Labour has pulled off a “historic” victory in the North Yorkshire mayoral election, with rural older voters turning their back on Rishi Sunak “in his own backyard”.

The local elections saw Labour’s David Skaith beat the Conservative’s Keane Duncan to become York and North Yorkshire’s first mayor of the combined authority.

Mr Skaith won with 66,761 votes to Mr Duncan’s 51,967, with the Liberal Democrat candidate Felicity Cunliffe-Lister coming third with just over 30,000 votes.

Labour picked up over 25,000 votes in York, more than three times that of the Conservatives, while it only missed out on winning the rest of the area by 41,122 votes to 44,794.

Labour's Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer appear with the new Labour Mayor for York and North Yorkshire David Skaith at Northallerton Town FC's ground.

The news came as Sir Keir Starmer’s party also won key mayoral elections in the North East and East Midlands as Rishi Sunak’s party lost around half of the council seats that it was defending in this week’s local elections.

Labour picked up another by-election win in Blackpool South, with the Conservatives narrowly beating Reform UK to second place.

Ben Houchen, the Tees Valley mayor, held onto his position with a substantially reduced majority, in what was one of the only positive moments for the Conservatives in yesterday’s results.

Speaking in Northallerton, in Mr Sunak’s constituency, Sir Keir said: “It’s an amazing moment in history to have a Labour victory here.

“This is a very very special moment here. Through the villages and the towns of North Yorkshire, people have voted for change, they’ve voted for Labour.”

Speaking to reporters, he added that this was a “historic” victory in “the heart of Tory territory”.

Following the result yesterday, Conservative sources said that Keane Duncan, the Tory candidate, had run a poor campaign with policies such as setting up a bank and buying a local hotel.

North Yorkshire is home to some of the Government’s safest seats with Richmond and Northallerton, Skipton and Ripon, and Thirsk and Malton all boasting majorities of over 20,000.

The victory in the mayoral contest was seen by Labour figures as a boost to hopes of pushing for other seats such as Scarborough and York Outer.

Professor John Curtice, the acclaimed pollster, said that the results announced yesterday suggested the Conservatives are on course for their worst performance in a set of local elections in 40 years.

Despite this, Ben Houchen’s victory on Teesside and hopes that the Tories’ Andy Street could win later today in the West Midlands, were seen as key markers for success in these local elections within the Conservative Party.

Despite suggestions from rebels on the right of the party that Mr Sunak could face attempts to oust him following the local elections, polls of party members suggest that there is no appetite to remove the Tory leader before the next general election, with senior Conservatives wishing to succeed him yet to announce a public call for his removal.

Today’s scheduled results could provide a further boost for the Prime Minister with the West Midlands mayoral election set to be close run, as well as London’s mayoral election where Labour sources are predicting a closer contest than recent opinion polls suggested.

The Conservatives saw losses across all councils in West and South Yorkshire, with losing substantial numbers in both Wakefield and Rotherham.

Labour saw minimal gains in Sheffield while it lost control of Kirklees council after independent candidates picked up seats at its expense.

Labour wins 'historic' victory in Tory heartland of North Yorkshire