Local Elections 2025: The Poll Where Voters Roll the Dice
Sky News has reported that this week’s set of elections across England will be a series of firsts: it will be the first big ballot box test of Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership and Kemi Badenoch’s leadership of the Conservative Party.
According to Sky News, over 1,600 council seats, six mayoralties and the Labour-held seat of Runcorn and Helsby are up for grabs after a by-election was triggered by the Labour MP Mike Amesbury punching a constituent on a night out.
The elections will be a test of nerves for a Labour Party that will be loathed to lose a seat in the northwest of England to a surging Reform Party. Sir Keir is bracing for an early verdict on his leadership, with the Runcorn by-election a significant indicator of his party’s performance.
For the Conservatives, the pressure is obvious and acute. Of the 23 councils up for grabs, 16 are currently controlled by the Conservative Party and when they last fought these seats in 2021, the Conservatives were riding high on the back of a then popular Boris Johnson and COVID vaccine bounce.
However, their support has collapsed since then, with current polling putting the Conservatives on 22% – an 18-point drop in vote share – while Reform, lumped in with ‘other parties’ in 2021, is now polling an average 25%. The Conservatives have majorities in 18 of the 23 councils up for grabs, and could even see the Lib Dems overtake them to become the second-biggest party in local government when it comes to council control.
As Sky News reports, the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch faces a challenging situation, with little for her party to cling on to in this set of elections. The party is expected to lose control of councils and hundreds of seats as it haemorrhages support to Reform.
The Liberal Democrats are also a significant force in these elections, and could potentially overtake the Conservatives as the second-biggest party in local government. The party’s success will depend on its ability to capitalize on the Conservative Party’s weakness and appeal to voters who are disillusioned with the current government.
Labour is also facing significant challenges, with the party preparing for a lacklustre night at the ballot box, reflecting its steady drop in the polls following the autumn budget. Support for Sir Keir’s government dipped below 30% last November and has continued on that trajectory, with Labour currently polling on average around 23%.
The party is preparing to intensify attacks against Reform, using remarks made by Nigel Farage around re-examining the NHS’s funding model to launch a series of attack ads around the local elections. However, Labour insiders know how bad the Reform surge is for their own prospects, with the party coming in second to Labour in 89 constituencies in the 2024 General Election.
According to a focus group of voters in Doncaster, conducted by More in Common, the disillusionment with politics and the main political parties is a common refrain all around the country. The group’s respondents honed in on very common top-three concerns across the country – cost of living, the NHS, immigration – but also the sense of mistrust in politicians of all hues.
The focus group reflected a sentiment that the UK public moves in a bit of a doom loop at the moment and we can’t seem to find a way out of it. This is helping Mr Farage’s Reform as voters, turned off by the Tories and disappointed in Labour, look to hit the change button again.
As Sky News notes, expectations for Reform are high, with some pollsters predicting the party could make hundreds of gains in traditionally Conservative counties and have a chance of perhaps even gaining control of Labour-held Doncaster council or Durham, where Labour is the largest party.
The local elections will be a moment to test whether the Reform momentum in the polls translates into real progress on the ground and sees it become a major electoral force capable of challenging the two main parties across the country. In the general election, the party clocked up votes, but didn’t manage to concentrate that support into concrete wins. Can Reform change that in 2025?
The set of local elections is far smaller than normal when it comes to the number of councils being contested than normal, while the 11 million eligible to vote in England are just a quarter of those who could cast a vote across the UK in last year’s general election.
However, these polls are seriously consequential. This will be a moment when we are able to better observe if the two-party system, battered in the 2024 General Election, really is dying. Last July, third parties secured more votes than ever and a record tally of seats as support for the two establishment parties hit a record low.
As Sky News has reported, voters keep saying they want real change. On 1 May, we’ll get a better sense of how serious they are in a set of elections that could point to a profoundly different future for British politics.
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