Local Elections 2025: A Key Test for Britain’s Shifting Political Landscape

Local elections on 1 May will be portrayed as an early test for the Labour government, the Conservative opposition as well as Reform’s ambitions to radically alter the political landscape.

Elections are being held in a relatively small number of areas this year - none in London or the major cities, and relatively few in other metropolitan areas. This is by far the smallest set of contests in the four-year local election calendar and this was true even before a number of elections were postponed due to impending local government re-organisation. It should also be added that many areas where this year’s elections are taking place had become extremely difficult territory for Labour well before the current Labour government took office in July last year.

County Council Elections

May’s elections are dominated by contests in county councils, which include elections in both two-tier counties such as Derbyshire and Lancashire and single tier unitary authorities like Durham and Northumberland. There are very few elections in urban areas in this cycle, a key reason why traditionally Labour have polled poorly - little over 20% four years ago.

If one excludes the (re) creation of Cumberland out of the larger county of Cumbria in 2022, Labour has not won a single election across a whole county council area since 2017 - and even in that year won only Durham. It is now more than a decade since multiple counties were won by Labour in a local election, with Derbyshire, Durham, Lancashire, Northumberland and Nottinghamshire all won outright in 2013, a year in which Labour could boast 94 seats in County Durham, the largest Labour council group in the country.

It has often been said that Labour support in the rural areas and small towns which largely make up England’s county councils has been in long term decline as the party has become more London and metropolitan dominated - at the 2019 general election for example Labour only won a single figure number of seats in county areas across the whole of England where there was no university present.

July 2024 of course was to utterly change the electoral landscape at a national level - Labour not only swept up all parliamentary seats in counties such as Durham, Northumberland and Derbyshire but also made multiple gains in counties further south such as Cornwall, Hertfordshire and Kent, which all have elections this May.

Labour, Liberal Democrats & Conservatives

So a key question must be whether Labour can translate last July’s parliamentary gains into county council seats this May? A similar question can be posed for the Liberal Democrats in areas where they performed well nationally, albeit there are fewer of these, particularly as counties such as Surrey have had their elections postponed.

An advantage for both parties may be the presence of many new incumbent Members of Parliament, often elected after many years on the ground campaigning. To this can be added the loss of incumbent MPs by the Conservatives and defection of some councillors to Reform. This is undoubtedly going to be a very difficult set of elections for the Conservatives - they have a very high base of county councillors and in similar areas where there were District council elections in 2023 they suffered huge losses.

Reform

The performance of Reform in this election is perhaps the biggest conundrum of all. In previous elections, parties in a similar political space have under-performed locally, perhaps because of a lack of local campaigning infrastructure. This time there are signs of change, including full slates of candidates, significant on the ground activity and Reform leaflets and direct mails being sent out well ahead of polling day, none of which were the case previously.

Reform will look to target the Mayoral election in Greater Lincolnshire and the mayoral and council elections in Doncaster (the only metropolitan borough with council elections this year) as well as the parliamentary by-election in Runcorn and Helsby as opportunities for potential breakthrough - it is a key question as to how well the party is able to perform when there are multiple electoral tests on the same day.

Voting System

As ever the first past the post electoral system will play a huge role in the final pattern of results. The multi-party system that local elections have now become (450 candidates for 98 seats in Durham, the majority of whom will believe they can win) adds to the sheer unpredictability, where a 25% vote share can deliver very little in the way of seats, 35% a stream of victories. And yet the results will be pored over and viewed as a key test for national parties and leaders.

Expect a very mixed set of results with no clear overall ‘winner’ once the polls have closed on Thursday 1 May.