Peter Byrne/PA
The Green Party is on track to record its best performance yet in English local elections, Professor John Curtice has said.
With early results coming in from the North East, there have been impressive gains for the Greens in Newcastle, where the party gained their first-ever seats on the city council.
The party had talked up the chances of Nick Hartley winning in Byker, a coup considering that a traditional Labour stronghold and the ward of council leader Nick Kemp.
But it was, in fact, Khaled Musharraf who claimed the honour of being Newcastle’s first Green councillor, beating Labour’s Nicu Ion in Elswick by just 107 votes, before Harltey then romped to a convincing victory in Byker shortly afterwards
On South Tyneside, the Labour Party suffered a net loss of ten seats, with independent candidates gaining nine and the Greens gaining two.
The Tories lost their only councillor in the region, in what is proving to be a crushing night for Rishi Sunak.
Discussing early results on the BBC, Professor Curtice said: “The Greens, some spectacular gains… they may be heading for their best performance yet in English local elections.”
Watch the clip in full below:
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