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Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives have suffered heavy defeats in elections across England and Wales, leaving the prime minister struggling to avert a general election rout but safe in office for now.

The results confirmed Tory MPs’ fears and the UK prime minister described the loss of Conservative councillors as “disappointing”, with Labour gaining seats in electoral battlegrounds across the country.

In the last big test of public opinion ahead of the general election expected this year, and with most of the council results declared, the Tories had lost almost half of the seats they were defending.

They were also trounced in the Blackpool South parliamentary by-election, with a 26 per cent swing from Conservatives to Labour — the third-biggest since the second world war.

By Friday night the Tories had suffered a net loss of 371 council seats while retaining 468, according to PA data. Labour had made 204 gains, securing 1026 seats overall.

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, said it had been “a very good day” for his party, as he paid a celebratory visit to Rishi Sunak’s Richmond constituency, part of the new York and North Yorkshire mayoralty won by Labour.

The results suggested that Starmer was on course for a general election victory, but not a landslide. “This is clearly a bad result for the Conservatives,” said James Johnson, pollster and co-founder of JL Partners. But he added that Labour would have to do better at the general election to achieve a sizeable majority.

The BBC’s projection of an equivalent national vote share put Labour on 34 per cent, Conservatives on 25, Liberal Democrats on 17 and Others on 24, but pollsters note that people often vote differently in general elections. Most national polls give Labour a 20-point lead.

Johnson said the BBC projection mirrored the nine-point lead Labour enjoyed in last year’s local elections, which was widely seen as enough for a bare majority, and well below the 17-point projected national vote lead enjoyed by Tony Blair in 1996, ahead of Labour’s landslide in 1997.

Sunak appeared to gain some breathing space after the threat of a Conservative mutiny against his leadership receded. A victory by Lord Ben Houchen, the high-profile Tory mayor of Tees Valley, calmed nerves among Conservative MPs.

Houchen, a popular local figure who had distanced himself from Sunak and the Conservatives in the campaign, obtained a reduced majority of 18,789. He did not wear a blue rosette at his count.

The Conservatives also hope that Andy Street, the West Midlands mayor, who preferred an endorsement from former prime minister Boris Johnson to one from Sunak, will win a third term when votes are counted on Saturday. Labour insiders said Starmer’s position on the Gaza war may have cost the party Muslim votes in the region.

On Saturday focus will be intense on the London mayoral contest, with rumours swirling that Tory candidate Susan Hall may have defied opinion polls and run Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan close.

Rightwing Conservative critics of Sunak on Friday pulled back from trying to topple him but urged him to tack to the right. One rebel source said that some Tory MPs were looking for an “off ramp” and that the Tees Valley result provided them with an excuse not to challenge the prime minister.

Dame Andrea Jenkyns, a Johnson supporter who submitted a no-confidence letter in Sunak last November, told the BBC: “It’s looking unlikely that the MPs are going to put the letters in. So we’ve got to pull together.”

Projections that the Conservatives could lose half the council seats they held were based on results in 71 of the 107 councils being contested. Some voters in England and Wales were also electing mayors as well as police and crime commissioners.

Sir John Curtice, the veteran elections expert, said the results were “not far short” of catastrophic for the Conservatives and “one of the worst, if not the worst” result for the party in local elections for 40 years.

Starmer’s focus on Friday was on Labour’s Blackpool South by-election victory, where the new MP Chris Webb beat the Conservatives’ David Jones with a 26 per cent swing. Reform UK came a narrow third, just 117 votes behind the Conservatives.

Labour overturned a Tory majority of 3,690 votes to take the parliamentary seat with a 7,607 majority. The seat was formerly held by Scott Benton, who was forced to quit in a lobbying scandal.

Reform UK, formerly the Brexit party and founded by Nigel Farage, secured 17 per cent of the vote in Blackpool South, one of the races it focused on, after standing candidates for only 12 per cent of contested council seats.

Reform UK is splitting the vote on the right, a threat that could intensify at the general election when it will field candidates across the country.

It was not all good news for Labour. The party lost control of Oldham council in Greater Manchester, after ceding several seats to independents who stood on a pro-Palestine platform. It also lost seats in Newcastle.

Pat McFadden, Labour’s elections co-ordinator, admitted that the Gaza war was costing the party votes. “There’s no denying this is a factor in some parts of the country,” he said.

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Columbia University is rethinking its commencement plans after weeks of pro-Palestinian protests ended with authorities forcing their way into a barricaded school building and arresting dozens of people, according to a source at the university and two members of student government.

The source at the university said the main commencement ceremony was slated to be canceled, but smaller events were still being planned.

After a meeting with top university leaders Friday, two members of student government said administrators indicated they are not sure they can hold a commencement ceremony on the main Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan because of security concerns. 

It is unclear if final decisions have been made.

“We know that our students and their loved ones are wondering about plans for University Commencement and school Class Days. Offices across Columbia are committed to ensuring that all ceremonies run smoothly and that all our students and their families and friends get the celebration they deserve,” a spokesperson for Columbia said in a statement when asked for comment about commencement plans. “We will share more information about preparations that are underway soon.”

One of the student government representatives who was in the meeting said Columbia’s administration is primarily concerned about outside protesters and is struggling to find an alternative venue.

The students told the university leaders that many in the student body are concerned about President Minouche Shafik speaking at the ceremony. “Her presence would be the cause of a lot of upset,” one of the student leaders told NBC News.

Other students are worried about the expense of staying on campus until May 15, when commencement is scheduled to happen, only to find out that it has been canceled.

An estimated 15,000 students are planning to graduate in separate outdoor ceremonies May 15. Commencement at the Ivy League school is a venerable tradition dating to 1758, when the school was known as King’s College. Each school within Columbia has also typically held its own individual graduation ceremonies.

One member of the faculty said some faculty and staff at Columbia and Barnard are planning to attend an alternative graduation ceremony on May 16. Another member involved in planning said the counter-graduation will be inspired by the counter-commencement held in 1968.

Protests at Columbia’s upper Manhattan campus erupted April 17 when students pitched about 50 tents while demanding a cease-fire in Gaza and insisting the university divest from companies that they say could be profiting from the war.

Authorities cleared out the protesters, but they returned — and encampments quickly appeared at college campuses across the country.

At Columbia, school administrators asked New York City police officers for help after protesters — including people identified by city officials as “professional outside agitators” — occupied an on-campus building early Tuesday and barricaded themselves inside.

On Tuesday night, police in riot gear descended on the school around 9 p.m. and entered the occupied Hamilton Hall through a second-floor window. Nearly 100 people were arrested, authorities said, including 40 who were on the barricaded building’s first floor.

The arrests have shaken confidence in Shafik among some students and faculty at Columbia. In a letter to the New York Police Department asking for its assistance to clear Hamilton Hall, the university president said the occupation there “left us no choice.”

In its request for police assistance, Columbia asked the NYPD to stay on campus until at least May 17, two days after commencement.

A Columbia spokesman had warned students that they faced suspension if they did not dissolve an encampment that had grown on the campus’ West Lawn ahead of the end of the academic year, and that if they were seniors they would be ineligible to graduate.

“Disruptions on campus have created a threatening environment for many,” spokesman Ben Chang had said, adding that the steps the school was taking were “about responding to the actions of the protesters, not their cause.”

As campus unrest roils other schools, including with police intervention and arrests, Columbia’s dilemma — whether to hold a commencement ceremony but with major safety concerns or cancel it altogether — is one other colleges have faced.

Last month, the University of Southern California in Los Angeles said it was canceling its main commencement ceremony, scheduled for May 10, that was set to include a keynote address from alumnus Jon M. Chu, the director of “Crazy Rich Asians,” and a presentation of honorary degrees to tennis star Billie Jean King and others.

The school had already canceled a commencement speech by a Muslim valedictorian following controversy over her social media posts about Israel’s war in Gaza. But USC said it would still host individual school commencement ceremonies and other related events.