2 min read3 min

With around 5,000 council seats in England up for grabs on 7 May, along with six mayoralities, every seat at Holyrood and in the newly expanded Senedd, the Labour Party is braced for an extremely painful evening, which will likely put renewed pressure on Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership over the weekend.

At the same time, the Conservatives’ electoral woes are expected to continue, in what would be a reminder of the work leader Kemi Badenoch has to do to repair the party’s brand following its heavy general election defeat in 2024.

Meanwhile, signs point to the UK’s insurgent smaller parties, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and Zack Polanski’s Greens, winning many hundreds of seats across the country.

There are also expected to be gains for Liberal Democrats and independent candidates, further demonstrating Britain’s shift to multi-party politics.

To discuss all of that and more, host of The Rundown podcast, Alain Tolhurst, is joined by Luke Tryl, UK Director at think tank More in Common, along with Dr Hannah Bunting, Senior Lecturer at Exeter University and co-director of The Elections Centre, plus PoliticsHome’s Adam Payne and The House magazine’s Sienna Rodgers.

The Rundown is presented by Alain Tolhurst, and is produced by Nick Hilton and edited by Ewan Cameron for Podot

• Click here to listen to the latest episode of The Rundown, or search for ‘PoliticsHome’ wherever you get your podcasts.

4 min read6 min

In the current political climate, headlines often move at breakneck speed. But rushed political decisions, made with little scrutiny, can cause lasting harm that far outlasts the news cycle.

When the Home Secretary blocked student visas for nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Myanmar and Sudan, alongside skilled worker visas for Afghans, last month, the rationale was that it would reduce strain on and abuse of the asylum system. However, the government estimates that the 18-visa month visa brake will reduce asylum claims by only 1,400. Set against more than 160,000 applications over the last 18 months, this will do little to address existing backlogs, while carrying serious consequences for people from impacted countries.

Entering the UK with permission to study and later claiming asylum because war erupts or repression intensifies at home is not misuse. It is the protection system working as intended. The evidence supports this: in 2025, 94 per cent of Sudanese asylum applicants were granted protection. These are people seeking protection from well-documented violence and persecution, not looking for loopholes. I am in Sudan currently, and it offers a stark illustration; the country is facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis since records began, and millions of young people have been denied access to education.

One Sudanese colleague, who arrived in the UK on a Chevening scholarship, explained that “the study visa is not just an opportunity, it represents hope, stability, and a pathway to building a better future. A lot of time, effort, and hope have already been invested in this process.”

At the International Rescue Committee (IRC), we work with people from the moment they are forced to flee, through to rebuilding their lives in safety.  All four countries affected by the visa brake are on the IRC’s Emergency Watchlist, meaning they are amongst the 20 most fragile and conflict-affected places on Earth.

The impact is particularly severe for women and girls in Afghanistan, where they have been banned from receiving education over the age of 12, leaving around 1.5m girls barred from secondary education alone. For many Afghan women, access to education abroad has become one of the last remaining routes to learning and independence. One Afghan IRC colleague who arrived in the UK on a scholarship told us the decision feels equivalent to when the Taliban banned women from education and work: “It takes away access to education and opportunity, with very similar consequences for Afghan youth, especially women.”

These visas are often not about permanent migration but gaining qualifications and experience that can help rebuild their countries. An Afghan client, who arrived as a student, told us that this will have a serious impact on the dreams of talented young Afghans: “For many, these opportunities are not just about studying or working abroad. They represent hope, stability and a future built through hard work.”

Cameroon is another case in point. For students from English-speaking regions, deeply affected by ongoing violence, access to education in the UK is needed for training lawyers to work within English common law, and for doctors who can return to support overstretched health services.

For those who do stay in the UK, many have worked tirelessly to secure opportunities and are now making extraordinary contributions to workplaces, universities and communities.

These concerns are shared in Parliament. Baroness Royall, former Principal of Somerville College, Oxford, expressed dismay that “brilliant students, following rigorous selection procedures and on fully funded scholarships, have had their hopes, dreams and futures shattered”.

Lord Smith, Chancellor of Cambridge University, echoes this, noting that “overseas students bring life and cultural difference to our universities, and we are infinitely the richer for it”.

We have seen the damaging consequences of nationality-based restrictions before. In the US, travel bans reinforced harmful stereotypes and fueled hostility. Policies that imply certain nationalities are more likely to ‘abuse’ the system risk deepening division, without fixing the challenges the asylum system faces.

Student and skilled worker visas should be assessed on individual merit. Blanket restrictions based on nationality are unfair, risk undermining British values and set a dangerous precedent.

Flora Alexander is Executive Director of International Rescue Committee UK

4 min read9 min

Glass remains a manufacturing success story at plants across the UK. It is a £1.3 billion industry, supporting well over 100,000 jobs. Highly skilled jobs, making the billions of bottles, jars and containers that we use every day.

It drives local and regional economies. And it has embraced sustainability, making steady progress through innovation and investment.

So, it is hugely important for the government to reconsider pressing ahead with regulations that have the industry worrying about what the future holds, or even if there is a future for this historic sector.

Big players such as O-I Glass in Alloa and Encirc, which has sites in Northern Ireland and the north of England, have spent significant sums on upgrading their facilities and stand ready to invest more in the name of both efficiency and progress.

Just over a year ago, I was lucky enough to visit the Alloa glassworks, which has teamed up with industrial gases company Air Products to build a new air separation plant there to supply oxygen for cleaner combustion in new furnaces.

It is the first plant for Air Products of its kind in the UK in 40 years, coming about in a unique partnership with the glassworks, marking a commitment to driving down emissions.

But large manufacturers such as Encirc and O-I have been left frustrated at government rules that appear to penalise glass.

The Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme makes companies responsible for the collection and recycling costs of the goods they put on the market. If businesses produce or use packaging such as glass, plastic, or cardboard, EPR means they will now pay for collecting, recycling, and disposing of that packaging.

The policy’s objective is admirable, but its implementation has had unintended consequences.

The thing is that unlike other materials, glass is infinitely recyclable. And that recycling process is becoming more and more efficient.

However, EPR fees are calculated according to weight. And so, because glass is heavier than other comparable materials, it is being hit with disproportionate costs in EPR fees.

In fact, the UK glass EPR costs are well over twice that of any EPR scheme worldwide. And that is on top of the rising price of materials across the board along with soaring energy costs.

Drinks cans and plastic bottles are avoiding all the EPR costs entirely with these products due to be in a mooted deposit return scheme later next year and have been exempted from EPR.

So, while the glass industry is being negatively impacted, competitor materials currently pay nothing despite having a bigger detrimental effect on the environment.

It is hardly surprising, then, that glass manufacturers are carefully considering their future plans. The government should act to assuage their concerns and convince them that we are committed to UK manufacturing in general, and to the glass industry as part of that.

I believe there will always be a demand for glass. But if it is not manufactured here in the UK then we will see another industry destroyed and our society relying on more and more imports.

We are already seeing a surge in Chinese and Turkish glass on the shelves. Importing means those products actually generate a greater environmental footprint, undermining the core aims of the EPR policy.

The risk is clear in my mind. Future investment, jobs, and innovation could move elsewhere if the UK becomes an uncompetitive environment for glass manufacturing.

The solution is a clear one. EPR fees need to be urgently rebalanced to recognise that while glass may be heavy, it is sustainable, recyclable and a boon to the UK economy.

Unintended consequences can often be a part of politics. However, that is no excuse for inaction when policy goes wrong, as it is if EPR is implemented unchanged.

This is not a big ask but it is urgent. I have written to Ministers to urge them to talk to the glass manufacturers, tweak EPR fees and support an industry which has been a UK success for centuries.

We must protect the jobs it generates and raise a glass, or a bottle, to a UK success story that has a bright future with the right policies in place.

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.

Hannah Spencer with Zack Polanski, March 2026 (Alamy)

3 min read13 min

If she wants to help her constituents in Gorton and Denton, she’ll need allies: nothing gets turned into law with a vote of one. 

By extending the invitation, I’m offering Hannah the chance to get to know some of the 645 non-Green parliamentary colleagues she just threw under the bus. After just two months in the job, she told the press that we’re dishonest, smell of alcohol and do nothing for our communities.

But fair play to Hannah. Her opinions have got the Greens plenty of news coverage ahead of the local elections. As she said in her recent interview with PoliticsJOE, “If I’m winding those people up and they’re worried – they’re linked to the establishment we think should have less power – so, if I’m doing that, I think I’m on the right track.”

The right track for Hannah appears to be demonising large groups of people to win votes. Isn’t that the ugliest section of the populist playbook? The blame-game clickbait used to distract voters from the extremist policies in the small print. For Reform UK, the scapegoat is immigrants. For the Greens, it’s the so-called ‘establishment’. 

But it is a tactic that plays fast and loose with MPs’ safety. Whipping up anti-MP sentiment is dangerous. In a recent parliamentary survey, 96 per cent of current MPs said they had personally experienced one or more incidents of threatening behaviour. I’m sure Hannah is familiar with this herself.

After my recent work on the Crime and Policing Bill, I had death threats. I know my other colleagues have had too, depending on what they’re working on. And in the last 10 years, two MPs – Jo Cox and David Amess – have been murdered in hate-fuelled attacks.

So, I’d be grateful for the chance to take Hannah for a drink at the bar. (I hope they serve the WKD Blue she likes, or she can have alcohol-free drink of course.) I’ll be taking her because I want to tackle her prejudices. Rather than ‘establishment’ stooges, she’ll meet everyday people from all walks of life who, like me, are passionate about serving their communities.

Speaking for MPs from my own party so heavily criticised by Hannah, what we are is sensible, grounded politicians with the whole nation’s interests at heart. (That’s why we won the 2024 election. People didn’t vote for large groups of ‘disruptor’ politicians like Hannah.)

And I believe people want less drama, not more – they just want to get on with their lives. So, while MPs from other parties chase headlines, Labour continues to do the right thing – such as working hard with our international allies to calm tensions and bring fuel prices down at home. 

The drink would be an olive branch, not a stunt. If Hannah wants to rail against power, she should first understand how change is made: through persuasion, building alliances and respecting the people voters choose – even when you disagree with them. If the Greens want to be taken seriously as lawmakers, not just hecklers, the first round is on me.

Tonia Antoniazzi is Labour MP for Gower and chair of the Beer APPG 

Ahead of next week’s EU alignment Bill, Catherine Barnard and James Wolffe KC consider the key issues that could arise as part of any SPS deal agreed by the UK government on devolved governments in Scotland and Wales.

If and when a UK-EU SPS agreement is agreed, constitutional questions arise not only for the UK government (UKG) and Parliament, but also for the devolved institutions in Cardiff and Edinburgh. That is because the SPS agreement concerns areas of ‘non-reserved’ (i.e. devolved) competence where domestic policy responsibility rests with the Welsh and Scottish governments, accountable respectively to the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament.

The UK-EU Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) refers to ‘timely dynamic alignment’ with the relevant EU rules in ‘Great Britain’. However, it also requires ‘due regard’ to the UK’s ‘constitutional and parliamentary procedures’, which presumably includes the arrangements for Wales and Scotland (the MoU does not apply to Northern Ireland, where the relevant rules already apply under the Windsor Framework). What will this mean? We don’t know, but we have five questions.

First, how are the policy interests of the devolved institutions being considered in UKG’s negotiating position? International relations are reserved to the UK, so UKG is negotiating the SPS agreement for the whole of the UK. The MoU envisages limited, but tightly defined, exceptions to dynamic alignment. The devolved institutions may have an interest in the scope and content of any such exceptions. What input have they had into those discussions?

Second, assuming an SPS agreement is done, the MoU provides that the European Commission should consult ‘the Government of the United Kingdom’ at an early stage of policymaking, giving it a ‘decision-shaping’ role over EU laws to which it dynamically aligns. How will UKG, representing all parts of the UK, accommodate any distinctive devolved policy perspectives in decision shaping? There is also an important subsidiary question: how will the devolved administrations keep abreast of emerging or future EU initiatives within the agreement’s scope so that they may advance their policy position?

Third, how will the SPS agreement approach dynamic alignment? Will it be automatic, like the Gibraltar agreement (Gibraltar must follow EU rules in the areas specified or the agreement falls), semi-automatic like the Windsor Framework (NI must follow EU rules but subject to the Stormont Brake or applicability motion), or contain a ‘hurdle’, as in the Swiss case, where the measure applies in Switzerland only following a decision by a joint EU/Swiss committee. If there is to be an equivalent to the “Stormont Brake”, will the Senedd or the Scottish Parliament be able to apply it? If the Swiss model is followed, how would any devolved policy interests be considered in that decision-making process?

Fourth, how will dynamic alignment be delivered? One option would be a statutory provision like the old s.2(2) of the European Communities Act 1972, or the general power already available to Scottish Ministers in s.1 of the UK Withdrawal from the European Union (Continuity) (Scotland) Act 2021. These allow relevant EU measures to be implemented by subordinate (i.e. secondary) legislation, not Acts of Parliament. If that approach is taken, it will invite questions about the mechanisms of scrutiny not only by the UK Parliament but by the Senedd and the Scottish Parliament.

Further, if dynamic alignment is delivered through subordinate legislation, how will this take account of devolution? There are competing constitutional considerations: the responsibility of the devolved governments for devolved policy, which is the central feature of devolution; and UKG’s interest in ensuring that the UK’s international obligations are fulfilled.

There might legitimately be divergent approaches to the detail of implementation in different parts of the UK. That was permissible under EU membership when directives were being implemented, and there seems no good reason why it should not also be possible (subject to UK Internal Market Act 2020 considerations) where an EU measure covered by the SPS agreement can be implemented in different ways.

There are three models. The first, consistent with the territorial allocation of policy responsibility, would give Welsh and Scottish ministers the relevant powers, with UKG implementing for England. The UK’s international position would be protected by the ‘backstop’ provisions in the devolution statutes under which UKG can prevent devolved ministers breaching the UK’s international obligations.

The second would allow either UKG or devolved ministers to exercise the relevant powers. This was the approach taken to implementing EU obligations when the UK was an EU member state. A concordat set expectations for inter-government consultation and recognised that it was for devolved ministers to decide whether to exercise their powers or to opt for GB or UK-wide regulations instead.

The third, often (if controversially) used since Brexit, would be to give UKG the relevant powers. If this option is adopted, a key issue will be the robustness of the procedural safeguards for the interests of the devolved Governments and legislatures and the integrity of the devolution settlement.

Fifth and finally, will there be any scope for different approaches to be taken to implementation of EU legislation in the different parts of the UK? There are multiple scenarios which could arise. We consider three.

What if UKG negotiates an exception to the SPS Agreement (as is envisaged by the MoU) whereby they are not required to adopt a specific EU law, but the Scottish or Welsh government wish to adopt it? That would presumably cause no difficulty under the UK-EU SPS agreement but might give rise to domestic law questions under the UK Internal Market Act 2020.

What if Scotland or Wales objects to implementing an EU rule under the SPS agreement? Unless the SPS agreement allows it (for example through an equivalent to the ‘Stormont Brake’), any decision by the devolved institutions not to align would likely be highly problematic. As with Switzerland, the EU would probably be entitled to respond, including by imposing tariffs, and it seems highly unlikely that any such response could be applied other than to GB as a whole. Domestically, such a case might prompt UKG to use its ‘backstop’ powers and would raise UK Internal Market Act considerations.

What if it is UKG which objects, and refuses to implement an EU rule under the agreement in England, while the Scottish and Welsh Governments implement it in Scotland and Wales? Not only would the EU response (e.g. tariffs) likely apply to GB as a whole, but the preference for the Scottish and Welsh Governments to implement the UK’s obligations might be undermined by the UK Internal Market Act.

No doubt the UKG and the devolved administrations are reflecting on these issues. The forthcoming EU alignment Bill, due to be announced in the King’s speech, will likely answer at least some of these questions.

By Catherine Barnard, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe & Professor of EU Law and Employment Law, University of Cambridge and James Wolffe KC formerly Dean of the Faculty of Advocates (the elected leader of the Scottish bar) 2014-16 and Lord Advocate (the senior Scottish Law Officer) 2016-21.

Specifically, of the Single Most Toe-Curlingly, Horrifically Cretinous Thing Said In The 2026 Holyrood Election Campaign, And Possibly Any Election Ever, Prize.

We mean, wow. We could easily write a 1000-word article purely on the top 10 things that are fatuously, obviously idiotic about those three short sentences, and so could you. So imagine how embarrassed the poor Daily Record must be today.

Doubly so because in what must be the weakest and most apologetic endorsement in the history of print journalism, the Record actually backs Sarwar to come second.

To be honest, that makes about as much sense as Sarwar’s absurdly clueless claim that Glasgow football fans, if they can’t win trophies themselves, want to see the other Glasgow clubs do it instead. The Record asserts that the SNP won’t win a majority – something which is far from certain – but then raises the prospect of an SNP/Green coalition, then promptly ignores it again and suggests that Sarwar could somehow exert some influence in exactly the same way he’s utterly failed to do in much the same circumstances for the last five years.

We still haven’t quite worked out how the Record is trying to sell the status quo as some sort of “change”. Even if Sarwar took Labour from 3rd to 2nd that’d be a distinction without a difference. If the SNP and Greens can get over the 65-seat majority line, that’s what’ll happen and Sarwar, Malcolm Offord, Russell Findlay and Alex Cole-Hamilton will continue to be the complete irrelevances they’ve been since 2021, watching impotently and whining from the sidelines as the SNP ham-fistedly burn the country to the ground.

If Sarwar came second it’d mean no more than it did when Douglas Ross (remember him?) did it five years ago, and Sarwar is unlikely to have the 31 MSPs that Ross commanded. Indeed, if he has even a shred of decency lurking hidden somewhere in the depths of his two-dimensional plastic persona he’ll resign by next week if Labour have – as looks an odds-on prospect – failed to make any progress at all during his reign, and in all probability continued Labour’s unbroken streak of doing worse at every single Holyrood election since the first one.

(He’s already pulled off what looked an impossible task in underperforming Kezia Dugdale after she’d produced the most calamitous one-term collapse in the party’s post-devolution history.)

Sarwar has been an epic failure as leader by any measure. He’s done nothing to leave the party in better shape than he found it. It has absolutely no distinct policy platform, pledging only to implement SNP policies slightly better than the SNP, which is a bar so low that it only makes it more incredible that nobody believes it even after the slow-motion trainwreck of governance of the last decade.

Sarwar’s only “strategy” was to sit tight and wait for Buggins’ Turn while the SNP squandered its popularity, a plan which was scuppered by the catastrophic Starmer administration at Westminster torpedoing Labour’s reputation UK-wide and exposing Sarwar’s abject indolence in not carving even a glimmer of a separate identity for the North British branch office that might have acted as a partial firewall against the Prime Minister’s toxicity.

(His last-minute ditching of Starmer came across as the desperation it was, and he carried so little weight in Labour that everyone who was supposed to back him up deserted him at the moment of truth.)

But there it is. After backing Labour in 2024 the Record is pretty much stuck with him and has to make the best fist it can of “Vote for our guy to be top of the losers!”, and just imagine the humiliation for all concerned if he doesn’t manage to clear even that low bar and finishes behind the country’s most-disliked party and leader.

As a microcosm of this accursed election, in which voters don’t really want to vote for anyone and nobody really seems to want to win, it’s pretty on the nose.