-- London's FTSE 100 closed 1.43% lower on Thursday as local elections began in the UK.
Market sentiment was off amid the possibility of a "significant setback" for the ruling Labour Party, which could increase pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to resign, Danske Bank said.
"Grassroots Labour party members will choose the next party leader, who automatically becomes Prime Minister," Berenberg said. "Keir Starmer's replacement will therefore likely sit further left on economic policy. This raises the risk of another increase in business costs and/or looser fiscal policy, both of which could undermine the rate cuts and consequent pick up in GDP growth in our forecasts."
Across Britain's construction sector, the downturn worsened in April as residential and civil engineering activity levels continued to decline amid rising input cost inflation. The S&P Global UK Construction PMI came in at 39.7, lower than 45.6 in the previous month and the consensus of 45.8 from Investing.com.
In corporate news, energy and services company Centrica (CNA.L) dropped 5.32% to log the second-steepest decline among FTSE 100 constituents after guiding 2026 retail EBITDA towards the lower end of its outlook range, owing to the impact of warmer weather, commodity prices, and ongoing challenges in residential energy bad debt collection.
On the contrary, JD Sports Fashion (JD.L) gained 8.62% to lead the blue-chip index after recommending a higher final dividend amid a lower attributable profit for fiscal 2026 and higher revenue year over year.
"JD Sports has delivered a mixed bag with its FY26 results with FY26 [pretax profit] inline with guidance, a sequential slowdown in 1Q [like-for-like] to -2.3%, FY27e PBT guidance c.-4% below consensus at the midpoint but a welcome [free cash flow] beat in FY26 combined with a new capital return framework of growing dividends and a rolling GBP200m share buyback," Deutsche Numis Research said. "The 3-year FY27-29 FCF guidance of at least GBP1.4bn will provide reassurance and is largely delivered in [capital expenditure] discipline and working capital improvement."