Labour Expected To Lose Nearly 2 000 Council Seats

Labour is on course to lose nearly 2,000 council seats in next month’s elections, according to a top pollster.

It would mean the party being left with barely a quarter of the councillors they currently have in the areas where voters will go to the polls on May 7.

The Tories are set to lose 600 councillors on what is set to be a grim night for the two main parties.

Reform UK will be the big winners, gaining 1,550 seats, while the Green Party is set to see its number of councillors boosted by 500.

The Lib Dems are on course to gain 150 seats, according to the analysis by Tory peer Lord Hayward.

Millions of English voters are set to take part in council elections in London and across the Midlands, Yorkshire, Merseyside, Lancashire and the north east.

In all, 5,014 council seats and six mayoralties are up for grabs in the biggest test of public opinion since the 2024 general election.

Hayward said Labour will lose 1,850 of the 2,558 council seats it has up for election.

He predicted that the SNP will once again win the Scottish Parliament elections also being held on May 7, but will fall short of an overall majority.

And in Wales, Labour is set to lose power for the first time since the Welsh Senedd was established in 1999, with Plaid Cymru winning for the first time ever.

Such a set of results across the UK would represent a disaster for Labour, and pile even more pressure on prime minister Keir Starmer.

Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, seen as a potential successor to Starmer if he manages to be re-elected an MP, said Labour will need to take “a different course” after May 7 – and declined to give the PM his support.

Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: “It’s got to be a moment of reflection.”

“I understand the real frustration people have got with politics and politicians,” he said. “I honestly, I really understand that. And they’re right to say politics just hasn’t been working.”

Starmer blocked Burnham’s attempt to stand for Labour in the Gorton and Denton by-election in February, but the former cabinet minister said he was not ruling out another attempt to become an MP again.

He said: “The politics we’ve pioneered as mayors: place first, not party first — that needs to go national, and so we do need to reform Westminster.

“I can’t remove the kind of feeling that someday I will try and go back. I’m not ruling it out.”

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