Labour has suffered serious losses in local elections across England, Wales and Scotland, with the Conservatives making significant gains. Though Labour managed to win mayoral elections in Liverpool and Manchester, it lost out to the Tories in Tees Valley, a traditional Labour heartland.
Meanwhile, Ukip is facing a near wipeout of its council seats, with the Conservaties the main beneficiaries.
Thousands of readers have been discussing the implications of the results in the comments of our politics live blog. Below, we share a selection of their views.
Labour needs to be honest with itself
Corbyn is an albatross
I see this as more of a commentary on the how the nation views the leaders. Brexit obviously plays a part but not as much as many suppose: that will be the issue come June. Many moderate Labour supporters have long realised, Corbyn is an albatross around the party’s neck, it’s just a shame that so many of his supporters have bought-in to his cult-like status. All they’ve ended up doing is letting the party, and the people they want to help, down.
Ukippers return to the establishment
So ultimately, those kippers who complained about elites ruling the country end up voting conservative?
A bad day for the Lib Dems
Arguably the biggest losers here are the Liberal Democrats, whose pro-EU spiel really hasn't worked.
I suspect Crosby may have played a blinder here. It's becoming pretty clear that the only hope of stopping the Tories and avoiding a repeat of today's outcome in a few weeks time, will be the 'progressive alliance' some have been calling for - the 'coalition of chaos' the Conservatives have been warning against.
This suggests a general election landslide
Heaven help the UK. If this is any indication of the General Election results, we're in trouble. Whoever's in power, a large majority or a landslide is bad news - it results in the Government failing to be held accountable. And with discussions as important as Brexit going on, we can't afford that.
Labour in Scotland only have themselves to blame
Going by current results in Scotland, the Conservatives are now the face of the Union. It'll be SNP v Tory up here now and Labour only have themselves to blame for having nothing of substance to say on the independence issue. I blame Scottish Labour for this more than Corbyn (not that his leadership is completely blameless), they need to sort themselves out.
The bigger winner was apathy
The Tees Valley mayoral election was the lowest of low key. There has been no canvassing here where I live, and I only received only one leaflet, the one from the Labour candidate.
OK, the Conservative candidate has won, but with just a 21% turnout the biggest winner up here has been apathy.
We need a progressive alliance
Please Labour: look at these results, have a long hard look at yourself and realise that you are losing voters. There's still time to change tack before the GE. The argument of JC supporters that he is popular at a local level has just been shown to be false. If you cling to it then 8 June could be catastrophic.
And to all the parties that are not UKIP/Conservatives: please take the idea of a progressive alliance seriously.
Labour should be wiping the floor with the Tories
In 2013 Labour gained 291 seats in local elections. The opposition should be wiping the floor with a Tory party giving us hard brexit, cuts to public services, hospital closures and longer nhs waiting times. Instead they are losing seats and the blame should lay firmly at the door of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott. They are the ones the electorate have no faith in and who are leading Labour to electoral disaster.
I had hoped against hope that I would be coming here this morning to say that I was wrong, that the electorate had embraced Corbyn and that we had done well in the local elections. Everything I have learned and understood about politics over the many years of my involvement told me otherwise but I hoped.
To say that I'm bitterly disappointed would be an understatement, but I'm not surprised. Labour now faces a very tough five weeks until the GE which, if we are being honest with ourselves, is going to be as bad as these results if not worse. Today is a bad day. To say otherwise is to be dishonest with ourselves.