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2025 United Kingdom local elections
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The 2025 United Kingdom local elections were held on 1 May 2025 for 1,641 council seats across 24 local authorities.[7][8] All seats on 14 county councils and eight unitary authorities in England were up for election. They were the first local elections to follow the 2024 general election.[9] Most of these seats were last contested at the 2021 local elections.
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There were also six mayoral elections, including the inaugural election for the mayor of Greater Lincolnshire, and the inaugural election for the mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire. The 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election was also held on 1 May.[10] In addition, elections for the Council of the Isles of Scilly were held.[7] The City of London Corporation held elections on 19 and 20 March.[11]
The elections were described as a sweeping victory for Reform UK. The party placed first, winning the most seats and took control of a number of local authorities.[12] The governing Labour Party and opposition Conservative Party suffered historic losses. This was the first time that Labour finished fourth in a local election; it was the first set of elections under the premiership of Keir Starmer.[13] There were major gains for the Liberal Democrats who won three new councils and won more seats than the Conservatives for the second local election in a row.[14]
Some elections originally scheduled for 2025 have been delayed by up to a year while reorganisation takes place.[15] The government announced that elections to nine councils would not take place in 2025 to allow restructuring, with elections to reformed or newly created replacement authorities taking place in 2026.[16]
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Background
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Significance of these elections
These elections were the first local elections to follow the general election held on 4 July 2024 which resulted in a landslide victory for the Labour Party. The combined vote share for Labour and the Conservatives reached a record low, with smaller parties doing well. Labour returned to being the largest party in Scotland and remained so in Wales. The election was noted as the most disproportionate in modern British history (i.e. Labour won 63% of seats with 34% of the vote),[17] mainly as a result of the first-past-the-post voting system.[18][19][20][21]
Keir Starmer won a landslide victory at the general election and became prime minister, but with the smallest share of the electoral vote of any majority government since record-keeping of the popular vote began in 1830. By the end of 2024, opinion polling for the Labour Party and Starmer's personal approval ratings had dropped significantly following several controversies including those regarding the abolition of Winter Fuel Payments and alleged trading of gifts for political influence, as well as a series of far-right anti-immigration riots fueled by the perception that his government mishandled its response to the 2024 Southport stabbings, protests by farmers over a proposed new inheritance tax on their farms, and continued government support for Israel in the Gaza war. These controversies culminated in an online petition in November 2024 calling for an early general election reaching over 2 million signatures within 2 days.[22][23]
On 2 November 2024, Kemi Badenoch won the 2024 Conservative leadership election to succeed Rishi Sunak as leader of the opposition.[24] In a December 2024 interview, Badenoch said the public "kicked out" the Conservative Party because it was not trusted and did not deliver; she dismissed concerns that her approach of not having specific policy positions would leave a vacuum that could be filled by Reform UK; and she acknowledged the 2025 local elections would be difficult for her party.[25] Nigel Farage's party Reform UK placed third in the share of the vote in the 2024 election and had MPs elected to the Commons for the first time.[26] Farage and his party Reform UK did well in opinion polls at the expense of both Labour and the Conservatives.
Following the publication of the English Devolution White Paper on 16 December 2024, which set out the Labour government's plans for local government reorganisation, some of the elections scheduled for May 2025 will be delayed by up to a year while reorganisation takes place.[15] County councils and unitary authorities had until 10 January 2025 to request to join the Government's Devolution Priority Programme and ask the Government to cancel or postpone their regularly scheduled elections.[27] At least 13 of the 21 county councils asked the government to delay their elections.[28] On 5 February 2025, the government announced that elections to nine councils (seven county councils and two unitary authorities) would not take place in 2025 to allow restructuring to take place, with elections to reformed or newly created replacement authorities taking place in 2026.[16]
These were the third set of local elections held under the Elections Act 2022, a controversial voter identification law that requires[29][30] voters to show photo ID when attending a polling station. This act also meant that the elections for directly-elected mayors would use the first-past-the-post voting system rather than the previously used supplementary vote system.
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Campaign
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Perspective
County
Cancelled
Unitary
Metropolitan borough
None
Liberal Democrats
Ed Davey launched the Liberal Democrats' campaign on 17 March in Great Missenden.[32] On 20 March the party's spring conference began in Harrogate.[33]
Davey said he wanted to replace the Conservatives as the "party of Middle England".[34]
Conservative
Kemi Badenoch launched the Conservative Party's campaign on 20 March at an event in Buckinghamshire.[35] She warned activists of an "extremely difficult" challenge,[36] and promised to bring "lower taxes and better services."[37]
Badenoch suggested that Conservative Party councillors could form coalitions with Reform UK councillors, but Farage turned this suggestion down.[38]
Reform UK
Nigel Farage launched the Reform UK campaign at an event on 28 March at Arena Birmingham.[39] Reform contested nearly all the council seats and the six mayoral elections.[40]
Labour
Prime Minister Keir Starmer launched the Labour Party campaign on 3 April at an event in Derbyshire.[41]
Green
Carla Denyer launched the Green Party campaign on 8 April in Warwickshire.[42][43]
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Results
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Overall
The table below shows the results of these elections, along with the overall number of councillors in Great Britain for each party following the elections.
County councils
There are 21 county councils in England. All of them hold whole-council elections on a four-year cycle that includes 2025. However, 7 county councils (Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Surrey, East Sussex, West Sussex and Hampshire) had their elections postponed due to local government reorganisation. A total of 16 county councils applied for their elections to be postponed, though 9 (Derbyshire, Devon, Gloucestershire, Kent, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Oxfordshire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire) had this request rejected and their elections went ahead as planned, as these places were not part of the Devolution Priority Programme.[45]
Metropolitan boroughs
Most metropolitan boroughs are elected by thirds across three years, with a fourth fallow year, which fell in 2025. However, City of Doncaster Council has been elected as a whole every four years from 2017, to coincide with the election of the Mayor of Doncaster.
Unitary authorities
There are 62 unitary authorities, which are single-tier local authorities. Ten of them were due to hold whole-council elections on a four-year cycle that includes 2025. However, Isle of Wight and Thurrock had their elections cancelled due to local government reorganisation. Owing to boundary changes, several authorities saw a significant reduction in the number of councillors elected: Buckinghamshire reduced from 147 to 97, Durham went from 126 to 98 and West Northamptonshire elected 76 instead of 93.
Combined authority mayors
Single-authority mayors
City of London Corporation
The City of London Corporation held its elections on 20 March.
Isles of Scilly
Fifteen of the sixteen seats on the Isles of Scilly were returned uncontested at the close of nominations, with only the island of St Martin's holding a poll on 1 May.[47]
Elections delayed to 2026
These elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2025, but on 5 February 2025 it was announced that they would be delayed by a year to 2026 to allow for reorganisation of local government structure. The relevant legislation had to pass the House of Lords, where some peers tried to prevent this happening.[48] A fatal motion, tabled by Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Pinnock, which would have prevented the postponement, was defeated by 63 votes to 163.[49]
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Maps
- Reform UK
- Liberal Democrats
- Labour Party
- Conservative Party
- Green Party
- Independent
County councils
Cambridgeshire
Derbyshire
Devon
Gloucestershire
Hertfordshire
Kent
Lancashire
Leicestershire
Lincolnshire
Nottinghamshire
Oxfordshire
Staffordshire
Warwickshire
Worcestershire
Unitary authorities
Buckinghamshire
Cornwall
County Durham
North Northamptonshire
Northumberland
Shropshire
West Northamptonshire
Wiltshire
Metropolitan boroughs
Doncaster
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Analysis
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The elections saw Reform UK win the most seats and take control of a number of local authorities.[12] The governing Labour Party and opposition Conservative Party suffered historic losses.[13] There were major gains for the Liberal Democrats, who took overall (majority) control in Cambridgeshire, Shropshire and Oxfordshire as well as gaining numerous seats elsewhere.[14] At 30%, Reform's projected national vote share was higher than UKIP's 23% at the 2013 local elections, representing the first set of local elections since PNS began to be calculated where neither the Conservative nor Labour parties received the highest vote share.[50]
The result of the 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election, which took place on the same day, has been categorised as a stunning victory for Reform UK,[51] as well as a major blow to Starmer, with many Labour MPs singling out the cuts to winter fuel payments as a significant factor in the party's defeat. Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell argued that recent government cuts had made voters feel that the party had turned its back on them. Richard Burgon, Labour MP for Leeds East, called the result "entirely avoidable".[52] Starmer acknowledged that the result was disappointing but defended his government's decisions.[53] Farage described the result as a "very big moment" for his party. He also attributed Labour's defeat to a loss of confidence in Starmer's governance, especially voter frustration on immigration.[54]
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Opinion polls
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Voting intention
Seat projections
Lord Haywood, a Conservative peer and political pollster, predicted that the Conservative Party could lose between 475 and 525 councillors in the local elections.[62] He also suggested that the results would not be particularly positive for the Labour Party, forecasting little change in its overall number of councillors.[62] Haywood projected that Reform UK could gain between 400 and 450 seats. He further indicated that Labour could be at risk of losing control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK and might lose nearly all of its seats on either Oxfordshire or Cambridgeshire councils.[62]
On the day of the election, prior to the close of polls, the New Statesman published a forecast from Britain Elects[63] showing an expected result of the Conservatives on 483 seats, Labour on 334, the Liberal Democrats on 314, Reform on 311, Green on 56, and the remaining 109 for other parties.
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See also
- 2025 Runcorn and Helsby by-election (1 May)
- 2025 Manx local elections (24 April)
Notes
- Davey served as Acting Leader from 13 December 2019 to 27 August 2020 alongside the Party Presidents Baroness Brinton and Mark Pack, following Jo Swinson's election defeat in the 2019 general election. Davey was elected Leader in August 2020.[1]
- Reform UK and the Green Party were counted as 'others' in former local election Projected National Shares.
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References
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