Image source, PA

Professor Sir John Curtice has this to say about how the Brexit question affected the Tories: "The difference in the Conservative performance in Leave and Remain areas has been very stark in the BBC's collection of key wards.

"In those wards where less than 45% voted leave in the EU referendum on average the Conservative vote is exactly the same as it was in 2016.

"In contrast, in those wards where over 60% voted leave the Conservative vote is up by 13 points.

"A key explanation for this pattern is that UKIP performed better in the Leave-voting wards in 2014 and thus in these elections there were more UKIP votes to be garnered by other parties in these circumstances.

"It is clear that in most wards this large collapse in the UKIP vote disproportionately benefited the Conservative party."

Prime Minister Theresa May has been speaking to activists in Sedgley, in the Dudley council area.

"What we have seen up and down country is that Conservative councils provide a good local services but also keep council taxes low," she says.

"We've had great results around the country - not just in the West Midlands - but in London where we've held Wandsworth, Westminster, Hillingdon and Barnet.

"We're not going to be complacent - we're going to build on our success for the future."

A little more from election guru Professor Sir John Curtice, who writes: "With nearly all of the BBC's key wards now declared on average the Greens have won 7.5% of the vote in the wards that they contested on Thursday.

"However, the party's vote is down by 2 points on average in wards that they also fought in 2014.

"Meanwhile UKIP have won just over 6% of the vote on average in the wards that they fought. This represents no less than a 20 point drop in the wards that they fought in 2014."

Labour dominates in Manchester where they have held on to 94 seats, losing one to the Lib Dems.

The Lib Dems now hold two seats on the council.

BBC political editor for West Midlands, Patrick Burns, says that the results in Birmingham look pretty close to the status quo.

Labour is down a little bit but not by much, he observes, but adds that there will be anxiety that they are losing support in white working-class areas.

He says at one point earlier it looked as though Labour had done "significantly less well" than expected and it would have been an "immense shock" if the Conservatives had taken control, but it later "evened out".

He also notes a historic moment for the Green Party, celebrating its first seat on the local authority.

There are also signs of a Lib Dem revival in the area, he says.

Iain Watson
Political correspondent

Image source, PA

For Labour it was a night of disappointment rather than disaster.

Their projected share of the vote was up from 2014 when many of the same seats were contested. But the party finished neck and neck with the Conservatives rather than pulling ahead.

On the record, a range of Labour MPs called for an inquest.

Birmingham MP Jess Phillips said the party had to look at what had gone wrong in white working class areas in northern England, and Chuka Umunna - who represents Streatham - called for an election post-mortem to look at why expected gains hadn't materialised.

Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson suggested the party had consolidated its gains from last years general election - but said the party leadership was open to assessing its performance.

But off the record senior Labour frontbenchers were willing to pre-empt any inquiry and share their concerns privately.

Several front benchers have criticised the management of expectations, or lack of it - so that picking up council seats in London could be portrayed by opponents as failure because control of entire councils hadn't changed hands.

There was criticism, too, that Jeremy Corbyn hadn't attempted to retain key party staff who had been employed before he became leader. Frontbenchers have suggested that officials with extensive experience of running election campaigns have been lost - and that resources have been poorly targeted.

And while there was a wide acceptance that Mr Corbyn’s leadership couldn't be challenged, there was a fear that in some areas - particularly outside big cities and university towns - there is now a ceiling to his support.

Labour has retained control of Birmingham City Council. PA reports Labour has secured 51 of the 101 seats with 14 two-councillor wards yet to declare.

There had been some speculation Labour could lose out in Birmingham.

Our reporter at the count tweets:

Asked about anti-Semitism by the BBC's Huw Edwards, shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry responds: "Words are not enough.

"I don't know why we've been dragging our feet but we have."

She adds: "It's about actions - people are very pragmatic. This stuff hasn’t been dealt with and we’re going to do that as it takes many different forms.

"We need to be careful - anti-Semitism is throughout our community. We don’t want our party to have any of it."

Cherwell in Oxfordshire has stuck with the Conservatives who now have 36 seats.

They lost one seat to Labour who are the second-largest party on nine seats.

"We've got lots to celebrate here," says Labour's Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

However he says the results overall have been "mixed".

"The party now needs to reflect on what it needs to do to make further advances," he says, adding that anti-Semitism was a factor in the election.

"There are feelings of pain and hurt in Jewish community that need to be addressed."

Tories take Pendle as Blackburn Council elects its first Asian women councillors.

The Lib Dems have taken control of South Cambridgeshire away from the Conservatives.

The party secured 28 seats, compared to 11 for the Tories, while independents and Labour won two seats each.

The recent boundary change was a factor here.

Bromley sticks with the Conservatives who lose one seat but retain 50.

Labour is the second-largest party on eight seats while UKIP lose their two seats on the council.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said he believed there were lots of Jewish voters in London "who don’t feel comfortable voting Labour".

He told BBC News: "That can’t be right that anybody feels that our party is a safe place for someone that is an anti-Semitic person.

"Anti-Semiitism is racism. We should have no truck with that and we have to make sure we investigate any allegations against anybody."

He praised Jeremy Corbyn for tasking Labour's general secretary, Jennie Formby, with investigating all allegations "speedily".

He echoed other Labour figures in stressing it was Labour's best results in London since 1971 and said Jeremy Corbyn was the right man to take party forward to the next general election.

Parties retain control of Hertfordshire councils, despite losing seats.

Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

Image source, EPA/PA

They seem stuck with each other - so close, in fact, that our projected national share of the vote from the results would mean that, in a hypothetical general election tomorrow, the two main Westminster parties would receive exactly the same levels of public support.

For reasons we've discussed at length overnight and in recent days, we have to be careful about directly transposing what happened on Thursday into a theoretical nationwide election.

But while in one sense not very much happened in the local election - not very many councils and seats changed hands and neither of the main parties have (with a couple of hours to go) made dramatic strides - something important did happen.

Voters opted again for roughly the status quo, underlining the trends that we saw developing at the general election as the political parties grappled with a new landscape after the referendum.

Read more from Laura.

Image source, UK Parliament

Labour's Dan Jarvis is elected mayor for Sheffield City Region - on a second count with turnout at 25%.