A preview of English council elections

Michael Thrasher outlines the key things to look out for in the upcoming English council elections.

In the May 2025 local elections the Conservatives collapsed in the English shires, losing councillors and council control to Reform.  Now, Labour has the spotlight, facing electoral jeopardy across London and the conurbations in the Midlands and the North.

Most of the factors shaping the outcome of the 2025 elections are present for their 2026 equivalents.

Record numbers of candidates are standing. Labour and Conservatives alike will be challenged in most cases by Liberal Democrats, Reform and the Greens. The consequence of that last year was a record low figure for the average winner’s vote share – just 41%.

The voting system ensured that a party with a relatively low vote share but ahead of its rivals would reap the ‘winner’s bonus’.

This May, over 5,000 seats in 136 councils are at stake. Labour is defending more than half the seats, most of which are in urban areas. Conservatives defend more than a quarter, many of which are in the shires.

Seats being defended

Source: Rallings & Thrasher

The table uses estimated seat numbers for councils implementing new ward boundaries.  It does not include casual vacancies being filled and countermanded elections.

The omens are poor for both major parties. Most seats were last fought in either 2021 or 2022. Since then, their support as measured by opinion polls has collapsed.

Recent council by-elections confirm this. Labour has been losing four in five seats it defends while the Conservatives are losing two in every three. Defeats are sometimes inflicted by parties that have not contested the seat before.

A useful way of assessing the state of the parties for any given set of local elections is the National Equivalent Vote (NEV), which estimates how the local vote might have translated nationwide.

National Equivalent Vote: 2021-2025

Source: Rallings & Thrasher, Sky News / Sunday Times

Between 2021 and 2025, Conservative support under NEV more than halved, from 40% to 18%. The party may improve this year, but its councillors elected five years ago and facing re-election are under threat.

Most of the Labour seats up in 2026 were fought four years ago when it received an estimated 35% of the national share. Current support hovers around 20%, making Labour councillors even in ‘safe’ seats vulnerable to defeat.

By contrast, Reform’s rise has been meteoric, barely registering when its few candidates attracted little support, to last year when it gained over 700 seats. There is little reason to believe that Reform will poll much worse this time around with the Green Party also on the rise.

To an extent the two main parties are protected from the full effects of voters switching allegiance in some councils because only a fraction of seats are being elected this year.  Control of some councils can’t change, no matter how many seats are lost.

That still leaves all 32 London boroughs, 16 metropolitan boroughs, and other councils where the scope for change is greatest because all the seats are in play.

Labour and the Conservatives are set for both seat and council losses. Beyond that, it is hard to say which of their rivals will benefit the most and how that might impact on the political make up of these councils.

Considering the relative increases and decreases in likely support we can provide a guide for interpreting the results.

All things being considered, a good night for Labour is to limit losses to 800 seats (about a third of its total) and to lose control in only a handful of the more than sixty councils it is defending.  1,000 losses would be okay but as the number rises to 1,500 then alarm bells ring. That’s close to the percentage of seat defeats Labour endured in 2025 but the sheer size of the number involved will grab everyone’s attention. Should Labour reach 2,000 losses or more that will be the worst setback imaginable and would certainly mean the loss of councils that have had Labour-run administrations for 50 years or more.

The Conservatives too will make net losses but if these are kept within limits and occur mainly in the shires then it should be confident that most of the attention will focus on Labour’s performance instead.

Possible losses

Possible gains

Because Reform is taking votes off both main parties it is likely that it will gain the most seats. There are many more seats at stake than in 2025 and so 650 gains is at the low end of expectations. Passing the 1,000 mark and moving towards 1,600 gains would be an impressive achievement by any standard.

Unlike Reform, the Green Party has taken a while to build its councillor base and still only has majority control of one council. The opportunity for a sudden increase is there if it secures seats in London and the metropolitan boroughs as voters turn away from Labour.

The Liberal Democrats have fallen under the radar as focus shifts to its rivals for Labour and Conservative seats. A long-established force in local government, it must avoid at all costs the loss of any councils that it already controls, such as Hull, Tunbridge Wells and Wokingham. Its progress is likely to be incremental rather than dramatic.

By Michael Thrasher, Associate Member, Nuffield College and Honorary Professor, Exeter University.