s claim during the local election campaign that the party did not expect to lose any council seats.
And deputy leader Tom Watson urged Labour activists and MPs to “respect the mandate” given to Mr Corbyn by members and supporters past year, and suggested that it was too early in his tenure to expect him to be chalking up significant electoral advances.
“We are forcing them back on so many things, such as the forced academisation of our schools, such as the continuous under-funding of our NHS because as I said to the Prime Minister last week, there is a choice: either you continue this path of cuts, closures and inequality or you collect the uncollected tax and you pay for the services that everybody else needs”. The results won’t be announced until later Friday.
A victory for Khan would offer a bit of gloss for Labour, which was pushed to third place in Scotland – where it was once dominant.
In the build-up to the polls there were reports of a possible leadership challenge to Mr Corbyn if results did not go his way.
The ruling Conservatives failed to make any big gains in England and Wales, but made good headway in Scotland where partial results show it may leap-frog Labour as the second party of the Scottish National Party.
“We’re holding our own more or less”, former cabinet minister Peter Hain, a Labour lawmaker in the upper chamber, the House of Lords, told BBC Television.
Latest results show Labour has lost 30 council seats in England, the Tories have lost 34, the Liberal Democrats are up 39, while UKIP has seen a gain of 32 seats.
Batley and Spen MP Jo Cox told the BBC: “Jeremy and the leadership need to take responsibility for what’s been a poor night for us”.
The first English council to declare all its results was Labour-stronghold Sunderland, which prides itself on the speed of its counting operation.
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“We don’t know where the mood is”, he said.
